here is quite a bit of twitterpation about a a certain outreach initiative among the US armed-forces and the trans-national military-industrial complex called
Operation Metal Gear, that is really a novel and new form of owning up to skull-duggery.
This program is designed, ostensibly, to render formerly anonymous posts and social network activity into a form of self-incriminating libel by filling in the connections and transitions of bloggers and social-butterflies. Personnally, I became very suspicious of bookface once the US army embraced it and removed nearly all restrictions on networks for friends, though admittedly it makes it easier for many people to pretend that they are working. The operation's second, though perhaps primary, goal is to raise an army of
sockpuppet (bot or spam) accounts in order to manipulate public opinion.
Tools of propaganda and disinformation could certainly influence the shape of revolts to come and such moles, monitored and imbued with uncanny realism, could tell people what to think, and we have certainly made it a simple matter to pass the
Chinese Room test. Of course the Pyramid Scheme, chain-letter, and cult indoctrination are modes that have become too labour-intensive. Whenever coming across something antiquated and therefore inaccessible--unlike most American public institution, the military is not lousy with obsolete technology, except what it was managed to horde through inaction, I wonder if ne'er-do-wells would even take the time. Perhaps such out-dated formats have become the best hiding place.
