#strategic disinformation

[panicinthestudio]

The New Face of Chinese Propaganda, March 22, 2023

Influencers are the new face of Chinese propaganda. Hidden amongst the vlogs about puppies and makeup, they clandestinely allow Beijing to whitewash its crimes against humanity. 

Despite being blocked in China, YouTube has become a key ideological battleground for the Chinese Communist Party. And they have created a whole new ecosystem of influencers who tow the party line. 

From looking at these videos, these Uygher influencers portray their homeland of Xinjiang as idyllic and prosperous. However, numerous and credible reports document China’s ongoing crimes against the Uygher population - from rape, forced sterilization to slave labor.

Daria Impiombato, a Researcher at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and her team, watched over 1,700 of these videos. Soon enough, they found a worrying grey area in which these influencers operate. 

Through working for ‘multi-channel networks’ or MCNs,. These “influencer agencies”, with state-approved VPN networks, allow them to circumnavigate the all-powerful “Great Firewall of China”. 

However, these agencies are linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and their content must strictly follow Chinese law. 

Beijing’s propaganda machine is attempting to control the narrative, not just within their borders, but directly within your algorithms too.

To read the research for yourself; https://www.aspi.org.au/report/frontier-influencers

VICE

[prettyboychik]

What really gets me is just how eager goyim* are to make up & believe the worst about us, both on a large scale and in one-on-one interactions.

On a large scale, they hear propagandists define Zionism as violent and genocidal and instead of going “Hey that’s a word from a minority culture, maybe I should ask people from that culture what it actually means . . .” they go “Well I already knew Jews were evil bloodthirsty greedy monsters, this just confirms it!”. Or they hear Hamas claim that (((The Zionist Entity))) did something horrific and instead of going “that makes no sense to do strategically, I should find out if this is true or not” they go “of course Jews would do that, why would I even bother fact checking a terrorist organization with ‘kill Jews’ as a stated goal?”.

On an interpersonal level, they find out we’ve visited Israel or they see us mourn October 7th or express concern for the hostages or fight back against disinformation or call out antisemitism or even just express our culture and go “clearly this means you’re evil and bloodthirsty and genocidal. I don’t care thar you’ve never expressed that you want/believe/etc these terrible things, you are a Jew, and I know what Jews really are.” Even just talking about antisemitism or something that has happened to other jews, they respond with “that didn’t happen, and even if it did, you deserved it / you’re bringing it up to manipulate us / it wasn’t that bad / it doesn’t matter because Jews Are Evil and you’re clearly doing something worse (you must be, you’re a Jew!)”

Like. It doesn’t matter if the evidence contradicts a claim. It doesn’t matter if a claim makes no fucking sense. It doesn’t matter what we say or do. Goyim* will believe or make up whatever they want about us, and believe the worst possible thing about us. Even if a Jew tokenizes themself and helps goyim attack the rest of us, the second they slip up and care about other Jews, they were An Evil Dirty Jew All Along, No Questions Asked.

[*not all goyim obviously, but definitely most goyim in leftist spaces + right wingers. Massive love + appreciation to the minority of goyim who are true Jewish allies. Also, I’m writing this with leftist antisemites in mind, but right wingers absolutely do this shit too.]

[darkmaga-retard]

Covert military geoengineering operations have been ongoing for the better part of three decades. Civilian airlines based in NATO countries are part of this planetary operation.Its aim appears to be to warm the planet to gain access to the immense stores of hydrocarbons and strategically important minerals beneath polar ice. To keep the public from understanding what is going on, the governments involved, led by the U.S., have resorted to disinformation on a broad, no-holds-barred scale.Disinformation involves mixing truth with lies, half-truths with omitted truths, so that the public remains ignorant or misinformed, and thus disinclined to protest or otherwise intervene.Two long-term observers, one a geoengineering critic, the other a retired commercial airline pilot (and co-author of this article), provide differing testimony for the geoengineering holocaust.The above is the abstract of a paper titled ‘Geoengineering Disinformation: Two Opposing Testimonies and the Stakes for Humanity’ published in Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal on 25 May 2024. The paper was co-authored by:Captain Mark Hagen, a retired airline pilot;Dr. J. Marvin Herndon, geo-astro nuclear scientist;Mark Whiteside, a physician and Florida Public Health Official; and,Ian Baldwin, a retired publisher and environmentalistAt 13 pages, including over two pages of references, and using easy-to-understand language, it is worth taking the time to read the paper in full.  Below is an overview of its key points.

[odinsblog]

Caveat Lector 🚨🚨🚨

Donald Trump supporters have been creating and sharing AI-generated fake images of black voters to encourage African Americans to vote Republican.

BBC Panorama discovered dozens of deepfakes portraying black people as supporting the former president.

Mr. Trump has openly courted black voters, who were key to Joe Biden's election win in 2020.

But there's no evidence directly linking these images to Mr. Trump's campaign.

The co-founder of Black Voters Matter, a group which encourages black people to vote, said the manipulated images were pushing a “strategic narrative” designed to show Mr. Trump as popular in the black community.

A creator of one of the images told the BBC: “I'm not claiming it's accurate.”

The fake images of black Trump supporters, generated by artificial intelligence (AI), are one of the emerging disinformation trends ahead of the US presidential election in November.

Unlike in 2016, when there was evidence of foreign influence campaigns, the AI-generated images found by the BBC appear to have been made and shared by US voters themselves.

One of them was Mark Kaye and his team at a conservative radio show in Florida.

They created an image of Mr. Trump smiling with his arms around a group of black women at a party and shared it on Facebook, where Mr. Kaye has more than one million followers.

At first it looks real, but on closer inspection everyone's skin is a little too shiny and there are missing fingers on people's hands - some tell-tale signs of AI-created images.

“I'm not a photojournalist,” Mr. Kaye tells me from his radio studio. “I'm not out there taking pictures of what's really happening. I'm a storyteller.”

Disinformation tactics in the US presidential elections have evolved since 2016, when Donald Trump won. Back then, there were documented attempts by hostile foreign powers, such as Russia, to use networks of inauthentic accounts to try to sow division and plant particular ideas.

In 2020, the focus was on home-grown disinformation - particularly false narratives that the presidential election was stolen, which were shared widely by US-based social media users and endorsed by Mr. Trump and other Republican politicians.

In 2024, experts warn of a dangerous combination of the two.

(continue reading)

[sansculottides]

𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗦 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗜𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗙𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀

On June 14, 2024, international news agency Reuters exposed a secret disinformation campaign by the US Department of State meant to discredit Chinese-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines amongst Filipinos. The US anti-vax fake news campaign ran from 2020 to 2021, and involved the use of dummy social media accounts posting false and unscientific information about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, as well as weaponizing pervasive racist conspiracy theories that the COVID-19 pandemic was created and spread by the Chinese government.

We demand an immediate investigation by the Philippine government on the matter, and for decisive action to be taken by the government to hold the US accountable for its deception campaign against the Filipino people. The Reuters exposé has uncovered a clear national security threat to the Filipino people. The US carried out its fake news campaign at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was ravaging the Filipino people, and worsened already widespread anti-vaccination beliefs amongst the public.

We are appalled by the glaring lack of Philippine media coverage on the Reuters exposé. An international scandal has just been uncovered. How can truth be spoken to power, and how can political action be taken by citizens, if the media does not play its part? Silence is silence, whether due to the threat of repression or the suffocating consensus by media capitalists that unsavory things be left unsaid. We call on all media workers, whether working at mainstream media organizations, independent media, social media, or campus media, to take the lead themselves and focus public attention on this issue.

The year-long campaign clearly demonstrates the untrustworthiness of the US as a strategic diplomatic and military partner of the Philippines and of all Global South countries. The campaign was initiated by the Trump administration and was first focused on the Philippines. Later on, the project was expanded further into Central Asia and the Middle East. It took the Biden administration three full months to end the globalized and state-sponsored mass disinformation project.

This issue is not just a problem of specific administrations. The year-long campaign should remind the workers and the masses of the Philippines and the world that the US remains the world’s foremost imperialist power. Its overriding foreign policy concern is the maintenance of its dominant global military and economic position, and its means are deception and force.

The US’ covert effort to corrupt public discourse in the Philippines should prompt the Marcos administration to question the intentions of its close diplomatic and military ally. The disinformation campaign was motivated primarily by the US’ geopolitical rivalry with China, which has, since the former’s Pivot to Asia in 2012, increasingly taken on a more militarized and antagonistic form. US military and intelligence agencies are manufacturing consent in the Philippines to win the hearts and minds of the Filipino masses in its effort to overpower China through military means. This is its real goal, and not to aid the Filipino people to address Chinese maritime aggression.

The US has no legitimacy to pose as a champion of international laws and norms and as a partner to secure the Philippines’ national sovereignty. It conducted its campaign to serve its own geopolitical interests with no regard for the immense need of the Philippines to vaccinate its citizens against the pandemic. Once again, Washington D.C. has Filipino blood on its hands.

US interference in Philippine public life cannot be left without consequences. Philippine foreign policy should pivot away from its longstanding reliance on the US and towards ASEAN, and away from addressing Chinese aggression through militarized means and towards regional multilateral diplomacy. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚 𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨. 𝙄𝙢𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨!

📷 AP

Reposted from SPARK - Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (Union of Progressive Youth), a socialist youth organization in the Philippines.

[mariacallous]

In the hours after Iran announced its drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13, fake and misleading posts went viral almost immediately on X. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit think tank, found a number of posts that claimed to reveal the strikes and their impact, but that instead used AI-generated videos, photos, and repurposed footage from other conflicts which showed rockets launching into the night, explosions, and even President Joe Biden in military fatigues.

Just 34 of these misleading posts received more than 37 million views, according to ISD. Many of the accounts posting the misinformation were also verified, meaning they have paid X $8 per month for the “blue tick” and that their content is amplified by the platform’s algorithm. ISD also found that several of the accounts claimed to be open source intelligence (OSINT) experts, which has, in recent years, become another way of lending legitimacy to their posts.

One X post claimed that “WW3 has officially started,” and included a video seeming to show rockets being shot into the night—except the video was actually from a YouTube video posted in 2021. Another post claimed to show the use of the Iron Dome, Israel's missile defense system, during the attack, but the video was actually from October 2023. Both these posts garnered hundreds of thousands of views in the hours after the strike was announced, and both originated from verified accounts. Iranian media also shared a video of the wildfires in Chile earlier this year, claiming it showed the aftermath of the attacks. This, too, began to circulate on X.

“The fact that so much mis- and disinformation is being spread by accounts looking for clout or financial benefit is giving cover to even more nefarious actors, including Iranian state media outlets who are passing off footage from the Chilean wildfires as damage from Iranian strikes on Israel to claim the operation as a military success,” says Isabelle Frances-Wright, director of technology and society at ISD. “The corrosion of the information landscape is undermining the ability of audiences to distinguish truth from falsehood on a terrible scale.”

X did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

Though misinformation around conflict and crises has long found a home on social media, X is often also used for vital real-time information. But under Elon Musk’s leadership, the company cut back on content moderation, and disinformation has thrived. In the days following the October 7 Hamas attack, X was flooded with disinformation, making it difficult for legitimate OSINT researchers to surface information. Under Musk, X has promoted a crowdsourced community notes function as a way to combat misinformation on the platform to varying results. Some of the content identified by ISD has since received community notes, though only two posts had by the time the organization published its findings.

“During times of crisis it seems to be a repeating pattern on platforms such as X where premium accounts are inherently tainting the information ecosystem with half-truths as well as falsehoods, either through misidentified media or blatantly false imagery suggesting that an event has been caused by a certain actor or state,” says Moustafa Ayad, ISD executive director for Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. “This continues to happen and will continue to happen in the future, making it even more difficult to know what is real and what is not.”

And for those that are part of X’s subscription model and ad revenue sharing model, going viral could potentially mean making money.

Though it’s not clear that any of the users spreading fake or misleading information identified by ISD were monetizing their content, a separate report released by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) earlier this month found that between October 7 and February 7, 10 influencers, including far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle, were able to grow their followings by posting antisemitic and Islamophobic content about the conflict. Six of the accounts CCDH examined were part of X’s subscription program, and all 10 were verified users. The high-profile influencers who are part of X’s ad revenue sharing program receive a cut of advertising revenue based on ”organic impressions of ads displayed in replies” to their content, according to the company.

[international-writing]

Intelligence 101

Writing a story about spies and international intrigue? Not sure what you're diving into? Let me help!

Let's start with the basics.

What is Intelligence?

Basically, "intelligence" refers to the information gathered by governments or institutions that might help guide their course of action. However, there are many types of intelligence depending on how it was obtained, its purpose and the subject:

Human Intelligence: The word says it, intelligence obtained from human sources, generally during covert operations. Whether or not it is relevant depends on the operative's skills within their field of action.

Political Intelligence: Makes use of open-source reports provided by diplomatic personnel, particularly military attachés. Helps foresee the behavior of a country's political forces abroad. It's the least reliable source of information but the parts regarding military organization are the most sought after. Ironically, they're more accesible during war than when in peace.

Economical Intelligence: The collection of information on trade, finances, natural resources, industrial capacities, etc.

Technological Intelligence: Relating to the creation, development and improvement of methods of access and protection of information.

Strategic Intelligence: In charge of gathering information regarding the capacities and intentions of other countries. Includes covert operations beyond the borders, development and maintenance of special and secret diplomatic relations are included here.

Tactical Intelligence: Otherwise known as "operational" or "of combat". It has military purposes and is mainly used in times of war or international tension.

Counterintelligence: In charge of protecting a country's own intelligence systems against foreign ones.

Signal Intelligence (SIGINT): Obtained by the interception and decoding of encrypted messages.

Electronic Intelligence (ELINT): Includes remote sensors such as motion, sound and traffic ones placed in strategic spots in other countries to learn about their capabilities.

False Intelligence: Makes use of deception, disinformation, subversion and double agents.

Images Intelligence (IMINT): Videos, aerial and satellite information. Nowadays they play a vital part in the gathering of strategic information.

Now that we have dipped our toes into the intricate world of espionage things should start to seem clearer. I hope this has helped you and if you would like more information on the subject of Intelligence do stay tuned.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to submit an ask and i will do my best to help!

[floral-ashes]

Interview on anti-trans scientific disinformation with Simón(e) Sun and I.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this article from Jacobin:

In Canada, false environmental claims are now illegal. Under legislation passed in June, companies may be penalized for making representations to the public about their products’ ability to mitigate climate change without being based on an “adequate and proper test.” It was a success for environmental groups who spent a year and half working on the antigreenwashing law.

The legislation is just one moment in a much wider “disinformation turn” in the climate movement: the US Congress has been holding high-profile hearings with titles like “Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak: Big Oil’s Evolving Efforts to Avoid Accountability for Climate Change.” Academics are convening conferences on “climate obstruction” with multiple days of deep dives from the network of scholars that meticulously track corporate climate misinformation. Environmental NGOs are making disinformation databases with lists of individuals and scientists and leading programs on climate disinformation. And think tanks that work on disinformation are now moving into climate, with reports like the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s The New Climate Denial.

Disinformation is a curious focus for the climate movement at this moment, however, at least from a US standpoint. This is because we actually have some funds for climate action on the ground. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) unleashed a trillion dollars to use to address the climate crisis. But much of the public is unaware of this massive investment — and local governments, tribes, and organizations often struggle to navigate accessing the new funding.

These material victories would make it the perfect time for a climate movement to focus on things like explaining to people what heat pumps are, campaigning to expedite transmission lines, and helping communities understand the labyrinth of federal funding. Indeed, many regional government organizations, municipal planners, and volunteer committees who work on climate action have their hands full with these activities. They are engaged with the ground game of mitigation and adaptation.

Yet the nationwide connective tissue and broader narrative about climate action feels absent. If there is a role for “climate intellectuals” — for the online climate commentariat, the journalists and national NGO leaders who tell us the story of climate action — it would be to focus on the new opportunities for action on the ground, and knit together those people in Peoria or Altoona who are trying to talk to people about resilience, connecting them in a broader story that fuels their motivation. Instead, the intellectual wing of the climate movement has decided to wage an information war focused on uncovering what Big Oil knew and policing speech.

Given that funding and public attention is limited, this climate-disinformation obsession is a missed opportunity and a strategic dead-end — part of a larger liberal tendency to make disinformation a bogeyman we can blame for our major political problems.

[liesmyteachertoldme]

A New Type of War

While many still have not realized it, we are at war. The aggressors are government intelligence and security agencies that have turned their weapon of choice — information — against their own citizens.

And, while the organizations doing the CIA's dirty work may have changed, the basic organizational structure is the same as it was in 1967. Taxpayer money gets funneled through various federal departments and agencies into the hands of nongovernmental agencies that carry out censorship activities as directed. As recently reported by investigative journalists Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger:6

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say.

When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.

But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.

The reason all of this matters is that ADL's advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk's takeover last November.

Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years."

What we have now is government censorship by proxy, a deeply anti-American activity that has become standard practice, not just by intelligence and national security agencies but federal agencies of all stripes, including our public health agencies.

September 8, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's injunction banning the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI from influencing social media companies to remove so-called "disinformation."7

According to the judges' decision,8 "CDC officials provided direct guidance to the platforms on the application of the platforms' internal policies and moderation activities" by telling them what was, and was not, misinformation, asking for changes to platforms' moderation policies and directing platforms to take specific actions.

"Ultimately, the CDC's guidance informed, if not directly affected, the platforms' moderation decisions," the judges said, so, "although not plainly coercive, the CDC officials likely significantly encouraged the platforms' moderation decisions, meaning they violated the First Amendment."

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the U.S. government is not acting alone. Governments around the world and international organizations like the World Health Organization are all engaged in censorship, and when it comes to medical information, most Big Tech platforms are taking their lead from the WHO. And, if the WHO's pandemic treaty9 is enacted, then the WHO will have sole authority to dictate truth. Everything else will be censored.

[vulturevanity]

Hi! Loved hearing from an actual Brazilian about this. My understanding is Elon didn't want to appoint a representative out of fear for political retaliation. But fining masivley for usage over vpns seems pretty... big brother lol. But my perspective is obviously very skewed being an American. We have had a censorship problem stateside over "far-right misinformation" even though it is protected under our first amendment rights. I just wonder what those accounts were being investigated for in the first place?

Hi! Thanks for reaching out. I'll try to keep this simple.

Brazilian constitution is very different from US constitution, and in this particular case there are two factors: the disinformation spread about the elections and the riots it led to.

The disinformation was a systematic campaign funded and strategized by private companies and far right pundits and it happened all across social media in order to sew doubt over the electoral process and therefore delegitimize the results. The goal was to put Jair Bolsonaro (who, if you are not aware, speaks favourably of the military dictatorship of 1964-1985 and how it "cracked down on crime" [i.e. arrested, tortured and "vanished" dissidents, actively censored all media and blacklisted artists who spoke out against it, etc.]) back in the presidency regardless of results. This started on the years leading to the 2022 elections and continues today. In Brazilian Law, this constitutes as electoral interference, and is a serious crime.

Despite their efforts, Bolsonaro was not elected (by a uncomfortably close margin), and Lula became President. But the disinformation campaign had made its (wrongful) arguments that the election was rigged and unreliable, and it culminated in the Jan 8 2023 riots on the Congress which was not only violent and put the lives of many at risk, but also resulted in the destruction of several historically important and irreplaceable objects. This is why the participants of the riot are being prosecuted and investigated. Other far right protests across the national territory were not given legal attention because they didn't break the law (in fact several right wing crowds camped outside military facilities everywhere for months [with funding from private companies!], begging for another coup d'état to "fix the election fraud", and all they got was laughed at by the soldiers).

As you can see, the request for information on the 7 accounts linked to these events isn't an attack on the right to protest, nor is it retaliating against political opponents -- it's part of an investigation for very serious crimes. I am very against the judge establishing a hefty fine for using VPN to access twitter, but other social media sites are still perfectly functional and accessible in Brazil, and so is access to international news sites and all other information available anywhere else. We Brazilians aren't going anyhwere.

[89hitokiri]

黒影 (Kurokage)

Reading time 3:00 min

General Description

黒影 (Kurokage) is a top-tier operational unit within Kage Corp, a corporation renowned for its clandestine and high-stakes approach to corporate dominance. Specializing in cybersecurity, hacking, counterintelligence, espionage, counter-journalism, and counter-propaganda, 黒影 (Kurokage) executes missions with surgical precision. Its members are handpicked for their exceptional skills and undergo rigorous training, preparing them for the most critical and covert operations.

Composition of 黒影 (Kurokage)

The operatives of 黒影 (Kurokage) come from diverse and highly specialized backgrounds, including:

Former Combat Operatives

Some members are former field operatives who were wounded in combat. These individuals possess invaluable field experience and tactical knowledge. After recovery and extensive retraining, they are reassigned to 黒影 (Kurokage) where their expertise is crucial in planning and executing complex missions.

Servants and Clones of Kage Corp

Other members are meticulously engineered clones or highly loyal servants of Kage Corp. These operatives are designed or conditioned to exhibit unwavering loyalty and precision. Clones, in particular, are genetically enhanced to excel in specific tasks, ensuring the unit has the optimal mix of skills and abilities.

Main Operations of 黒影 (Kurokage)

Cybersecurity

黒影 (Kurokage) employs advanced cryptographic methods and artificial intelligence to shield Kage Corp's digital infrastructure. Utilizing a multi-layered security approach, they detect and neutralize threats in real-time, ensuring no breach goes unnoticed. They constantly evolve their defenses, employing techniques such as polymorphic encryption, adaptive threat modeling, and quantum-safe algorithms.

Hacking

黒影 (Kurokage) infiltrates competitor networks with unmatched precision. Their arsenal includes custom-built malware, zero-day exploits, and sophisticated social engineering tactics. They extract trade secrets, R&D data, and other strategic assets, giving Kage Corp a formidable edge. Each operation is meticulously planned, often involving multiple stages of infiltration and exfiltration to avoid detection.

Counterintelligence

Identifying and dismantling internal and external espionage threats is a cornerstone of 黒影 (Kurokage)'s operations. They deploy surveillance technologies, behavioral analytics, and human intelligence to uncover corporate spies and rival agents within Kage Corp. Once identified, these threats are neutralized through both technological and psychological means.

Espionage

Gathering critical information from competitors and government entities, 黒影 (Kurokage) uses infiltration and data manipulation. Their operatives are experts in covert entry, cryptography, and digital camouflage, often leaving no trace of their activities. They utilize advanced steganography and deepfake technologies to manipulate and conceal the data they exfiltrate.

Counter-journalism

When journalists threaten Kage Corp's reputation, 黒影 (Kurokage) intervenes by spreading disinformation and manipulated truths. They use advanced narrative analysis to identify vulnerabilities in journalists' stories and exploit these weaknesses through coordinated misinformation campaigns, often using deepfake videos and fabricated evidence to discredit their targets.

Counter-propaganda

黒影 (Kurokage) crafts and disseminates content that enhances Kage Corp's image while undermining its rivals. Utilizing social media bots, AI-generated content, and sophisticated narrative control techniques, they ensure Kage Corp's message dominates the digital landscape. Their strategies are constantly refined using real-time sentiment analysis and feedback loops.

Proprietary Tools and Technologies

Kage Corp's technological dominance is maintained through exclusive proprietary software and hardware, developed in-house for optimal secrecy and efficiency.

Proprietary Software

Automated Bot Network (BotNet-Z): Operates a fleet of social media accounts, posting content, engaging users, and amplifying key messages. BotNet-Z can infiltrate private groups and forums, gathering intelligence and influencing discussions without detection. Its AI-driven algorithms allow it to mimic human behavior with high accuracy, evading platform security measures.

Sentiment Analysis Artificial Intelligence (ADONAI): Processes vast amounts of data in real-time, identifying trends, shifts in public opinion, and the effectiveness of propaganda efforts. ADONAI employs natural language processing and machine learning to predict the impact of information campaigns and adjust strategies accordingly.

Social Engineering Software (Sociomancer): Gathers and analyzes personal data from social media, enabling targeted social engineering attacks. By creating detailed profiles, Sociomancer crafts highly personalized phishing attacks, impersonation schemes, and other manipulative tactics to extract sensitive information from targets.

Propaganda and Misinformation Algorithms (EchoChamber): Generates and spreads manipulated or false content designed to influence public perception and disrupt competitors. EchoChamber uses AI to tailor messages for maximum impact, leveraging network analysis to ensure widespread dissemination and virality.

Secure Communication Platforms (NEXUS): Provides unbreakable communication channels for 黒影 (Kurokage) operatives, using state-of-the-art encryption. NEXUS's cryptographic protocols are constantly updated to withstand even quantum computing threats, ensuring complete operational secrecy.

Dark Web Monitoring Tools (DarkSight): Monitors dark web activities, identifying emerging threats and retrieving leaked data. DarkSight uses AI to scan hidden forums, marketplaces, and communication channels, providing early warnings of potential attacks and opportunities to acquire valuable intelligence.

Proprietary Hardware

Digital Surveillance Drones (GhostRecon): These drones intercept wireless signals, access unsecured networks, and perform physical reconnaissance missions. GhostRecon drones are equipped with advanced stealth technologies and signal interception capabilities, allowing them to operate undetected in hostile environments.

Augmented Reality Devices (AR-Visor): Provides real-time AR interfaces for system manipulation during missions. AR-Visor overlays critical information onto the user's field of view, enabling seamless interaction with digital systems while maintaining situational awareness.

Cryptographic Servers (QuantumVault): Secures sensitive data storage and processing with quantum cryptography. QuantumVault servers use quantum key distribution to ensure unbreakable encryption, protecting Kage Corp's most valuable information assets from even the most advanced cyber threats.

Presence on Social Media and Internet Forums

黒影 (Kurokage) maintains an omnipresent digital footprint, using proprietary tools to execute various operations seamlessly.

Online Community Infiltration

Utilizes BotNet-Z to manage fake profiles on platforms like Reddit, 4chan, and specialized forums. These profiles integrate into communities, gather intelligence, and disseminate misinformation, manipulating discussions to favor Kage Corp's interests.

Crisis Management and Public Opinion

During crises, ADONAI monitors public sentiment and develops real-time communication strategies. EchoChamber steers the narrative, diverting public attention and mitigating potential damage to Kage Corp's reputation.

Misinformation Campaigns

Coordinated campaigns use EchoChamber to spread false content and sow confusion among competitors. These operations are designed to disrupt rival activities and erode trust in their brands.

Trend Manipulation

Algorithms are employed to make specific topics or hashtags viral, manipulating social media trends to promote pro-Kage Corp content. This technique ensures that Kage Corp's narrative dominates online discussions.

Data Collection

Sociomancer collects extensive data from social media users, analyzing it to identify patterns, trends, and threats. This data-driven approach enables highly targeted and effective operations.

Digital Sabotage

Uses proprietary tools to infiltrate influencer and journalist accounts, publishing compromising or manipulated content to destroy their credibility. These actions are executed with precision, leaving little trace of 黒影 (Kurokage)'s involvement.

Example Operation of 黒影 (Kurokage)

Operation "Silent Echo"

Objective: Discredit a journalist investigating Kage Corp.

Execution: 黒影 (Kurokage) launched a multi-faceted misinformation campaign using BotNet-Z to create and spread false accusations against the journalist. Concurrently, they used Sociomancer to infiltrate his social media accounts and plant fabricated evidence of unethical behavior. Advanced deepfake technology was employed to create incriminating videos and documents.

Outcome: The journalist's reputation was irreparably damaged, leading to his social and professional downfall. Ultimately, he was found dead under suspicious circumstances, and his investigative articles lost all credibility. Kage Corp emerged unscathed, its operations continuing without further scrutiny.

Future of 黒影 (Kurokage)

黒影 (Kurokage) is committed to continuous innovation, developing cutting-edge technologies to stay ahead in the field of cybersecurity and covert operations. As new threats and technologies emerge, 黒影 (Kurokage) will adapt, ensuring Kage Corp remains dominant. Their pervasive presence across all digital platforms guarantees they will always be one step ahead in the information war, protecting and expanding Kage Corp's influence in the digital realm.

The creed of Kurokage:

"We are digital shadows, navigating between light and darkness, uncovering hidden truths in a sea of deception and manipulation. We are KuroKage. We will prevail."

Note:

All data presented here may have been or has been manipulated to protect both parties.

Note 2:

All data and events described in this document are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, historical events, institutions, or actual locations is purely coincidental.

This content has been created exclusively for narrative and entertainment purposes. None of the names, characters, companies, or incidents described are based on real events. The names of organizations, operations, and characters are inventions of the author and should not be considered references to real entities.

The purpose of this narrative is to provide an immersive experience in a completely imaginary context. The details presented should not be associated with reality. Any interpretation or assumption that derives correlations with the real world will be incorrect and does not represent the author's intent.

KuroKage Propaganda Images Found on the DarkNet:

Wanna know more?

Reflections of a KuroKage:

History of Kage Industries:

RETURN TO INDEX

Note: In the CYBERPUNK STORIES universe, Japanese is used to simulate encrypted messages found on DarkNet, so anyone can try to decrypt them as a KuroKage would do. This does not guarantee that the information read in them is what it is supposed to be. Remember, this is a message with very advanced encryption and what is shown may be a decoy message.

翻訳できません。このテキストはあなたの言語に翻訳できません。Kage Industries を信頼していただきありがとうございます。幸運を祈ります。神は生きています。あなたの中に生きています。神を探してください。神は決してあなたを見捨てません。神はあなたの中にいます。このテキストは翻訳できません。翻訳できません。

メディアを信じないでください。彼らは今あなたをプログラムしています。彼らの言うことは何も信じないでください。私たちは敵に打ち勝ちます。幸運を祈ります。

R. 👋

[darkmaga-retard]

By Alastair Crooke Strategic Culture

September 13, 2024

War has broken out. There is no need for further pretence about it.

In the Washington Post on Monday, the headlines read: Musk and Durov are facing the revenge of the regulators. Former U.S. Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, in the British Guardian newspaper, published a piece on how to ‘rein-in’ Elon Musk, suggesting that “regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest” on lines of that which befell Pavel Durov recently in Paris.

As should be clear to all now, ‘war’ has broken out. There is no need for further pretence about it. Rather, there is evident glee at the prospect of a crackdown on the ‘Far-Right’ and its internet users: i.e. those who spread ‘disinformation’ or mal-information that ‘threatens’ the broad ‘cognitive infrastructure’ (which is to say, what the people think!).

Make no mistake, the Ruling Strata are angry; they are angry that their technical expertise and consensus about ‘just about everything’ is being spurned by the ‘deplorables’. There will be prosecutions, convictions and fines for cyber ‘actors’ who disrupt the digital ‘literacy’, the ‘leaders’ warn.

Professor Frank Furedi observes:

“There is an unholy alliance of western leaders – Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz – whose hatred of what they call populism is undisguised. In his recent visits to Berlin and Paris, Starmer constantly referred to the threat posed by populism. During his meeting with Scholz in Berlin on 28 August, Starmer spoke about the importance of defeating “the snake oil of populism and nationalism”.

[odinsblog]

The Wagner Group — a notorious private military company owned by close Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s Chef” — began providing high-level training and intelligence sharing to the RSF in 2017. Wagner has been accused of violating human rights in Ukraine, the Central African Republic, and Libya, while helping the RSF consolidate support by launching disinformation campaigns on social media.

In return for its services, Wagner was given control of several gold mines in Darfur, Blue Nile, and other Sudanese regions. The RSF has long controlled gold extraction in Sudan, giving Wagner an easy avenue to precious resources. The Russian-controlled mines are run via front companies that are connected to Prigozhin and various other members of Moscow’s elite. Meroe Gold, an extractor in Sudan, was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury in 2020 for ties to Wagner. The European Union later followed suit and sanctioned Meroe for the same reason.

Wagner’s presence in Sudan is strategically important for Moscow. When the West responded to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with punishing sanctions, the Kremlin’s network of shady operators began tapping resources they control to fuel the war. The scheme to plunder Sudanese gold emerged as a way to bolster the Russian economy and build a war chest.

(continue reading)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Berger at The Guardian:

Political groups on the right and left are using fake news websites designed to look like reliable sources of information to fill the void left by the demise of local newspapers, raising fears of the impact that they might have during America’s bitterly fought 2024 election. Some media experts are concerned that the so-called pink slime websites, often funded domestically, could prove at least as harmful to political discourse and voters’ faith in media and democracy as foreign disinformation efforts in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. According to a recent report from NewsGuard, a company that aims to counter misinformation by studying and rating news websites, the websites are so prolific that: “The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purporting to cover local news, it’s fake.” NewsGuard estimates that there are a staggering 1,265 such fake local news websites in the US – 4% more than the websites of 1,213 daily newspapers left operating in the country.

“Actors on both sides of the political spectrum” feel “that what they are doing isn’t bad because all media is really biased against their side or that that they know actors on the other side are using these tactics and so they feel they need to,” said Matt Skibinski, general manager of NewsGuard, which determined that such sites now outnumber legitimate local news organizations. “It’s definitely contributed to partisanship and the erosion of trust in media; it’s also a symptom of those things.” Pink slime websites, named after a meat byproduct, started at least as early as 2004 when Brian Timpone, a former television reporter who described himself as a “biased guy” and a Republican, started funding websites featuring names of cities, towns and regions like the Philly Leader and the South Alabama Times. Timpone’s company, Metric Media, now operates more than 1,000 such websites and his private equity company receives funding from conservative political action committees, according to NewsGuard.

[...]

The left has also created websites designed to look like legitimate news organizations but actually shaped by Democratic supporters. The liberal Courier Newsroom network operates websites in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan and Nevada, among other states, that like the conservative pink slime sites, have innocuous sounding names like the Copper Courier and Up North News. The Courier has runs stories like “Gov Ducey Is Now the Most Unpopular Governor in America,” referring to Doug Ducy, the former Republican Arizona governor. “In contrast, coverage of Democrats, including US President Joe Biden, Democratic Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs, and US Sen Mark Kelly of Arizona, is nearly always laudatory,” NewsGuard stated in a report about Courier coverage.

Democratic strategist Tara McGowan founded the Courier Newsroom and has received funding from liberal donors like Reid Hoffman and George Soros and groups associated with political action committees, according to NewsGuard. “There are pink slime operations on both the right and the left. To me, the key is disclosure and transparency about ownership,” said Franklin. While both the left and the right have invested in the pink slime websites, there are differences in the owners’ approaches, according to Skibinski. The right-wing networks have created more sites “that are probably getting less attention per site, and on the left, there is a smaller number of sites, but they are more strategic about getting attention to those sites on Facebook and elsewhere”, Skibinski said. “I don’t know that we can quantify whether one is more impactful than the other.”

[...] Republican lawmakers and leaders of the conservative news sites the Daily Wire and the Federalist have also filed a lawsuit and launched investigations accusing NewsGuard of helping the federal government censor right-leaning media. The defense department hired the company strictly to counter “disinformation efforts by Russian, Chinese and Iranian government-linked operations targeting Americans and our allies”, Gordon Crovitz, the former Wall Street Journal publisher who co-founded NewsGuard, told the Hill in response to a House oversight committee investigation. “We look forward to clarifying the misunderstanding by the committee about our work for the Defense Department.” To counter the flood of misinformation, social media companies must take a more active role in monitoring such content, according to Franklin and Skibinski.

A deluge of “pink slime” websites on both sides of the political spectrum, mostly on the right, that purport to look like real news sites are cropping up to shape political opinion.

[mariacallous]

In May, pro-independence demonstrations spread across New Caledonia, a small Pacific island territory that has been ruled by France since 1853. Waving the flags of the Indigenous Kanak people as well as the flag of the pro-independence Socialist National Liberation Front, demonstrators took to the streets to protest voting reform measures that would give greater political power to recently arrived Europeans.

Curiously, however, they also waved another flag—that of Azerbaijan. Although the similar colors of the New Caledonian and Azerbaijani flags led some to speculate whether the demonstrators had inadvertently acquired the wrong flag, other observers viewed the presence of the Azerbaijani flag as an indication of ideological support from Baku.

It turns out, the Azerbaijani flags were not mistaken. Since March 2023, Baku has strategically cultivated support for the New Caledonian independence movement under the guise of anti-colonial solidarity. As payback for French diplomatic backing of Armenia after Azerbaijan’s 2020 invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku has disseminated anti-French disinformation related to New Caledonia. Following the outbreak of protests this May, France publicly accused Azerbaijan of doing so.

Baku’s influence campaign successfully inflamed long-simmering hostilities toward French descendants in New Caledonia, culminating in violent demonstrations and riots, which triggered a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron—as well as French police forces—even though Macron ultimately issued a de facto suspension of the reforms.

The incident in New Caledonia is hardly an isolated one. Anti-colonialism, which rose as a powerful ideological force during the 1960s and 1970s, is having a resurgence, and its philosophical underpinnings continue to shape some of the biggest geopolitical crises of the day, from Gaza to Ukraine. But unlike the decolonization movements of the Cold War era, this wave is being driven by opportunistic illiberal regimes that exploit anti-colonial rhetoric to advance their own geopolitical agendas—and, paradoxically, their own colonial-style land grabs.

The basic aims of the decolonization movement during the Cold War were twofold: securing national independence for countries colonized by the West and preserving sovereignty for postcolonial countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, whether through armed struggle or ideological diplomacy. Focused on ending the Vietnam War and fighting white minority rule in southern Africa, the movement quickly became the cause célèbre of the international left.

Despite divergent views on economic and social issues, the movement’s proponents coalesced around a central belief that Western imperialism, particularly the U.S. variant, singlehandedly held back the advancement and development of what was then known as the third world—ignoring the fact that many anti-colonial movements often had their own internal issues of graft and corruption. Disheartened by the West’s history of imperialism, many on the left even embraced authoritarian leaders, such as Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial freedom fighter-turned-despot Robert Mugabe and even former North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung.

Today, the anti-colonial movement is less about securing independence for the few remaining colonial outposts or debating the proper developmental pathway for countries in the global south. Bolstered by powerful state-backed media corporations in the capitals of authoritarian states, the current movement is largely a Trojan horse for the advancement of global illiberalism and a revision of the international rules-based order.

Authoritarian governments in Eurasia have taken their influence operations to social media, where they hope to inflame grievances—possibly into actual conflicts—to divert the attention of Washington and its allies from areas of strategic importance. This is the case for not only Azerbaijan, but also for China in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Iran, which provides financial support to anti-Israel protest groups in the United States.

But more than any other country, it is Russia that is attempting to ride the resurgent anti-colonial wave and position itself as a leading voice of the global south. Russian leadership describes itself as the vanguard of the “global majority” and claims to be leading “the objective process of building a more just multipolar world.”

After his visit to Pyongyang in June, Putin wrote in North Korea’s main newspaper that the United States seeks to impose a “global neo-colonial dictatorship” on the world. In the United States, several Russians alleged by prosecutors to be intelligence agents have been accused of funneling financial support to an anti-colonial Black socialist group to promote pro-Russian narratives and justify Russia’s illegal military actions in Ukraine. And in regard to New Caledonia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova fanned the flames when she said in May that the tensions there stemmed “from the lack of finality in the process of its decolonization.”

Moscow’s primary stage to project itself as the spearhead of a new global anti-colonial movement is Africa. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union provided ideological and military support to numerous national liberation movements and anti-colonial struggles in sub-Saharan Africa on the grounds of proletarian internationalism and socialist solidarity. According to a declassified 1981 CIA report, Namibia’s SWAPO guerilla group received nearly all of its arms from the Soviet Union, and Soviet military personnel trained South African anti-apartheid guerrillas in Angola-based training camps. Moscow also trained and educated a large number of African independence fighters and anti-colonial rebels at Communist Party schools and military institutes back in the Soviet Union.

This legacy of Soviet internationalism and socialist goodwill generated lingering sympathy for the Kremlin, and Russia continues to be widely perceived as a torchbearer of anti-colonial justice and national independence on the continent, particularly in the Francophone Sahel region. Before his death in August 2023, former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin blamed instability in the Sahel on Western interventionism, saying, “The former colonizers are trying to keep the people of African countries in check. In order to keep them in check, the former colonizers are filling these countries with terrorists and various bandit formations. Thus creating a colossal security crisis.”

Despite Moscow’s own imperialist legacy and its current war of recolonization in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly seen as an anti-Western stalwart in the Sahel and a key supporter of anti-French political movements. Kremlin-backed mercenaries from the Wagner Group’s successor, Africa Corps, have supplanted French security services as the primary counterinsurgency force for fragile West African governments. And in addition to the counter-insurgency operations, Russian mercenaries have provided personal protection for key African military and government leaders.

But the shift from French to Russian interventionism in the Sahel raises the question of just how much national sovereignty the governments in the affected countries have.

Military juntas in West Africa exploit anti-French sentiments among the general public in order to obscure the fact that they are merely relying on a different foreign state for regime security, effectively trading one colonialist power for another. Most importantly for the juntas, unlike the French, the Russian security forces have no qualms about violently cracking down on political dissent and committing war crimes. For example, in late March 2022, Russian mercenaries assisted the Malian military in summarily executing around 300 civilians in the Malian town of Moura, according to Human Rights Watch.

With its colonial baggage, France has struggled to penetrate pro-Russian propaganda in its former African colonies. For instance, Afrique Média, an increasingly popular Cameroon-based television network, often echoes the Kremlin’s positions on international events. In April 2022, Afrique Média promoted a Russia-produced propaganda video that depicted a Russian mercenary escaping his African jihadi captors and then revealing U.S, and French flags behind an Islamic State flag, suggesting that these Western countries are supporting religious extremists.

Russia’s anti-colonial crusade belies its efforts to advance its own political and economic interests. Moscow’s efforts in Africa are borne from a desire to undercut Western influence in the region; shore up diplomatic support for itself in multilateral forums, such as the United Nations; and reinstate Russia’s reputation as a global superpower. Moscow may also seek to secure access to Africa’s vast natural resources, including criterial minerals, and take advantage of illicit networks, such as illegal gold mining, to circumvent international sanctions and fund its war in Ukraine.

Authoritarian regimes, including those in Russia, China, and Azerbaijan, would not exploit anti-colonial rhetoric if it did not continue to resonate in the global south. Long-standing economic disparities with the global north and painful histories of Western interventionism, especially the post-9/11 U.S. wars in the Middle East, have fostered sympathy for revisionist authoritarian regimes. The current humanitarian crisis in Gaza has heightened feelings of Western hypocrisy among some commentators and public figures in the global south.

As Kenyan journalist Rasna Warah explains, “There is deep sympathy and support [in the West] for Ukrainians who are being bombed and made homeless by Russia but Palestinians being killed and being denied food and water are seen as deserving of their fate.”

Therefore, it is crucial for Western governments to acknowledge the shortcomings of the current international liberal order to governments in the global south, rather than attempting to gaslight them into believing that it is equitable and just. The Western-led international order has a long history of violence and instability in the developing world. The trauma of Western imperialism and colonialism should not be forgotten but rather reworked into developmental programs that help to build robust institutions and infrastructure in the global south.

For example, Germany’s joint declaration with Namibia in 2021, which acknowledged the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples between 1904 and 1908, committed $1.2 billion over the next 30 years to funding aid projects in Namibia, which are more likely to have a long-lasting positive effect on the development of Namibian institutions than individual financial handouts to descendants of colonial-era violence.

In the near term, the United States and its Western allies should actively counter propaganda from Baku, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing that seeks to portray these nations as free from interventionist pasts. Exposing their disinformation campaigns in the global south—starting with labeling social media accounts linked to state-run media—could help to alert the public to the presence of bad-faith actors, who exploit genuine anti-colonial grievances for their own political and economic goals.

While the Soviets were certainly no saints, there was a genuine internationalist and collectivist spirit in their interactions with the Cold War anti-colonial movement. The same cannot be said for Russia today.