{"id":6310,"date":"2014-07-16T16:26:37","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T16:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=6310"},"modified":"2014-07-16T16:27:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T16:27:18","slug":"englands-dark-secret-gchq-internet-platform-practices-dark-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=6310","title":{"rendered":"England’s Dark Secret: GCHQ Internet Platform Practices Dark Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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GCHQ’s dark arts: Leaked documents reveal online manipulation, Facebook, YouTube snooping<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Charlie Osborne<\/p>\n

GCHQ has developed a toolkit of software programs used to manipulate online traffic, infiltrate users’ computers and spread select messages across social media sites including Facebook and YouTube.<\/p>\n

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The UK spy agency’s dark arts were revealed in documents first\u00a0published by The Intercept<\/a>, and each piece of software is described in a wiki document written up by GCHQ’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG). The document, which reads like a software inventory, calls the tools part of the agency’s “weaponised capability.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Some of the most interesting capabilities\u00a0of the tools on the list<\/a>include the ability to seed the web with false information \u2014 such as tweaking the results of online polls \u2014 inflating pageview counts, censoring video content deemed “extremist” and the use of psychological manipulation on targets \u2014 something similar to a research project\u00a0conducted with Facebook’s approval<\/a>, which resulted in heavy criticism and outrage levied at the social media site.<\/p>\n

A number of interesting tools and their short descriptions are below:<\/p>\n