US Military -v- Internal blogging & Access to WWW

[selil]

Three people monitoring full-time is plenty serious - if they know what they're doing, if at least one of them is a native Arabic speaker, and if they are supported with effective monitoring software....

To monitor blogs and forums is going to take eye-balls. Just like you create and bring along a hum-int resource you have to work your way into blogs and forums. I guess it depends on what their actual mission or goals are, but just like the CIA reading news papers it would seem a better bet to spread the task over hundreds of people.

[Jedburgh]

Monitoring blogs bears absolutely no resemblance to any aspect of recruiting and running HUMINT sources. It also does not require the manpower effort of the old FBIS daily translations of hundreds of foreign media sources. Let's not overblow the task.

The key word is monitoring. It doesn't even require reading the entire contents of the blog/journal/forum. Software identifies and highlights new content for you (text, images, video), then all that is required is to gist through to find and follow up on the bits that are of value.

For monitoring and data mining purposes, there is no "working in" required. Even where access requires registration and membership, most of the sites in question do not have levels of restricted access by post count etc. Simply register and you're in. The major difficulty is language - many sites where there is true value to be mined are not in English. And when dealing with the slang and abbreviated terms used in web postings by the indig, success in collection is far more likely when you have a native speaker working for you.

Now, if the idea is to take a step further, along the lines of LE efforts to catch child predators by posing as young'uns in internet chat rooms, then yes, it will take a much larger effort tightly coordinated with other intel elements. That is another discussion entirely....

[goesh]

Three on duty is certainly a good start compared to none but a couple of years ago, a darn good start. I know the Jewish community has some top-notch 'nerds' that are really into and adept at tracking and keeping tabs on any number of radical sites. I wonder if such resources can be tapped as an adjunct? It seems at times as if the military and civilians are cloistered from each other and can only operate in rigid parameters that seem to entail passive flag waving, abject hatred and exploitive contracting on the part of civilians. It shouldn't be that hard to pull in some data bases and other such compilations with non-military sources in this ongoing cyber war. Which ever military element has command status wouldn't have to share with civilian counterparts, simply be recepticles for their data and assessments.

[selil]

Now, if the idea is to take a step further, along the lines of LE efforts to catch child predators by posing as young'uns in internet chat rooms, then yes, it will take a much larger effort tightly coordinated with other intel elements. That is another discussion entirely....

We'll have to agree to disagree then.

From my perspective information warfare occurs on several levels. The political pundits and operational machinery in the last presidential election disseminated information via email to their constituents with daily messages to place in blogs, web forums, to be sent out in emails as a method keeping messages on track.

This last weekend Senator Barak O'bama started an open social network and had thousands of groups set up within hours. His message, his ideas, and the mechanisms for putting that in front of people were well prepared prior to his social network going live. The knowledge, skills and technologies required to promote a particular view point are well developed.

In the last election the machinery prepared by Howard Dean (and then used by John Kerry) utilizing the internet and social software based communities were able to infiltrate and create coordinated messages on everything from hot rod web forums to hunting forums. Realizing the scopes and message directions is not a task for a small group of individuals. Mapping the social network and the ideas being promoted within social networks is not a small task and it does use many of the same social networking mapping techniques that law enforcement has adopted for gang surveillance. The same tools used by anthropologists to map familial and tribal groups in ethnographic studies.

Internal and external (to the United States) adversarial elements are no less coordinated than our own military and law enforcement agencies. To deny the cohesive coordination and technological sophistication of an adversary is a grave error. The scope and content of messages meant to derail or curtail activities (the lever of social will) are well coordinated. Internal debate of topics can be skewed quickly by the rapid movement of a message through the Internet. External sources can use our own technologies to their advantage with little to no cost or personal risk.

The castigating remarks of bloggers irregardless of truth will have traction in the minds of people willing to accept that message. A retraction by the original blogger will have little to no resultant change in message and may be rejected by the readership especially if the military link is exposed. As an example look at the comments by people who see the mere presence of the military as an incursion on freedom of speech in the article and comments section.

From reading the article it looks like the group at CENTCOM simply is looking at refutation of information and providing another view to the blogosphere. This is a Sisyphean task when you consider the number of targeted message organizations already coordinating their story placing their task in the role of stomping out hot spots while ignoring the forest fire.

[Jedburgh]

Selil, please take note of the series of "if's" in my initial response. My second response was a clarification of the nature of the efficacy if my "if's" were met.

As you state, the current CENTCOM structure is not meeting any of that - it is not monitoring - in the intelligence sense of that term - nor does its "mission" seem structured to be anything more than a PR bandaid.

However, if those who plan and decide on such things ever pull their heads out of their fourth points of contact, a small team of professionals will suffice. Once again - a trained intelligence professional, familiar with the types of 'net comms under discussion, will have no problem with effective monitoring - and that ties into the conduct of analysis in support of, and to exploit, that particular mission.

Where a larger group becomes necessary is when the mission has expanded beyond monitoring and simple collection into the construct of false identities that are actively engaged in on-line elicitation - and other activities moving towards the dark side.

[goesh]

Regarding the 'muscle' of a primary blog and its many affiliates and attachments, Obama may have a mighty machine at play but I note he has already developed some serious political baggage with his recent comments about the KIAs in Iraq. One comment in a non-blog environment, transmitted in a non-blog venue and he has taken a serious hit. MSN is already starting to spin that comment. Howard Dean's much vaunted Deaniacs seemed all the rage and an awesome force to be reckoned with until he screamed like a banshee that time in a non-blog venue and it was transmitted in non-blog venues, like the National News and Newspapers and it crippled him. John Dean's campaign just now took a technical hit via Amanda Marcotte resigning. She was the prime blog mover-n'-shaker in his cyber campaign. She got considerable flak and pressure from the people she was attacking in non-blog venues via phone calls and letters and emails. Conversely, look at the PR hit Zaqawri took when he couldn't even handle a machine gun. Rember when some video was recovered showing him fumbling around and his aides burning their hands on the barrel? All it took was a couple of people (Monitors...) who instantly capitalized on it and wham! it spread and he became the laughing stock and his image of being a Saladin was insantly crippled. You bet - his cyber followers got to see al-killer unable to even handle a simple machine gun. Everything starts small and I find it most encouraging that our military is venturing into these uncharted waters.

[sgmgrumpy]

On a little different note, but in the same field, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research is also conducting a study of blogs. It's a collection cell on steroids program in short. I think a few members here may know a little more

Sounds like the CENTCOM purpose is to counter disinformation. They go as far as to even "ask websites to put a link to CENTCOM?"

http://www.defenselink.mil/transform...ta062906b.html

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. Blog research may provide information analysts and warfighters with invaluable help in fighting the war on terrorism.

Dr. Brian E. Ulicny, senior scientist, and Dr. Mieczyslaw M. Kokar, president, Versatile Information Systems Inc., Framingham, Mass., will receive approximately $450,000 in funding for the 3-year project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.”

[selil]

I've done some work with semantic ontologies (few papers, presentations, boring stuff). Basically it sounds like they're looking at a new variation of machine translation. Might be interesting to see what they come up with.

[120mm]

Regarding the 'muscle' of a primary blog and its many affiliates and attachments, Obama may have a mighty machine at play but I note he has already developed some serious political baggage with his recent comments about the KIAs in Iraq. One comment in a non-blog environment, transmitted in a non-blog venue and he has taken a serious hit. MSN is already starting to spin that comment. Howard Dean's much vaunted Deaniacs seemed all the rage and an awesome force to be reckoned with until he screamed like a banshee that time in a non-blog venue and it was transmitted in non-blog venues, like the National News and Newspapers and it crippled him. John Dean's campaign just now took a technical hit via Amanda Marcotte resigning. She was the prime blog mover-n'-shaker in his cyber campaign. She got considerable flak and pressure from the people she was attacking in non-blog venues via phone calls and letters and emails. Conversely, look at the PR hit Zaqawri took when he couldn't even handle a machine gun. Rember when some video was recovered showing him fumbling around and his aides burning their hands on the barrel? All it took was a couple of people (Monitors...) who instantly capitalized on it and wham! it spread and he became the laughing stock and his image of being a Saladin was insantly crippled. You bet - his cyber followers got to see al-killer unable to even handle a simple machine gun. Everything starts small and I find it most encouraging that our military is venturing into these uncharted waters.

It's amazing how quickly, after that video surfaced, that Zarqawi went from being Al Queda's Right hand man and the leader of the true faith to a buffoon that none of the AQ folks had ever seen before, or even heard of.

The distancing was done faster than the speed of light