The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies

---

There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of a 'uncontrolled forum.'

Technique #1 - 'FORUM SLIDING'

If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum - it can be quickly removed from public view by 'forum sliding.' In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to 'age.' Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a 'forum slide.' The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a 'forum slide' and 'flush' the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then 'replying' to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting 'slides' down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items.

---

---

CONCLUSION

Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THEM. Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precidence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them. Many other techniques can be utilized and developed by the individual and as you develop further techniques of infiltration and control it is imperative to share then with HQ.

---

---

On July 23 2012 19:58 sc2terran wrote:
should be a blog no?

---

---

On July 23 2012 20:08 Kazius wrote:

First I think it is important information. As I mentioned, these techniques work on people ignorant of them.
Second, this is a general interest to anyone online.
Third, I did not write this article, and putting it in a blog would infer that I had something to do with writing it.
Fourth, this is a censorship story, which really isn't blog material.
Fifth, the article is easy to read and very informative, but in no way personal.

So... no.

---

---

On July 23 2012 20:15 czylu wrote:


It seems to me you missed the point of his post >.>

On a more serious note, this is just a guide on how to troll people over the internet.

---

---

Technique #4 - 'INFORMATION COLLECTION'

Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a 'show you mine so me yours' posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your 'favourite weapon' and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite 'technique of operation.' From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.

---

---

On July 23 2012 20:19 Toorgr wrote:
It reminds me of when users exposed US military propaganda on reddit

http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/t6pqc/man_absolutely_floored_by_the_return_of_his/c4k329k
http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/t6pqc/man_absolutely_floored_by_the_return_of_his/c4k5mry

---

---

On July 23 2012 20:27 Probe1 wrote:

rofl. Reddit is exactly like 4chan. Both think that they're incredibly important and believe in stupid conspiracies that affirm their importance.

---

---

The new unit, as well as an initiative by the Information and Diaspora Ministry to train people to represent Israel independently on the Internet and in other arenas

---

---

On July 23 2012 19:52 Kazius wrote:
Ever feel like you get marginalized on your opinions despite being perfectly rational and thought out on internet forums? Reddit? Twitter? Wikipedia?

---

---

On July 23 2012 21:50 thrawn2112 wrote:


when does somebody think they being irrational

---

---

On July 23 2012 21:50 thrawn2112 wrote:


when does somebody think they being irrational

---

---

On July 23 2012 20:36 sekritzzz wrote:
I don't think many people realize that there is actually paid intelligence units/soldiers who have a job doing this type of bullshit all day. An example is Israel's IDF internet unit which is hired within their media department (*hint hint*).


http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/new-idf-unit-to-fight-enemies-on-facebook-twitter-1.3088


That's one of the reasons I don't join any israeli-related forum discussions much (on TL or other sites). Maybe people do get heated but i've noticed an obvious trend of random people whom i've never seen or heard of before suddenly posting 34/35 of their total posts in that thread generally driving that thread to the ground. People could be sincere but I dont want to waste my time with possible futile discussions.

---

---

Slashdot editor here. This person is either wildly ignorant, a bit bonkers, trolling for pageviews, or all of the above. Is something being censored on Slashdot? Well... yes and no.

The answer is no because we don't delete submissions that aren't run on the front page. They're all still accessible to the public, just not easily visible. For example, here are some submissions on this very subject: example1 example2 example3 This person claims to have submitted something a few days ago; I did a quick search and didn't see anything. If he wants to provide more details, I can look further, but I rather suspect he didn't submit anything in the first place, and just wanted to stir up a small controversy.

The answer is yes, in a way, because we choose which stories appear on the front page, and which do not. We get hundreds of submissions a day, and we post the 20-30 we think are the best. If it makes you happy, you can say we "censor" the other N-30. But then, that's kind of our thing -- the whole purpose of Slashdot is to distill the news down to the 20-30 most interesting/relevant stories to our community, so they don't have to wade through all the rest of it. Most people are just fine with their submission not making the cut, for whatever reason. (One of our best submitters has had over a thousand submissions rejected over the years.) Occasionally, somebody takes it really, really personally, and calls us names.

In addition, the author seems to be under the impression that Slashdot editors are a vaguely defined, nebulous group of semi-anonymous internet-goers. In fact, there are only four of us, we've all been doing it for years, and we're in daily contact with each other. (Also, we're employees of a publicly-traded company.) Three of us all happened to be online at this late hour (locally) to hear about this nuttery, and we're all scratching our heads at how somebody could arrive at such a conclusion.

Anyway, feel free to submit this link to Slashdot if you'd like. Or make a journal entry about it. Or a comment. Or whatever. We're not going to run it on the front page, and you may or may not get modded down by other users for being offtopic, but it's not going to get deleted.

Edit: I just realized he included his Slashdot username in his post, and as you can see from his Slashdot user page his two submissions from July 18th are still quite visible. here and here

---

---

On July 23 2012 20:27 Probe1 wrote:

rofl. Reddit is exactly like 4chan. Both think that they're incredibly important and believe in stupid conspiracies that affirm their importance.

---