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This reminds me of a recently declassified document from the CIA that discusses how to undermine organizations by being poor managers, employees, etc. It's diff

This reminds me of a recently declassified document from the CIA that discusses how to undermine organizations by being poor managers, employees, etc. It's difficult to search HN for this at this point because A) we always discuss that agency and B) our best search option gives us the option of the past month or the past year. Maybe someone has this bookmarked or downloaded. It came in PDF form. This is happening to us here. I think they're doing it by using the "No true Scotsman" informal fallacy and other methods. We'd blame the hundreds of thousands of new users. I believe they've found a way to unwind this community. Nothing revolutionary will ever come from here (how could it?). I think the community has been compromised and that we won't find out until 50 years from now when most of us are dead. This is how I feel after years of watching the community. I have no stake in it either way. I'm open to opposing views. Thanks vermontdevil for finding the link. If in 1944 they had a field manual for subverting physical organizations, it's foolhardy to believe they don't have a field manual for subverting "online communities with up and down arrows."

vermontdevil 10y ago
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/simple-sabotage.html https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...
- coderdude 10y ago
  Thanks. I had a hard time finding that before my post.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
alanwatts 10y ago
Sock puppet armies aren't science fiction: [1]https://m.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_puppets_in_rnetsec_last_year_and_are/ https://m.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_p... And chat bots are now being powered by NLP. [2]http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-cha... [3]https://www.motion.ai/ https://www.motion.ai/ Subverting an online community would not be difficult for anyone with some programming knowledge and a desire to learn. The study in the link[1] notes that detection is exceedingly difficult, and even then, in the case of Reddit, the Mods and Admins have negligible power to mitigate such attacks even if they do detect them.
feklar 10y ago
There's also JTRIG https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ OEV https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op... And my favorite psyOps which is Military Memetics/Memetic Engineering only because there's a guy in the US Army in charge of 'Meme Warfare'. As for this community bikeshedding distractions and somebody coming along with bait to derail a conversation with illogical fallacies (trolling) isn't anything new happened on newsgroups since as long as I can remember.
- nekopa 10y ago
  That JTRIG was an interesting read. But it formed an interesting question in my mind: As much as I feel these disclosures are great and necessary, are they not inspiring and informing other (unsavory) nation states on great strategies and tactics to use? I just wish they would publish this type of info and include how to defeat them. Because the only thing they seem to say in response to these awful things is we're better than this, and it shouldn't be allowed whereas certain dictatorships would just laugh it off and say "Thanks, GREAT ideas!"
hellbanner 10y ago
Yeah - I've seen a few times where TV channels show bullshit news while corruption happens. See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4lmfmj/ceo_of_reddit_steve_huffman_about_advertising_on/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4lmfmj/ceo_of_reddi...
knowaveragejoe 10y ago
Just to continue the conversation a bit... I'm wondering what we expect from HN? It sounds like you're saying something revolutionary happened here, or should have happened here, but hasn't and won't ever because of mismanagement and poor quality discussion(I think I'm gathering that part correctly from your post). Also, perhaps more importantly, why? What motive could "they"(the CIA, I guess?) have for diluting the conversations here? Your post reads as though there's some existing knowledge other readers are assumed to have about the context.
- coderdude 10y ago
  > It sounds like you're saying something revolutionary happened here, or should have happened here, but hasn't and won't ever I think it won't happen because HN (like many or most communities) seems to be vulnerable to, for lack of a better term, "groupthink." Like when an article about a specific topic pops up and seemingly the entire community has already formed a specific opinion about it. It's nearly impossible to make a dent in it and most of us learn pretty quickly that the opposing view will be attacked, sometimes viciously. > because of mismanagement and poor quality discussion Not at all. My reference to the CIA paper (I'm guessing that's where the management aspect comes in) was an illustration of the types of things the intelligence community spends time fleshing out. I don't think HN particularly suffers from poor quality discussion or mismanagement. > Also, perhaps more importantly, why? What motive could "they"(the CIA, I guess?) have for diluting the conversations here? There are few large places where the influential tech community gathers to discuss topics of importance. In the same way that control over public opinion (propaganda) is beneficial to motivated parties, it seems reasonable to me that control over our opinions can be used.

vermontdevil 10y ago

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/simple-sabotage.html https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...

coderdude 10y ago
Thanks. I had a hard time finding that before my post.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

alanwatts 10y ago

Sock puppet armies aren't science fiction: [1]https://m.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_puppets_in_rnetsec_last_year_and_are/ https://m.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_p... And chat bots are now being powered by NLP. [2]http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-cha... [3]https://www.motion.ai/ https://www.motion.ai/ Subverting an online community would not be difficult for anyone with some programming knowledge and a desire to learn. The study in the link[1] notes that detection is exceedingly difficult, and even then, in the case of Reddit, the Mods and Admins have negligible power to mitigate such attacks even if they do detect them.

feklar 10y ago

There's also JTRIG https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ OEV https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-op... And my favorite psyOps which is Military Memetics/Memetic Engineering only because there's a guy in the US Army in charge of 'Meme Warfare'. As for this community bikeshedding distractions and somebody coming along with bait to derail a conversation with illogical fallacies (trolling) isn't anything new happened on newsgroups since as long as I can remember.

nekopa 10y ago
That JTRIG was an interesting read. But it formed an interesting question in my mind: As much as I feel these disclosures are great and necessary, are they not inspiring and informing other (unsavory) nation states on great strategies and tactics to use? I just wish they would publish this type of info and include how to defeat them. Because the only thing they seem to say in response to these awful things is we're better than this, and it shouldn't be allowed whereas certain dictatorships would just laugh it off and say "Thanks, GREAT ideas!"

hellbanner 10y ago

Yeah - I've seen a few times where TV channels show bullshit news while corruption happens. See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4lmfmj/ceo_of_reddit_steve_huffman_about_advertising_on/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4lmfmj/ceo_of_reddi...

knowaveragejoe 10y ago

Just to continue the conversation a bit... I'm wondering what we expect from HN? It sounds like you're saying something revolutionary happened here, or should have happened here, but hasn't and won't ever because of mismanagement and poor quality discussion(I think I'm gathering that part correctly from your post). Also, perhaps more importantly, why? What motive could "they"(the CIA, I guess?) have for diluting the conversations here? Your post reads as though there's some existing knowledge other readers are assumed to have about the context.

coderdude 10y ago
> It sounds like you're saying something revolutionary happened here, or should have happened here, but hasn't and won't ever I think it won't happen because HN (like many or most communities) seems to be vulnerable to, for lack of a better term, "groupthink." Like when an article about a specific topic pops up and seemingly the entire community has already formed a specific opinion about it. It's nearly impossible to make a dent in it and most of us learn pretty quickly that the opposing view will be attacked, sometimes viciously. > because of mismanagement and poor quality discussion Not at all. My reference to the CIA paper (I'm guessing that's where the management aspect comes in) was an illustration of the types of things the intelligence community spends time fleshing out. I don't think HN particularly suffers from poor quality discussion or mismanagement. > Also, perhaps more importantly, why? What motive could "they"(the CIA, I guess?) have for diluting the conversations here? There are few large places where the influential tech community gathers to discuss topics of importance. In the same way that control over public opinion (propaganda) is beneficial to motivated parties, it seems reasonable to me that control over our opinions can be used.