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May 22, 2024 10:38
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- StratGoatCom
- Aug 6, 2019
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quote:Remember when I said that the first thing anyone says if you get approached by a spy is "CALL THE loving FEDS, DON'T DO ANYTHING"?
There's a few reasons for that.
1. You are likely not trained in counterintelligence. They are.
The person trying to get information out of you is trained to get information out of people while keeping theirs. You are likely not trained in how to see that coming, let alone get information out of them. This means that they are a few chess moves ahead of you while you're sitting there trying to figure out whether you want to be the red or black checkers. You're already at a disadvantage.
2. The fact that you're talking to them is enough for them to work with.
If you decide that you're smart enough to go ahead and play along or feed them bad information, they already have some record of you chatting with the spy. Now they can use that as leverage to get you to actually provide information, since you're basically compromised at this point and can lose your job or position. At that point, they don't even have to try and bribe you or appeal to your ego/ideology/hatred for your country.
3. You have no leverage to make them go away, except by calling the cops before it even starts.
Seriously. If you're willing to play ball, they will continue playing ball and tugging until you're no longer useful. If you start out giving them things and then go "oh god, maybe I don't want to be a spy any more", congratulations, you're still guilty of espionage for everything you've already done. They can use that to keep you in the game.
4. A lot of espionage starts out as you having a friend to exploit the fact that you're friends.
Seriously. It's not some super attractive person with a hint of an accent sliding up to you in a bar and asking what you do for a living. It's a friend of a friend who eventually asks if you want to earn some extra money or do them a solid. There's a decent chance you don't know who they're working for and you might not ever find out because you don't need to know. All they want is your information.
5. You don't have the resources, expertise, or connections to solve this on your own.
You are one person. Maybe you're smart, maybe you just have some connection to something someone wants. All of your internet detective-ing isn't going to suss out who wants your information, who the person you're talking to is, or what their overall goal is. Say what you want about spooks, they have a lot of money and resources to throw at problems, whether those problems are "I want this guy's information" or "I want to know who wants this guy's information". You don't.
So, there's a few basic things.
Now, with that in mind, let's look at this 'operation'.
1. We used a goon.
Goon project jokes aside, the unifying factor among all of us is "We paid $10". How much loyalty does $10 get you? Sure, a bunch of us are friends, but that means absolutely gently caress all. One of the reasons you use spooks for this sort of thing is that spooks, usually, have some sort of higher loyalty that keeps them grounded during all of this. There isn't a loving person on these forums I'd trust to infiltrate Nazis, not because I think you're all secretly Nazis, but because there's a special combination of "I can blend into this community" and "I know they're not a Nazi or going to become one" and $10 isn't enough to make me trust any of you with that. Sorry.
If the admins wanted something like this, they should have hired some outside help. If PPJ volunteered for this, all bets are off because see the above bullet points. Instead of the spy wanting something from you, now the spy is offering you information. Same rules apply.
2. PPJ used his own account, as a moderator, to infiltrate this group.
This is bad from the get-go. If he's not compromised (i.e, an actual Nazi) from the get-go, they're probably going to want him to prove his loyalty. If you don't have moderator powers, this could be anything from "get information" to "help harass this person". If you do have moderator buttons, the sky's the loving limit. Probe posters, ban posters, leak the mod forum, all of it. If he wasn't compromised but wants to keep in the good graces of the people he's dealing with, he'd probably have to do some shady questionable poo poo with his buttons. At that point, he's susceptible to blackmail. See above.
3. PPJ used his position in the group to warn people of Nazi action.
If PPJ is compromised, he can feed any amount of 'bad' information to the mods and have them react. At that point, they don't have to actually do anything, just task PPJ to rile up the goons every once in a while for the lulz. If PPJ isn't compromised, they can start leaking specific plans, often to specific people, to see what gets passed on and how the targets react. If they find out that KM goes dark every time there's a threat and PPJ is in the chat, there's your smoking gun. At that point, even if he's not compromised, he's under suspicion and they can start feeding him bad information. Once again, you're dealing with professionals.
4. There is no way of knowing PPJ's loyalties.
See the previous #1, but this boils down to "You know PPJ is a member of X and Y. You cannot say for certain that he is not a member of Z, which is even worse than X and Y put together." If PPJ was compromised at any point, guess what? Your entire plan is now turned on its head and he's spying on you.
5. The admins decided to keep this hush-hush.
This one is actually understandable, because you want to protect your sources and methods, i.e, we have a mole or several in Nazi Discords. The problem with this is that if your mole is particularly hated and has a visible position under his own name on the forums, people are going to do some digging because they want to bring down the bad guy. Now your entire plan is revealed to everybody because he had to operate under his own name.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, with all of that, I'm going to say that this was loving irresponsible, stupid, and dangerous.
Spies use fake names and documents all the time, you have access to the literal databases where you could make a fake account and start seeding it with posts, why would you use a moderator that people vocally dislike? gently caress, make a new mod in Private Game Servers if them having access to the mod forum for leaks is important for clarity. If they need to prove that they're a mod, make some fake accounts to post in your chosen forum so you can probate them with the secret Nazi phrase.
If you're volunteering to spy for something, people should be really really suspicious of where your loyalties lie because you're already declaring "I want to betray someone's trust for my own gain". As I said before, it would be trivial to hand over fake information and create additional layers of security for Naziposting where Nazis could operate without being seen by the goon moles. It's dangerous to have someone in a position of authority doing this because we can't prove where anyone's loyalties lie and it just takes one request to use moderation powers for Nazi things to compromise someone for a long time.
I'll take a few more questions if anyone has them.
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Jan 8, 2020 06:19
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- StratGoatCom
- Aug 6, 2019
-
Our security is guaranteed by being able to melt the eyeballs of any other forum's denizens at 15 minutes notice
|
Remember when I said that the first thing anyone says if you get approached by a spy is "CALL THE loving FEDS, DON'T DO ANYTHING"?
There's a few reasons for that.
1. You are likely not trained in counterintelligence. They are.
The person trying to get information out of you is trained to get information out of people while keeping theirs. You are likely not trained in how to see that coming, let alone get information out of them. This means that they are a few chess moves ahead of you while you're sitting there trying to figure out whether you want to be the red or black checkers. You're already at a disadvantage.
2. The fact that you're talking to them is enough for them to work with.
If you decide that you're smart enough to go ahead and play along or feed them bad information, they already have some record of you chatting with the spy. Now they can use that as leverage to get you to actually provide information, since you're basically compromised at this point and can lose your job or position. At that point, they don't even have to try and bribe you or appeal to your ego/ideology/hatred for your country.
3. You have no leverage to make them go away, except by calling the cops before it even starts.
Seriously. If you're willing to play ball, they will continue playing ball and tugging until you're no longer useful. If you start out giving them things and then go "oh god, maybe I don't want to be a spy any more", congratulations, you're still guilty of espionage for everything you've already done. They can use that to keep you in the game.
4. A lot of espionage starts out as you having a friend to exploit the fact that you're friends.
Seriously. It's not some super attractive person with a hint of an accent sliding up to you in a bar and asking what you do for a living. It's a friend of a friend who eventually asks if you want to earn some extra money or do them a solid. There's a decent chance you don't know who they're working for and you might not ever find out because you don't need to know. All they want is your information.
5. You don't have the resources, expertise, or connections to solve this on your own.
You are one person. Maybe you're smart, maybe you just have some connection to something someone wants. All of your internet detective-ing isn't going to suss out who wants your information, who the person you're talking to is, or what their overall goal is. Say what you want about spooks, they have a lot of money and resources to throw at problems, whether those problems are "I want this guy's information" or "I want to know who wants this guy's information". You don't.
So, there's a few basic things.
Now, with that in mind, let's look at this 'operation'.
1. We used a goon.
Goon project jokes aside, the unifying factor among all of us is "We paid $10". How much loyalty does $10 get you? Sure, a bunch of us are friends, but that means absolutely gently caress all. One of the reasons you use spooks for this sort of thing is that spooks, usually, have some sort of higher loyalty that keeps them grounded during all of this. There isn't a loving person on these forums I'd trust to infiltrate Nazis, not because I think you're all secretly Nazis, but because there's a special combination of "I can blend into this community" and "I know they're not a Nazi or going to become one" and $10 isn't enough to make me trust any of you with that. Sorry.
If the admins wanted something like this, they should have hired some outside help. If PPJ volunteered for this, all bets are off because see the above bullet points. Instead of the spy wanting something from you, now the spy is offering you information. Same rules apply.
2. PPJ used his own account, as a moderator, to infiltrate this group.
This is bad from the get-go. If he's not compromised (i.e, an actual Nazi) from the get-go, they're probably going to want him to prove his loyalty. If you don't have moderator powers, this could be anything from "get information" to "help harass this person". If you do have moderator buttons, the sky's the loving limit. Probe posters, ban posters, leak the mod forum, all of it. If he wasn't compromised but wants to keep in the good graces of the people he's dealing with, he'd probably have to do some shady questionable poo poo with his buttons. At that point, he's susceptible to blackmail. See above.
3. PPJ used his position in the group to warn people of Nazi action.
If PPJ is compromised, he can feed any amount of 'bad' information to the mods and have them react. At that point, they don't have to actually do anything, just task PPJ to rile up the goons every once in a while for the lulz. If PPJ isn't compromised, they can start leaking specific plans, often to specific people, to see what gets passed on and how the targets react. If they find out that KM goes dark every time there's a threat and PPJ is in the chat, there's your smoking gun. At that point, even if he's not compromised, he's under suspicion and they can start feeding him bad information. Once again, you're dealing with professionals.
4. There is no way of knowing PPJ's loyalties.
See the previous #1, but this boils down to "You know PPJ is a member of X and Y. You cannot say for certain that he is not a member of Z, which is even worse than X and Y put together." If PPJ was compromised at any point, guess what? Your entire plan is now turned on its head and he's spying on you.
5. The admins decided to keep this hush-hush.
This one is actually understandable, because you want to protect your sources and methods, i.e, we have a mole or several in Nazi Discords. The problem with this is that if your mole is particularly hated and has a visible position under his own name on the forums, people are going to do some digging because they want to bring down the bad guy. Now your entire plan is revealed to everybody because he had to operate under his own name.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, with all of that, I'm going to say that this was loving irresponsible, stupid, and dangerous.
Spies use fake names and documents all the time, you have access to the literal databases where you could make a fake account and start seeding it with posts, why would you use a moderator that people vocally dislike? gently caress, make a new mod in Private Game Servers if them having access to the mod forum for leaks is important for clarity. If they need to prove that they're a mod, make some fake accounts to post in your chosen forum so you can probate them with the secret Nazi phrase.
If you're volunteering to spy for something, people should be really really suspicious of where your loyalties lie because you're already declaring "I want to betray someone's trust for my own gain". As I said before, it would be trivial to hand over fake information and create additional layers of security for Naziposting where Nazis could operate without being seen by the goon moles. It's dangerous to have someone in a position of authority doing this because we can't prove where anyone's loyalties lie and it just takes one request to use moderation powers for Nazi things to compromise someone for a long time.
I'll take a few more questions if anyone has them.
Repeated for emphasis.
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#
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Jan 8, 2020 06:23
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- StratGoatCom
- Aug 6, 2019
-
Our security is guaranteed by being able to melt the eyeballs of any other forum's denizens at 15 minutes notice
|
Really cool to see that after the old trans threads got moved to protect trans goons that had posted personal information from the creepers, stalkers, bigots, and nazi weirdos that have accounts, it turns out one of the moderators is posting on multiple of those groups' discords and communities, under the same username paling around with them, allegedly to get their SA names and ban them. It's very cool this stranger with access to info on me personally was, at best, playing IRL Mafia with the scummiest poo poo on the internet.
It is also incredibly cool to have the one mod who I thought had my back and genuinely cared about minority posters on SA defending this absolutely lovely idea and getting mad that people were upset and this obviously stupid breech of trust. It doesn't hurt at all and I in fact don't feel like absolute poo poo over it.
Thanks Koalas March and PPJ. I'm sure you playing pretend nazi between banning posters cause they're rude to you definitely helped the forum and wasn't the worst goddamn idea you could have possible had.
She needs to resign too, if she signed off on this, as she has endangered her charges.
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Jan 8, 2020 06:25
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May 22, 2024 10:38
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Jan 8, 2020 06:08
