It seems that the UK's secret service, GCHQ, has some dirty tricks up its sleeve.
A new series of documents leaked by Snowden reveal that GCHQ intelligence officers are involved in some dirty tricks to ruin people's reputations.
Glenn Greenwald's Intercept website reports that while he has collaborated with NBC in recent weeks to present a series of articles about the tactics of the British intelligence service, there is much more that needs to be said.
JTRIG (Joint Research Threat Intelligence Group) is a secretive GCHQ unit that seeks to “control, infiltrate, manipulate and distort online conversations,” essentially threatening the integrity of the Internet itself.
This unit feeds false material onto the Internet, and with elements that can destroy the reputation of its targets. A second purpose of this group is to use various means to manipulate the dialogue that takes place over the Internet to achieve the desired result.
The leaked files show that GCHQ, together with the National Security Agency (NSA), cooperate very closely on various operations.
The agency also outlines a clear list of ways to discredit a specific target. For example, agents could create a so-called “honey-trap,” a method used to lure their targets, whether they are journalists, diplomats, or important figures.
Another item on GCHQ's list is changing a target's photo on social media sites, as well as creating a blog pretending to be one of their victims. The final step is sending emails and SMS messages to the target's colleagues, neighbors or friends.
This tactic, when applied to defame a company, differs in some way. The list includes constantly leaking confidential information about companies and the media through blogs, or posting negative information on forums. Finally, they try to stop orders and destroy the business relationships of the target company.
The revelations paint a frightening picture of the extent to which intelligence agencies can destroy the reputations of their targets.
In another slide, GCHQ describes that the purpose of JTRIG is to use online techniques to cause something to happen in the real or online world. This can be done through a technical disruption or through information operations, causing impact or disruption.
It is obvious that each new transparency refers to techniques that do not refer to techniques for infiltrating terrorist organizations, as claimed by secret services and governments. It is also obvious that the information circulating on the internet is of unknown origin and of dubious purpose.
For this reason, it would be good to filter and cross-check the information very well.
