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Comment by pa7ch | Hacker News Reader

Looking at the comments in support of the NSA here makes me suspect an astroturfing campaign is happening.

Edit: I should add that my suspicion came from noticing that the vast majority of the comments when this was first posted seemed aligned in favor of the NSA's mission.

It wasn't the presence of pro-NSA comments that was interesting but rather that these opinions were the overwhelming majority. This is, of course, how astroturfing becomes effective, it is not the rhetoric that is important but the cognitive bias imparted by the facade of so many people falling to one side of an issue.

This is of course, only a suspicion, but it seemed worth noting.

View on HN

You're probably right.

No need to consider the arguments made by people who don't agree entirely with a particular point of view, or even discuss it at all. They're obviously just shills.

Edit: Much of the 'pro NSA' comments I see here seem merely to suggest that not everything the NSA does is evil, and not every disclosure is necessarily useful. As often happens in threads like these, any such comments are dismissed as the work of astroturfing or shills.

To imply that disagreement with any narrative presented by the Guardian and Spiegel Online must make one an agent with ulterior motives, is precisely the kind of propagandist trolling any forum which cares about truth should avoid.

Yes, the NSA has a covert program to attempt to influence online messageboard and social media accounts. No, this program does not account for every even remotely 'pro-NSA' opinion one might find online. And even if it did, judge them on their own merits and move on, because you really can't tell. It's all just text in a box.

Seeing spooks everywhere doesn't make you free, it just makes you paranoid.

Try looking at the comments from a different angle. Instead of grouping them into "pro-NSA" and "anti-NSA" categories, try checking for technical ignorance. Look for ideas about cyberwarfare based on bad analogies with real warfare. Look for a mindset that puts winning an arms race first and never considers ethical implications. Look for vague statements about protecting or harming America that don't explain whether they mean the American military, the civilian government, or ordinary citizens. Look for equation of the NSA's offensive and defensive capabilities.

The other side of the debate has its own poorly reasoned comments. I haven't noticed many on this article yet, but they should arrive soon.

I doubt such comments are written by people with NSA connections, but their sudden appearance is odd. The only other subject that produces so many strongly opinionated, poor-quality comments is systemd.

If I were being paid to influence a debate, especially being paid by the U.S. Government, the first thing I do is lots and lots of research. The easiest way to discredit someone is to point out technical ignorance in their argument. So I'd make my point technically sound on all points. I'd research the counter-argument so I have rebuttals to every knee-jerk response the amateurs on the internet will toss at me. I'd read other discussion threads and make note of writing styles that frequently engender agreement. After all, this is my job and I've got professional pride on the line.

And there are a lot of people on the job market who can do those things very well. It's something American schools have been teaching for decades. In my high school there was this thing called a forensics club. "What's forensics? Isn't that like crime stuff?" I asked. It was explained to me that they learn how to debate issues, like free speech on school grounds. "Well obviously we want free speech." "Actually", my friend says, "I'm going to be arguing against it." "You don't support free speech?" I ask. "I do. But I was assigned to the against side." I thought it sounded stupid. Now I get it. It was cognitive dissonance as a vocational lesson.

So it's the people who sound unusually well-informed that I most suspect of astroturfing. Except I assume they also practice how to make what they write not sound rehearsed.

So if you were operating 50 accounts to try to influence the debate you'd be posting 50 informative and persuasive comments? I doubt it, that would take way too much time.

If I were an NSA shill I'd just mention something about Snowden harming the US or Snowden being a spy. It's a controversial and dumb argument so it's going to get a decent amount of replies. It also doesn't take much effort. You'd derail the conversation, and informative comments would be drowned out by a bunch of people arguing whether Snowden is a hero or traitor.

You only have to write the argument once. Then use the social media management software that's being peddled to tweak the wording slightly so you have prepared text stating the same thing 50 different ways. Then if someone gives a counter-argument that you have a prepared response for, you can copy-paste that in a matter of seconds. Arguments you haven't prepared for are ignored because the goal isn't to engage in dialog, it's to give the false impression that a dialog is occurring. To an outside observer the forum would appear to be populated equally by people for and against the topic. Even though it's really an overwhelming support for one side and a single agent spamming with 50 different personalities.

Derailing a conversation works well because they will have a large number of responses prepared that talk about, using your example, Snowden being a traitor. So once they've wedged the issue their spam can become the dominant voice. If the discussion had drifted to an area they weren't prepared for, say the historical precedents for whistleblowers of government misdeeds, they probably don't have as much material for that.

My point is I assume astroturfed material would not be written off-the-cuff but meticulously edited ahead of time to give the desired impression. And near the top of that list must be the requirement that it not look like an obvious shill.

I wonder how effective it would be if agents were able to control both sides of the debate, even? A more sophisticated shill would give the appearance of supporting the opposition but will subtly help draw attention to the propaganda. A living straw man, as it were. Not unlike the way SWAT police will pretend to be violent protesters to goad troublemakers into doing something they can be arrested for.

> A living straw man

The term is agent provocateur, I presume

I see nothing wrong with presenting a coherent argument backed up by research which accounts for opposing points of view, even if it's the US government doing the arguing. I would much rather they try to persuade people through dialogue than violence or subterfuge. And I wouldn't consider what you're describing to be subterfuge, necessarily.

Theoretically, my goal wouldn't be to influence debate. It would be to find places where thoughtful individuals discuss ideas like this that have an anti-current-government-position bent, and not put forth well reasoned thoughtful arguments. Instead I'd just throw out, en masse, the same tired fearmongering comments, surveillence apologist comments, accuse snowden of being a traitor, anything that would make the pro-democracy elements of this site feel like they are in the minority, or unwelcome. Then they leave, or comment less. Movement destroyed. A slew of garbage one liners about protecting freedom or trusting the secret ultra-powerful decision makers and all of a sudden anyone who has anything intelligent to say feels like, "why bother. This isn't the place for me, obviously. Maybe noone agrees with me."

Actually changing someone's mind through argument is almost impossible. On the internet I'd say it is impossible. So don't change minds, just make the people who disagree with you feel like the whole world is against them when actually they're in the majority.

In particular, pay special attention to any post where the only content is a divisive, wedge topic trying to change the conversation. Divide and conquer is a classic strategy, and was an explicit goal of JTRIG in their attempts to disrupt "threats".

While a post where this type of rhetoric is only part of a larger argument is harder to categorize, there have been a lot of posts here and elsewhere that seem to bring up stale talking points (and little else), that distract threads from more important topics.

This is a tactic that Scientology was famous for, and it seem other groups have started using it as well. None of this is proof, of course; I merely suggest being extra vigilant about off-topic distractions and attempts to create division and unnecessary argument.

To be fair, I doubt many people (including myself) with an opinion either way actually know what they're talking about. The expert pool for knowledge about high-level classified government hacking is probably pretty small, even on Hacker News.

It's politics, and politics hits people in the lizard brain and short-circuits their ability to think rationally.

One the other hand there aren't many opinions on it on hacker news that are more clueless than those of elected officials and various powerful lawyers. But I think the one where you just trust those caught out being grossly incompetent (even if you have zero ethics) really has been one of them.

You might be surprised. Regardless, none of them will ever post anything relevant on the topics in discussion.

That's pretty condescending. How many sports fans know how to be a pro athlete or manage a team? How many critics of government, "know what they're talking about," by your standard?

I'm sorry, I should have been more specific. The poster I was replying to mentioned that it was odd that low-quality, uninformed arguments tend to crop up in threads like this a lot. People make broad statements about how evil and nigh-omnipotent the NSA is, and how deeply they've infiltrated every facet of human life. The existence of parallel construction leads to the assumption that every case involving the government is due to parallel construction. Google appears on a PRISM slide, they must be an NSA front company. Someone suggests politics may be more complex than they appear, or the NSA may not be as powerful as they seem, they must be a shill. The US government is involved with NIST and TOR, it means they've completely undermined all forms of encryption and TOR is a honeypot.

This subject seems to be a trigger for people to try to outdo each other to come off as cynical and in the know as possible about things which by definition almost no one knows much about.

I understand, but when you say:

People make broad statements about how evil and nigh-omnipotent the NSA is, and how deeply they've infiltrated every facet of human life

...is not the reverse case also true? We find ourselves discussing a condition where a lot of information is unknown, on both sides, but nobody upbraids the intelligence communities for exhibiting the same tendencies in the same breath that they castigate those people analyzing the situation with incomplete information.

There is ignorance, conclusions based on assumptions and a desire to know more on all sides of the argument. It's the nature of the beast, and if criticism is going to be levelled in this context, it should be pointed at those who withold the transparency required for understanding.

That's fair. The intelligence community really has no one to blame but themselves for that.

Arguably, secrecy exists for a good reason sometimes. But when you begin to treat the rest of the legal system, the government whose job it is to oversee you, and the public as enemies and keep everything as secret as possible, you really give people little to suspect anything but the worst.

I mean, here we are with what appears to be the biggest and most complex global data gathering correlation system in history - possibly a technological achievement to rival the web itself - and two terrorists who posted anti-American rhetoric on their Twitter accounts managed to bomb the Boston Marathon despite having been under surveillance at one point, and the Russians more or less tell us outright to watch these guys. They weren't exactly hiding behind 7 proxies so what the hell are we even doing?

How to interpret the cognitive dissonance in that? Maybe the system isn't as comprehensive as it appears? Maybe bureaucracy got in the way? Maybe the pieces just didn't come together in time? Is there even a Panopticon or not? Who knows.

It only reinforces OP's point. I don't see sports fans discussions productive in any way.

In the interest of facilitating a open and fair discussion on the larger issue of state surveillance, I highly recommend checking out the 2014 Munk debates: http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/state-surveillance

General Hayden and Glenn Greenwald are given fair time to discuss the issue and to give rebuttals to each other.

Its much more informative then trying to parse HN comments to form an opinion about state surveillance. It also forces you to consider the views of people who don't agree with you.

For those who aren't Munk members, it's also available on C-SPAN[1]. I thought it was an entertaining debate, but not as good as I hoped it would be (I watched it live when it was first broadcasted). My memory is a little foggy, but as I recall, Glenn Greenwald went off on his usual 'the NSA is the epitome of evil and exists solely to invade your privacy' rants; Michael Hayden spent most of his time backtracking and focusing on where Greenwald was factually wrong rather than making his own argument; I didn't think Alan Dershowitz made a particularly convincing argument; and Alexis Ohanian made some greats points but was completely ignored by everyone else.

I personally enjoyed watching Jameel Jaffer (ACLU) square off against Chris Inglis (former NSA Deputy Director) at the Brookings Institute last year[2] - both sides had good arguments. For that matter, Benjamin Wittes (the guy moderating the debate) has had some good interviews on his blog[3] and podcast[4] as well - you don't see many outlets that will have James Comey (FBI director) one week followed by Chris Soghoian (ACLU) the next week.

[1] http://www.c-span.org/video/?319161-1/munk-debate-state-surv...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3KKEh2AS6E

[3] http://www.lawfareblog.com/

[4] http://www.lawfareblog.com/category/podcasts/

Thanks for this I didn't know this existed. Interesting for sure to see the evidence presented on each side and how little actual data came through in the course of the debate.

The parent poster didn't advise ignoring the pro-NSA opinions but gave his opinion that he felt there might be an astroturf campaign. And why follow a comment agreeing that astroturf campaigns are employed with one slanting those pointing it out as 'spooks' and 'paranoid'?

I think it's worth reminding fellow readers that this sort of manipulation happens, and likely on HN.

I have a problem with the 'likely' part, because that's where the 'paranoid' comes into play.

What evidence is there that it's likely, other than paranoia?

If you were to be assigned to astroturf certain demographics, what better target than HN would you chose to reach tech-professionals?

That's a fair point, but as evidence of likelihood, it's still kind of weak. The US government might post here. But then again, so do communists and anarchists and libertarian capitalists and what have you. It's not as if HN is awash in pro-US, pro security sentiment anyway.

It seems to me as if the purpose of bringing it up is to warn people that any opinion they encounter of a certain kind can't be trusted, because it's probably part of a coordinated campaign of government manipulation. That's a couple of steps away from calling it thoughtcrime.

I haven't seen a political comment thread on a major site which hasn't been polluted with astroturf in the last 2 years or so. Anything regarding Russia is particularly obvious but they are all at it. Then again, when enough regular commenters are just parroting talking points there's not much distinction.

Being paranoid does not mean they are not targeting you.

True. But it also doesn't mean you actually know they are.

Assume that since there is something to be gained by the more powerful on one side, that a certain portion of the comments siding with the more empowered source are owned. It's not worth calling out individual commenters, because you can't know. But assume that some portion is shilling.

The hard part is guessing what portion. 10 percent? 30 percent? What's the time-graph? Is it 50% of initial comments, tapering off to just us Real Folk to dither around with the wondering phase of the conversation? The important thing is to assume that you're often witnessing a deceit in some capacity, in most any important conversation.

Needless to say, all this is pretty fucked up.

EDIT: Changed percentages, because I honestly don't know what's reasonable :/

Hacker News is quite astroturfed. Every web forum is.

One approach to countering sock-puppetry as a general problem is with increased transparency. Personally, I think lobste.rs' notion of a user tree is a step in the right direction: https://lobste.rs/u

Very interesting. I like that a lot. However I'm not sure it would ever work with an open forum.

Invite only is awesome, but open forums are important too.

What about the opposite approach - enforced anonymity so that arguments have to stand on their own merits?

An appearance of merit can be engineered/manufactured, which is one of the foundational concepts of classical trolling, not to mention thread-poisoning.

Do you have an account there? I would love to get an invite if so, that site looks really cool.

The introduction tree is a great idea. But lobsters community is junk. If you dare have an opinion against their hivemind you get donwvoted to oblivion. It's like a clique took over.

Reddit had a similar problem with truthers taking over discourse at the beginning, luckily it went away. Perhaps because there was a popular parody account mocking them all the time (something like 9_11_was_an_inside_job), and that account retired in time when it's job was done.

Dang, that's frustrating. That's exactly what I was hoping against, having any for of hivemind or clique.

Was thinking the same thing. Comments asking unbiased and valid questions are being downvoted...

I've been reading the comments and it looks like typical political bickering. People have been made so polarized on these issues by propaganda, astroturfing, the two party system, mainstream media, and etc. that they can't have a conversation about these topics without going for the throat. Shockingly, or not so shockingly, even on Hacker News we can not seem to have constructive conversations about this stuff.

Job done I guess

It's interesting to note that it's not just comments that can be manipulated but also the stories that are upvoted.

wait so if somebody disagrees with you, even on principle, it's evidence of astroturfing?

What comments in support of the NSA? Any comments in support of the NSA here are IMMEDIATELY flag-killed by the HN Nazis who love to suppress any kind of free speech they don't agree with.

There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you or I think.

There just isn't, and it'd be a waste of resources to even attempt something like this.

People do exist (I am one of them) who think the NSA is doing a nasty job that isn't very appealing, but is absolutely necessary for me to be able to sleep in my bed at night safely. They may not have the best guidance from the government, but there are people who do believe they're doing the best they can.

Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place? Why can't there just be people who actually agree with some/most of what the NSA has done, based on the laws that govern it?

> Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place?

Regardless of how you feel about it, there is a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place - it's a well documented NSA activity. Whether it accounts for specific comments is impossible to say, but it does exist. Why then is it so absurd to think that it may be in play?

Why is it absurd? Because there's no evidence of it taking place. It's the same reason we don't believe in unicorns.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

EDIT: Added firstlook url per reply, originally pointed to https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140224/17054826340/new-s...

...not really sure I see a substantial difference between the 2 articles, but there you go.

Why link to the blogspam and not the firstlook.org article it's sourced from?

Oh right, because it doesn't support what you're saying. Got it.

Are you saying that GCHQ don't do it?

Or that GCHQ does do it, but because they're GCHQ and not NSA that it's irrelevant?

Because now you have evidence that GCHQ does it you should allow the possibility that NSA does it. The reason you don't have evidence that NSA does it might be because NSA is a secret organistion.

So Snowden decided to leak the GCHQ presentation, but chose not to show any of the evidence he had that the NSA does it?

Snowden did not gather everything. Maybe he just missed it? Or maybe GCHQ does it but NSA doesn't? We know that other bits of the US government have different levels of online presence so I'm not sure why you're so hostile to the idea that NSA has people that disrupt online conversation about NSA.

I for one try to only accuse folks of doing things I actually have evidence of them doing, and I know this sounds crazy, but there's currently no evidence the NSA is on HN astroturfing comments, so maybe we shouldn't pretend like we know things we don't.

I for one try to only accuse folks of doing things I actually have evidence of them doing

That's not true.

You don't see a substantial difference between GHCQ and CIA?

Interesting.

People do exist (I am one of them) who think the NSA is doing a nasty job that isn't very appealing, but is absolutely necessary for me to be able to sleep in my bed at night safely.

I don't buy the Col. Jessup rationalization at all, and I think it's simpleminded. The threats these people are defending against are ones created by their own actions, and the actions of the governments they act on behalf. Regular citizens of whatever country are affected by these activities but they don't get a voice in how or whether the "nasty job" (and it's precursors) are in their interest.

So in other words, if the US just left everyone alone, there would be zero threats to the US? Everyone acts rationally, and once you remove all rational reasons to attack the US, folks will simply stop doing it?

Right.

Of course not, and that's a highly uncharitable reading bordering on bad faith.

1) the current state of affairs does not remove threats, because the agencies are starting trouble, too;

2) the people are the ones who have to live with the effects of something, in the US a result of a democratic system where the agencies may prioritize their own imaginations over citizens' actual lives, where the agencies may have perverse incentives.

Just to be clear, is there any form of this conversation where you admit to being anything except absolutely correct on all points you're attempting to make?

I get the feeling you're one of those folks who won't accept anything except what you've already concluded.

To be fair to him, you accused him of saying something he didn't.

No, I didn't, I rephrased what he wrote in terms that more obviously illustrate the absurdity of the argument he's making.

Some times when you rephrase an argument, it becomes a different argument.

Some times when this happens, we call it a strawman argument.

No, we call it a strawman if it's not an accurate equivalent. If it's accurate, it's not a strawman, such as in this situation.

Your reply had literally no connection to any of the words in my post except, presumably, in your imagination. Can you lay out its accuracy for us? Obviously we're curious how you made the jumps in logic you did, and it appears you left some words out.

Well you don't have to be rude about it.

I think your attitude deserves the response I gave, if not something much harsher. You kill intellectual debate.

As a casual reader of the NSA/GCHQ/Snowden threads on HM I have mentally check-marked nearly every comment of yours within this thread as a different form of documented tactic of subversion used by forum plants.

You sling personal insults, you point out trivial errors and falsehoods in statements by others which have nothing to do with the given point, you attempt to diminish reputations, and whatever other tactics available at the particular avenue in order to derail the original point/argument, while pushing pro US government talking points and stereotypical 'save-the-children' rhetoric.

I don't know who you are, but I have recently begun ignoring your posts, attempting to derive wisdom only from the replies directed towards your usually greyed/dead comments, but I hope that people who read my reply to you will take the chance to read your past comments and attempt to pick up on any potential biases before considering your opinion on things.

And even if I am completely wrong about your stake in this game, the hostility that you inject into these discussions is uncalled for, and adds nothing but scorn and hurt feelings, quelling the debate and discussion of the topics at hand; what I believe is your very objective.

Although I was late to read it, this comment is at least as bad as the one I chastised in this thread.

It's fine for users to neutrally remind each other when they're breaking the HN guidelines. But it's not ok to insinuate evil motives, let alone that another user is a "forum plant". Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Please don't make comments like this or be personally rude on Hacker News. Even when you're sure you're right, it harms the site for everyone. That's why it's against the rules:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

What? Come on, I wasn't being rude, I was making a point. The nature of the responses on this topic, particularly on Hacker News are completely aggressive and kill any intellectual exploration or useful conversation.

I can't voice an opinion on this website that doesn't mesh with the popular opinion on this specific topic without being severely marginalized, mocked, and even ridiculed -- I think pointing that out should be allowed.

"There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you or I think.

There just isn't, and it'd be a waste of resources to even attempt something like this."

You and I are not the ones defining the reasons of and what NSA are interested in. You might think there are no reasons, but NSA may have a totally different view. For an organization that for real wants to capture ALL communication on this planet, waste of resources may seem like a minor issue.

Thanks to Snowden, we do know that NSA and GCHQ are actively doing astroturfing.

Without overstate the importance of HN, this is one place where a lot of technical talent hangs out. Talent that also talks, informs and educates others. If one want to moderate criticism from people that others listen to and rely on for information about security, privacy, HN would probably be a good place to focus on.

I agree that it's best to assume earnestness in opinions, I disagree with your opening. There absolutely is a reason for the NSA to give a fuck what you or I think. They are an intelligence and security agency, operating covertly with plausible deniability is what they do. More importantly, there are laws trying to be passed that can strengthen or weaken their funding and power. Making people at home feel that the agency needs to keep up the good work is not a waste of funds to that end.

They just got caught with their pants down spying on the American people. If they don't try to take hold of the narrative they might see themselves at the shit end of the political stick.

There is no political stick for them to be on, because every decision-maker in the US government knows how important the NSA is.

Unimportant, because they neither provide useful intel nor prevent terror attacks. Or very important, because they have lots of blackmail material?

How would you know if they provide useful intel or prevent terror attacks?

Do you have an actual answer to that question? Because it seems like a bad plan to spend trillions of dollars on something if you can't even show that it works.

Show to who? You?

If by "me" you mean "the voters" then yes of course. What was that Russian proverb Ronald Regan was always so found of? Trust but verify? The verify part is very, very important.

Blind trust with no accountability is totally insane. There has to come a point, during the lives of the people who have to be held accountable for what they've done, that what they've done comes to light. Or how do you propose we hold them to account?

You pick representatives, and they are shown the effectiveness of programs, because they are the ones who vote for the programs.

This isn't about you, or me, or any individual, that's not how this country works. Some things that are not very popular are absolutely necessary nonetheless.

> You pick representatives, and they are shown the effectiveness of programs, because they are the ones who vote for the programs.

They aren't always given the information either. Recall Diane Feinstein being quite displeased about being lied to recently. And we still have to elect "them" on the basis of something. By what process is a corrupt politician supposed to be held accountable if the fact of their corruption is a government secret?

> Some things that are not very popular are absolutely necessary nonetheless.

How do you propose to ensure that only the "absolutely necessary" things are occurring?

If you know about it, it's not secret, so you're in a losing position of being unable to come up with an example of corruption the public doesn't know about.

Don't be silly. All of the corruption we know about now is an example of corruption the public didn't know about before it was published. The problem is we need to learn about it while there is still time to do something about it. We can't stop it if we only learn about it after it has already happened.

The problem with corruption is that we don't know about it soon enough?

Got it.

Where's your evidence for that? The hearings in congress I think have shown that there are doubts from decision-makers.

The lack of traction any of those movements get, and the general disconnect that every. single. congressperson. has when it comes to cyber security.

Also almost half of the House tried to pass a bill to cut NSA's funding in 2013.

Which NSA activities have been necessary for you to sleep in safety?

And as to the 'nasty unappealing job', what has led you to believe that is a common perspective among those who work there? The project detailings that have been released often seem downright giddy.

>There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you or I think.

True. But that's not what this is about. What the NSA care about is what resources he has, which they would want to use for their own purposes - this is why they monitor such individuals as work at major ISP's. Its not about thought - its about action. What actions can they perform if they gain access to this persons electronic life - in the case of sysadmins for major ISP's, there is much to be gained from infiltration, exploitation, and subterfuge.

What are you afraid of?

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