this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of Defense’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced technologies desired for country’s most elite, clandestine military efforts. “Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media platforms, social networking sites, and other online content,” the entry reads.

The document specifies that JSOC wants the ability to create online user profiles that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”

In addition to still images of faked people, the document notes that “the solution should include facial & background imagery, facial & background video, and audio layers,” and JSOC hopes to be able to generate “selfie video” from these fabricated humans. These videos will feature more than fake people: Each deepfake selfie will come with a matching faked background, “to create a virtual environment undetectable by social media algorithms.”

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[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 75 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Can we have a side internet, for us normal people?

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)

That exists it's called tildeverse and gemini

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What's the pros and cons of those?

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Both go back to 90s tech so you lose a lot of functionality. Gemini is mainly text based with links to files. So think pre web text pages at University's but it's cool to read people's pages without all the distractions of images and video. I have read some cool stories on there. Got an awesome cookie recipe as well from a person in Denmark.

[–] disguised_doge@kbin.earth 5 points 1 month ago

Unfortunately, if everybody goes there the bots will follow.

[–] jcg@halubilo.social 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Have you got a more specific search term for Gemini? Unfortunately the word has been taken by Google

[–] drwho@beehaw.org 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago
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[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 36 points 1 month ago

So they want to automate the use of troll-farms?

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Dude I can't even pass a catchpa these day. I still don't know if a e-bike is a scooter, a bike, or a moped.

[–] Serialchemist@ttrpg.network 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Captcha and I can never agree on what is and isn’t a bus.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

This would work for a short while as long as the user knows their hardware.

[–] django@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

They keep showing me strange street features from distant countries and ask me shit like "mark all the crosswalks". And i look at it and think "no idea, what this is, no crosswalk i have ever seen looked like this, so i guess it it is something different".

And then i have to do the next captcha. Sometimes i am caught in captcha hell, where i have to solve captchas until i give up and close the browser.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There is a short story in here about someone who can't pass a captcha, loses their identity, and has to move on to becoming a fisherman in Norway.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

Fisherman in Norway is probably an upgrade for some people lol

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[–] essell@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Are you jealous of the other bots who can?

[–] Aradina@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Weird how they're doing the thing they accuse others of doing. Almost like it's a confession.

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemm.ee 9 points 1 month ago

Projection is a major problem

[–] chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

The US always tries to do what they think others are doing. Half of their crazy ideas are because they heard a rumor and/or assumed the Soviets were doing it. Mind control, truth serums, ESP, cat spies.

[–] SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Dead internet, it will be drowned in bots.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 month ago
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[–] zante@lemmy.wtf 21 points 1 month ago

Bro I’ve about a dozen I can sell you right now

[–] Wolfram@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Jesus, even before I read the article it read like the U.S wants to emulate disinformation campaigns others are using. The irony of three letter agencies condemning AI campaigns while the Pentagon is going "We want that", is insane but its to be expected I guess.

[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

…Do you think the US government has never done disinformation campaigns before?

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

no, but they pretend otherwise, so them publicly salivating for it is a new level of embarrassing.

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[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I assume this is the same reason why they want to ban TikTok but not Facebook - it's not so much that they object to the data harvesting, they just object to non-American data harvesting that they can't readily influence.

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[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think that's what they want to use it for. Disinformation is super easy. What they want to do is use bots to gather Intel on citizens.

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[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The listing notes that special operations troops “will use this capability to gather information from public online forums,” with no further explanation of how these artificial internet users will be used.

Any chance that's the real reason and not just a flimsy excuse? What kind of information would you even need a fake identity to gather from a public forum?

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[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

.world will double in users again

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[–] Korkki@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

As if any institution, org or group that has an agenda to push doesn't have battalions of bots guiding the discussion of forums to whichever way they want and not just fake followers and likes. As if people would need permission or would ask for it even if they had to. You just cant have any real sense of the public opinion on the internet, if there ever was such a time.

[–] mtpender@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Dead internet incoming...

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So they can save money by firing their army of nafo meat puppets?

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

I mean they did had IRL meeting probably because even they didn't believed they are real people lol.

[–] SuperiorOne@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago
[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't get it. They're not already?

[–] coolusername@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

it's the pentagon itself, not the CIA or state department. 100% the CIA and state department has been doing it for a long time already

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Telling on themselves a bit given the implication is that they're so far behind every other country who're definitely already doing the same

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

definitely

Definitely, given the overwhelming mountain of evidence you’re sitting on 👍 Meanwhile, the US isn’t the largest intelligence/security state in the world by leaps and bounds. It’s just a little-bitty backward country whose military-industrial complex invented the internet.

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[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

More likely, they’ve been doing this for many years and it is basically obsolete, so they are spilling the beans now.

Or not and we really are doomed.

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

My first thought was if they're asking for this officially, they've piloted some version of it unofficially.

[–] Luffy879@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

Any government does anything shady Oh! I i would not have thought that any government is using my patriotism for their malicious things!

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So we really are going for a dead internet. Nobody is going to want to interact with bots all day online. But maybe that's the point, harder to organize organically on the streets without a presence online.

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[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Can I still be the one person who makes all the posts on 4chan, prove me wrong?

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