create up to 10 fake users, appear from different geographic regions to create impression of liberal consensus on certain issues, on facebook/twitter, etc....oh this will be fun.

http://www.hbgary.com/

http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/hb-gary-federal-anonymous-and-wikileaks-8912

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/02/07/hbgary-federal-hacked-and-exposed-by-anonymous/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All

http://nation.foxnews.com/culture/2011/02/19/us-gov-t-software-creates-fake-people-spread-message-social-networking

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.

---
https://www.fbo.gov/index?_cview=1&id=d88e9d660336be91552fe8c1a51bacb2&mode=form&s=opportunity&tab=core

olicitation Number:
RTB220610
Notice Type:
Sources Sought
Synopsis:
Added: Jun 22, 2010 1:42 pm Modified: Jun 22, 2010 2:07 pmTrack Changes
0001- Online Persona Management Service. 50 User Licenses, 10 Personas per user.
Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms. The service includes a user friendly application environment to maximize the user's situational awareness by displaying real-time local information.

0002- Secure Virtual Private Network (VPN). 1 each
VPN provides the ability for users to daily and automatically obtain randomly selected
IP addresses through which they can access the internet. The daily rotation of
the user s IP address prevents compromise during observation of likely or
targeted web sites or services, while hiding the existence of the operation. In
addition, may provide traffic mixing, blending the user s traffic with traffic from
multitudes of users from outside the organization. This traffic blending provides
excellent cover and powerful deniability. Anonymizer Enterprise Chameleon or equal

0003- Static IP Address Management. 50 each
Licence protects the identity of government agencies and enterprise
organizations. Enables organizations to manage their persistent online personas
by assigning static IP addresses to each persona. Individuals can perform
static impersonations, which allow them to look like the same person over time.
Also allows organizations that frequent same site/service often to easily switch IP
addresses to look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization. Anonymizer IP Mapper License or equal

0004- Virtual Private Servers, CONUS. 1 each
Provides CONUS or OCONUS points of presence locations that are setup for
each customer based on the geographic area of operations the customer is
operating within and which allow a customer?s online persona(s) to appear to
originate from. Ability to provide virtual private servers that are procured using
commercial hosting centers around the world and which are established
anonymously. Once procured, the geosite is incorporated into the network and
integrated within the customers environment and ready for use by the customer.
Unless specifically designated as shared, locations are dedicated for use by
each customer and never shared among other customers. Anonymizer Annual Dedicated CONUS Light Geosite or equal

0005- Virtual Private Servers, OCONUS. 8 Each
Provides CONUS or OCONUS points of presence locations that are setup for
each customer based on the geographic area of operations the customer is
operating within and which allow a customer?s online persona(s) to appear to
originate from. Ability to provide virtual private servers that are procured using
commercial hosting centers around the world and which are established
anonymously. Once procured, the geosite is incorporated into the network and
integrated within the customers environment and ready for use by the customer.
Unless specifically designated as shared, locations are dedicated for use by
each customer and never shared among other customers. Anonymizer Annual Dedicated OCONUS Light Geosite or equal

0006- Remote Access Secure Virtual Private Network. 1 each
Secure Operating Environment provides a reliable and protected computing
environment from which to stage and conduct operations. Every session uses a
clean Virtual Machine (VM) image. The solution is accessed through sets of
Virtual Private Network (VPN) devices located at each Customer facility. The
fully-managed VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) is an environment that allows
users remote access from their desktop into a VM. Upon session termination,
the VM is deleted and any virus, worm, or malicious software that the user inadvertently downloaded is destroyed. Anonymizer Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Solution or equal.
Contracting Office Address:
2606 Brown Pelican Ave.
MacDill AFB, Florida 33621-5000
United States
Place of Performance:
Performance will be at MacDIll AFB, Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq.
MacDill AFB , Florida 33679
United States
Primary Point of Contact.:
Russell Beasley,
Contracting Officer
russell.beasley-02@macdill.af.mil
Phone: (813) 828-4729
Fax: (813) 828-5111


---
techdirt.com

More HBGary Federal Fallout: The Government Wants To Buy Software To Fake Online Grassroots Social Media Campaigns
from the ipropaganda dept

The latest in the long line of revelations from the HBGary Federal email leak, is that HBGary Federal wanted to create software that could make it easy for staffers to create and maintain a massive number of fake online social network personas, allowing them to control virtual armies of totally fake people, whose only mission is to spy on others and spew paid-for propaganda. But, what's even more amazing is that not only did the emails reveal HBGary Federal employees talking about building a platform for letting people more easily manage an army of fake personas, but that the US government put out a request for exactly that kind of software last June, with its request for "Persona Management Software."

Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms. The service includes a user friendly application environment to maximize the user's situational awareness by displaying real-time local information.

The request appears to come from the Air Force, and the idea is to use such a tool in Afghanistan and Iraq... but if the government has such tools, is it really that big of a stretch to see them using them in other contexts as well? While I do wonder how effective such a tool really is, the idea that it can pretty successfully build up "friends" using social media, and then use those for propaganda purposes seems just wrong. It seems that even the folks at HBGary Federal were somewhat perplexed by this government opportunity, with one employee sending around an email that said, simply: "WTF Dude?" while someone else questioned whether it could really be serious.

Of course, once again we're seeing HBGary Federal in the middle of a plot that sounds like the script of a bad movie. Still, the question remains: are these kinds of actions par for the course, or did HBGary Federal's boss spend way too much time watching crazy SciFi movies and using them for inspiration?

-

Microsoft Accidentally Bans Its Own License From App Store?
from the nicely-done dept

It's always amusing when companies make some sort of blanket statement or policy... only to realize they did it so broadly as to go against their own interests. Then you watch them backtrack. Microsoft got itself in some hot water lately, when some people realized that the rules for Microsoft's phone app store appeared to ban certain types of open source software. The specific claim was that it said certain types of licenses were to be excluded. Among the excluded:

"Excluded License" means any license requiring, as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of the software subject to the license, that the software or other software combined and/or distributed with it be (i) disclosed or distributed in source code form; (ii) licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (iii) redistributable at no charge.

The only problem? This appears to cover a few of Microsoft's own licenses. As Simon Phipps points out, both Microsoft's Reciprocal License and its Public License appear to violate those terms.

Upon realizing this, Microsoft is sorta trying to backtrack on this, saying that it is reconsidering the policy, but it had, in fact, done this on purpose. Still, it's apparently open to reviewing different open source licenses, meaning that it's likely trying to figure out a way to carve out rules that allow its own licenses, but still forbid GPL software. Whether you're a GPL supporter or not (and let's avoid a "holy war" discussion), this does seem a little petty.

Of course, in this rush to "app store-ify" everything, with various gatekeepers and restrictions, sooner or later people are going to remember that they can simply avoid all of this by building web apps instead.