WEBVTT

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JACK: Hey, you ready for a hacker story?

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Well, I don’t have one for you today.

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This is not a hacker story.

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It’s not even a tech story.

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The thing is, when I make this podcast, I’m diving down a million different rabbit holes,

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completely unsure where they go.

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This episode is just me going down different rabbit holes and you could come along too,

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if you want.

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But I have to warn you; this whole episode, I go into areas of knowledge that I literally

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know nothing about so I’m certain that I’m ignorant to a lot of stuff and I probably

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get some stuff wrong along the way.

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I try to double-check everything that I’m saying against multiple sources but still,

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I’m not in my lane on this one, so don’t take my word for it here.

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Even though this isn’t quite a tech-focused hacker story that you might be used to, this

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is a story about how the US military hacks people’s hearts and brains.

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JACK (INTRO): [INTRO MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side of the internet.

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I’m Jack Rhysider.

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This is Darknet Diaries.

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[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

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JACK: So, the other day I went to LinkedIn to see what’s up and there’s this guy

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that tried to connect with me there.

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Let’s just call him Henry even though that’s not his name.

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I looked to see what Henry does and it says he’s doing PSYOP in the military.

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P-S-Y-O-P and that stands for psychological operations.

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That’s a term I’d never heard before but I was immediately interested in learning more.

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PSYOP?

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First of all, why is a PSYOP person following me on LinkedIn?

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Second, what the heck is PSYOP?

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I chatted him up to find out and it turns out he’s just a big fan of the show and

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that’s why he followed me, but I was still really curious about everything related to

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PSYOP so we started talking about it.

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Turns out Henry here was in the army but is now a reservist.

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HENRY: I did intelligence support and currently I’m in psychological operations.

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JACK: Okay, so what is psychological operations?

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HENRY: Psychological operations is a skill set which is used to persuade, change, and

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influence the behavior of the target audience.

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JACK: To persuade, change, and influence the behavior of a target audience.

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To persuade, change, and influence the behavior of a target audience.

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Huh.

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HENRY: That could be with your adversary or with your friendly population.

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The main thing that PSYOP does not do is PSYOP – perform PSYOP on the American public.

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JACK: Okay, this is a lot to take in already; you’re telling me that there’s a unit

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in the army that’s sole mission is to get the adversary to change their behavior?

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Why would we need people to do this?

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HENRY: How do you become a battlefield multiplier without using weapons?

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[MUSIC] You use psychological operations.

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Those are different – there’s different tiers of PSYOP; there’s base-to-base communication,

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there’s multimedia broadcasting, there’s leaflet drop, there’s various means that

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are non-lethal to get people to make a decision because some people are, in some – in many

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cases, the way of defeating an enemy is by having the friendly population shift their

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perspective or be empowered by this type of encouragement.

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When you’re talking to someone, you could say well, you need to go to Point A – [00:05:00]

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you can go to Point A to Point B or give them a linear answer or you can move around it.

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Everybody has to be communicated to differently.

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What I’m getting at is, the most important thing is understanding – if you understand

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your target audience, you can better persuade, change, and influence their behavior which

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is favorable for the United States and our – whatever our in-state intent is.

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JACK: Alright, so hold on; let me do some research on this.

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[MUSIC] Okay, I’m pulling up some documents about PSYOPS now and yeah, it does seem like

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the army is conducting PSYOPS missions.

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Yeah, the battlefield seems to have changed from what I thought it was.

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There’s two kinds of ways to fight a war; there’s the kinetic way and non-kinetic

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way.

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Kinetic is basically physical combat like hitting an enemy with something, like shooting

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bullets or launching bombs; that’s kinetic.

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But then there’s the non-kinetic teams who are also part of the battle.

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Here’s just a few of those teams; there’s the COMCAM team.

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These people have connections to satellite imagery or even access to cameras onboard

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spy planes.

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They can get aerial photographs and videos to the commanders.

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They literally are the eyes in the sky and by the way, the US military has tons of satellites

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pointed all over Earth so within a minute or two, they can get a fresh new image of

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pretty much any part of the planet with a pretty good level of detail even if clouds

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are covering.

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Okay, so then there’s electronic warfare teams.

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These are attacks that either use or target electronic equipment to carry out objectives.

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They might have radar-jamming tools or the ability to take out cameras remotely.

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Jeez, it looks like they can even send electromagnetic waves to disrupt and degrade facilities and

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other equipment, too.

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These electronic warfare weapons can be mounted to vehicles like Humvees or tanks, but they’re

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also commonly seen on planes.

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There’s a lot you can do with the right equipment on a plane flying over your enemy.

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Here’s an example; there’s a Stingray device that the government uses sometimes

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and this is a way to beacon down a cell phone signal to all phones under the plane, and

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then all of those phones will beacon back.

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From that, you can identify the exact location of the enemy’s cell phone that you’re

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trying to track in real-time, all completely invisible, without anyone knowing this attack

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is actually happening.

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You probably wouldn’t even see the plane if it’s overhead in the clouds.

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Electronic warfare is exciting and I’ll have to dig into that more another time.

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But what I’m seeing here is that there’s some serious multi-domain operations going

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on and it’s not just infantry troops.

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Also, obviously, there’s cyber-operations too.

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With all this combined, it gives the army a massive upper hand on its adversary.

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Okay, so as I’m getting deeper into this whole PSYOPS thing, I’m finding more people

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to talk to about this.

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[MUSIC] I found this guy named Jonathan Nichols who claims to have conducted numerous PSYOP

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missions in the past and he’s willing to talk about it.

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JACK: Hello.

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JON: Hey Jack, what’s going on?

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JACK: Hey, good to hear from you.

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JON: It’s good to hear from you.

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Yeah, it took a little while to get us together but here we are.

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JACK: I wanted to know how Jon got started in all this and it turns out his mom was a

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computer hacker.

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JON: She was hacking ISPs white hat-style.

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That was how she paid her way through grad school and also introduced me to the world,

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so I started out very young.

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I think my mother – I think I was forced to build my first website at age ten.

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It’s still online somewhere.

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JACK: Once he finished high school, he thought about the army but at the same time, he really

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wanted to be a lawyer.

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So, he asked the army recruiter about being a lawyer in the army.

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JON: Yeah, the recruiter said there were no slots open for paralegal and suggested without

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any knowledge – I had no idea what it was – suggested that I go into psychological

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operations.

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They showed me the quick video.

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VIDEO: [MUSIC] Persuade, change, influence.

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That is the motto of the US Army’s Psychological Operations Regimen.

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Military operations do not always require lethal force on a battlefield.

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Military information support operations can employ non-lethal actions and messages to

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obtain military objectives.

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Trained in persuasive techniques, PSYOP soldiers use their skills to change attitudes, behaviors,

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values, beliefs, and influence foreign audiences through executing actions and the delivery

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of messages utilizing a variety of techniques.

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JACK: Well, this was all the motivation he needed.

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He signed up for the army and went through boot camp, and then went straight into PSYOPS.

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JON: The very first position is PSYOPS Specialist.

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That is the lowest person in a tactical PSYOP team, but I kind of got an itch for work,

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to be honest, at that point.

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I picked up a job as a contractor.

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The company was called Lincoln Group.

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JACK: Wait a minute; Lincoln Group.

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That does sound familiar.

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Let me look this up.

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Oh yeah, oh yeah.

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Here, I’ll just play this clip for you.

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AMY: This is Democracy Now, [00:10:00] democracynow.org.

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I’m Amy Goodman here with Juan González.

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JUAN: Last November, the Los Angeles Times first revealed that the US military was secretly

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planting stories in the Iraqi press.

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Articles written by US military information operations are translated into Arabic and

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then placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of Washington-based defense contractor, the

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Lincoln Group.

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The articles are presented to an Iraqi audience as unbiased news accounts written by independent

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journalists.

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The Lincoln Groups contract is worth up to one hundred million dollars over five years.

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AMY: In February, Rumsfeld gave a major address on information warfare at the council on foreign

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relations.

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In it, Rumsfeld criticized the media’s coverage of the Iraq war and defended the military

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practice of planting stories.

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JUAN: [MUSIC] In Iraq, for example, the US Military Command, working closely with the

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Iraqi government and the US embassy, has sought non-traditional means to provide accurate

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information to the Iraqi people in the face of aggressive campaign of disinformation.

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Yet, this has been portrayed as inappropriate.

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For example, the allegations of someone in the military hiring a contractor and the contractor

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allegedly paying someone to print a story, a true story, but paying to print a story.

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AMY: When the secret propaganda program was first revealed, even the White House admitted

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it was, quote, “very concerned about the practice” but earlier this month, the top

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Pentagon brass insisted it’ll go on.

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General George Casey said an internal review of the program had, quote, “found that we

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were operating within our authorities and responsibilities.”

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Pentagon officials told the New York Times this week the Lincoln Group remains under

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contract and will continue its activities unless the military revises its policies.

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JACK: Well, okay; the Lincoln Group didn’t get into any actual trouble over this and

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the government contracts remained, but they did end up changing their name after that

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just like how Blackwater became Xe and then became Academi.

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Lincoln Group changed their name to Fulcra Worldwide and then Strategic Social.

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Now it looks like they’ve just been bought by Academi.

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Well, this is really hard to keep straight and there’s so many rabbit holes, but Jon

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went to work for the Lincoln Group.

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JON: So, that was as the chief counter-propaganda guy for the United States Forces.

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JACK: Hold on, chief propaganda guy?

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JON: Counter-propaganda.

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Chief counter-propaganda analyst, United States Forces, Iraq.

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JACK: What does this entail?

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I don’t understand this.

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JON: That job involved monitoring adversary propaganda, so this is usually the Al-Qaeda

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types but also included the Iranian-backed.

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Al-Qaeda and a bunch of those types of guys.

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The idea is – so, the job involves identifying the messaging that’s coming from these guys,

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[MUSIC] try to be the subject-matter person on the ground, the subject-matter expert who

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gets – who observes the propaganda that these guys are putting out, understands the

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context that goes with it; so, a fist holding an AK-47 means something very specific.

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It’s a symbol for Iranian-backed extremist groups and it wouldn’t mean much at all

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to an Al-Qaeda type just, I’ll say, for example.

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So, understand the context that the message is coming from, understand who these – when

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we get these messages, we might not know exactly who the target audience is, break down those

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arguments, figure out what methods of appeal the particular piece of propaganda is using

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and then help the US government craft a counter-messaging, should it be needed.

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JACK: Okay, I think I got it; Jon was working for Lincoln Group within Iraq and then was

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listening for propaganda that the extremist groups were putting out, and then giving suggestions

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on how the US should respond to this propaganda.

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Jon was getting into the details of how Al-Qaeda was spreading their propaganda.

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JON: The chain, we’re gonna say chain of custody for the propaganda, it starts out

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with these guys in Yemen or wherever they are, Al-Qaeda headquarters putting out messaging,

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and then couriers will take those commands and post them online.

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These are specific couriers and everybody knows who these guys are.

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These are Al-Qaeda-official couriers that post online what the new directives are and

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then it disseminates from there to the battlefield commanders who take up the mission and run

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with it.

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Yeah, a lot of the job would also include identifying that messaging when it comes out

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and then [00:15:00] identifying how maybe – how that game of telephone [MUSIC] plays

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where that messages evolves over time and ends up – what does it look like at the

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end of that game of telephone when it’s posted on the door of a mosque, for example?

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JACK: This was 2010.

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Jon spent a while in Iraq and was even picking up some of the language.

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JON: I got conversational at Baghdad Iraqi Arabic; there’s so many different dialects.

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I got conversational with that one.

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JACK: After some time there, his contract was up and so he looked around to see what

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else he could do.

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He found another contract position doing PSYOPS but this time in Afghanistan.

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JON: My first role in Afghanistan, so pretty much all of 2011, I was the atmospherics manager.

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That job…

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JACK: Atmospherics manager?

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JON: Yup.

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That job involves getting the word on the street for the city.

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Essentially, it’s a type of human intelligence without using the proper title.

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Contractors are not allowed to do human intelligence.

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JACK: Human intelligence?

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Let’s hit the brakes here for a second and just peek down this rabbit hole.

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There are many types of intelligent-gathering methodology.

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You might already be aware of SIGNT and this is signals intelligence.

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Basically, the goal of SIGNT is to capture signals that the adversary is broadcasting.

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This could be wiretapping phone calls, listening on radio transmissions.

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But more recently it’s been computer hacking too, like reading e-mails or listening through

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the internet for messages that are being sent online.

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But there’s also GEOINT or sometimes known as IMINT and this is image intelligence; basically,

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aerial photography or knowledge of the terrain of the area.

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I guess if someone turns on your webcam and takes pictures of you, that might also be

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part of IMINT, too.

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There’s also OSINT and this is open-source intelligence gathering.

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This is what we do whenever we meet someone new online; we Google their name and try to

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find photos of them and what they’re into.

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OSINT is a non-intrusive way of collecting data.

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It’s just reading what’s already been published out there in the open.

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There’s more intelligence-gathering disciplines but Jon mentioned human intelligence, or HUMINT.

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This is soliciting information from someone else.

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It’s kind of hard to explain because there’s a whole spectrum of ways to solicit information

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from someone.

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Like, consider the difference between asking your neighbor a question and waterboarding

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a prisoner to try to get them to talk.

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There’s a wide range of ways to get information from people.

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Typically, HUMINT is getting information from the adversary that can be used tactically;

00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:31.550
like, having an inside source that tells you things like when an enemy convoy is moving

00:16:31.550 --> 00:16:35.360
and how many weapons are on it, or what kind of plans the enemy has.

00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:36.500
Jon doesn’t do that.

00:16:36.500 --> 00:16:40.930
Instead, he wants to find out how the people feel about local politics.

00:16:40.930 --> 00:16:46.630
He doesn’t try to uncover secrets or reveal information that might put someone in danger.

00:16:46.630 --> 00:16:50.569
He just tries to take the temperature of the neighborhood and situations.

00:16:50.569 --> 00:16:53.899
JON: We were not collecting tactical data.

00:16:53.899 --> 00:17:01.769
It was out of purview to – if one of my sources reported that they had say, for instance,

00:17:01.769 --> 00:17:05.709
seen a Taliban platoon moving through a field.

00:17:05.709 --> 00:17:06.930
That wouldn’t be relevant for us.

00:17:06.930 --> 00:17:15.069
What we cared about was word-on-the-street-type things; we wanted to hear when, say, two eighteen-year-olds

00:17:15.069 --> 00:17:21.039
or two thirty-year-olds are talking about the state of the government or the state of

00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:23.170
security or the state of the economy.

00:17:23.170 --> 00:17:29.230
JACK: The role of an atmospherics manager is to get on the streets of Afghanistan and

00:17:29.230 --> 00:17:34.270
figure out what the local people feel about the various politics in the region.

00:17:34.270 --> 00:17:35.520
But how do you do that?

00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:40.410
Afghanistan at the time was a hostile area, especially for US troops.

00:17:40.410 --> 00:17:44.070
Jon had to dress in his full battle fatigues to get in there.

00:17:44.070 --> 00:17:48.340
JON: I was very much like every other soldier, every other infantry person there.

00:17:48.340 --> 00:17:51.980
JACK: I mean, he’s got an assault rifle, helmet, everything.

00:17:51.980 --> 00:17:56.640
How does someone with an assault rifle in their hands figure out things like how does

00:17:56.640 --> 00:17:59.010
a local community feel about the local police?

00:17:59.010 --> 00:18:06.410
JON: They were paid for their placement and access near population centers or near places

00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:12.130
of interest where we wanted to get a good sense for what the word on the street is.

00:18:12.130 --> 00:18:17.410
JACK: Jon would go around town and hire key people like bartenders, the fruit market vendor,

00:18:17.410 --> 00:18:22.429
the taxi drivers, and anyone who interacted with a lot of people on a daily basis.

00:18:22.429 --> 00:18:26.190
He would pay them just to get a report of what they heard that day.

00:18:26.190 --> 00:18:34.429
JON: These conversations were reported to us through our sources in an anonymized way.

00:18:34.429 --> 00:18:39.730
All I cared about was the age, the rough age of the individual speaking, the number of

00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:43.770
individuals, were they male or female, etc.?

00:18:43.770 --> 00:18:49.630
Then these reports were aggregated up and helped get a good sense for how a population

00:18:49.630 --> 00:18:54.410
felt about a situation over pretty much the entire country.

00:18:54.410 --> 00:18:59.049
[00:20:00] An individual report in itself isn’t really useful.

00:18:59.049 --> 00:19:03.980
What two Joe Schmoes think about something isn’t – is not something you use that

00:19:03.980 --> 00:19:08.830
policy by, but when you start collecting those and aggregating them and you’ve got hundreds

00:19:08.830 --> 00:19:13.960
and thousands of reports, then you can draw some real statistical significance from what

00:19:13.960 --> 00:19:14.960
the population thinks.

00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:18.030
JACK: I don’t know what to think about PSYOP at this point.

00:19:18.030 --> 00:19:22.740
It just seems so weird to me that we go over into other countries and pay taxi drivers

00:19:22.740 --> 00:19:26.130
to give us reports about what people say when they get a ride.

00:19:26.130 --> 00:19:29.049
But hang on; let me zoom out of this rabbit hole for a second.

00:19:29.049 --> 00:19:33.059
If I look at Twitter just to try to figure out what people think of their government,

00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:38.090
in a way, that’s getting atmospheric data on the population, right?

00:19:38.090 --> 00:19:40.930
It’s such a weird term; atmospherics.

00:19:40.930 --> 00:19:45.840
But I think I get it now; it’s just getting a sense of what people feel about a particular

00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:46.840
subject.

00:19:46.840 --> 00:19:53.390
But while looking at phrases on Twitter is free, a PSYOP atmospherics manager pays people

00:19:53.390 --> 00:19:56.270
on the street for what they’ve heard that day.

00:19:56.270 --> 00:19:58.210
To me, that is strange.

00:19:58.210 --> 00:20:00.520
PSYOP still sounds freaky to me.

00:20:00.520 --> 00:20:06.160
JON: Obviously, the word PSYOP or psychological operation has a connotation that instantaneously

00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:09.410
gives you a negative perception.

00:20:09.410 --> 00:20:14.659
But no matter what you do in your daily life, you’re being PSYOPed in some capacity.

00:20:14.659 --> 00:20:20.100
It’s whether you choose or you’re openly absorbing it or you objectively are looking

00:20:20.100 --> 00:20:21.100
it.

00:20:21.100 --> 00:20:25.460
When it boils down to it, again, everybody’s being told what to buy.

00:20:25.460 --> 00:20:33.110
They’re being told what’s true via broadcast networks or whatever source you get your information.

00:20:33.110 --> 00:20:36.970
Really, is it bad? No.

00:20:36.970 --> 00:20:45.310
If the intent is to strengthen a weakened people and making them self-sustaining, yeah,

00:20:45.310 --> 00:20:52.470
again, the word PSYOP to me is cool, but it’s much more than just a scary term.

00:20:52.470 --> 00:20:56.880
If I told someone I used psychological operations, they’re gonna think I’m a spook or whatever.

00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:00.140
JACK: Okay, okay, give me a taste of what a PSYOPS mission is like.

00:21:00.140 --> 00:21:02.300
Walk me through one that you were on.

00:21:02.300 --> 00:21:08.559
JON: Okay, so there was this mission we were on and – so, we were sitting up on – high

00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:09.559
on a hilltop.

00:21:09.559 --> 00:21:13.929
JACK: This is when he was deployed in Afghanistan and he’s in a Humvee and he’s dressed

00:21:13.929 --> 00:21:15.040
like your typical soldier.

00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:16.040
JON: Yeah, absolutely.

00:21:16.040 --> 00:21:18.580
We have our full battle, what do they call it?

00:21:18.580 --> 00:21:19.580
Full Battle Rattle.

00:21:19.580 --> 00:21:23.970
You’ve got your kit on, you got your weapon, I got my gunner on top of the turret with

00:21:23.970 --> 00:21:24.970
his 240.

00:21:24.970 --> 00:21:27.220
I have the – it’s called the NGLS loudspeaker.

00:21:27.220 --> 00:21:36.330
It’s a 24” by 24” box that sits on top of a Humvee and basically, it sits in the

00:21:36.330 --> 00:21:37.600
turret.

00:21:37.600 --> 00:21:46.630
My gunner operates the speaker and rotates it left and right to broadcast the message.

00:21:46.630 --> 00:21:49.110
RECORDING: [FOREIGN THROUGH LOUDSPEAKER]

00:21:49.110 --> 00:21:54.169
JACK: Now, the loudspeaker was playing just a recorded loop; something like ‘If you

00:21:54.169 --> 00:21:58.070
see any terrorist activity, please report it to this phone number.’

00:21:58.070 --> 00:22:02.929
While they were broadcasting this message on the hilltop, something started happening

00:22:02.929 --> 00:22:04.070
down in the town.

00:22:04.070 --> 00:22:10.159
There were some US soldiers on patrol down there and near them, some locals started arguing.

00:22:10.159 --> 00:22:15.600
There was a fence between the US soldiers and the locals, but the argument started growing,

00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:20.080
and shouting and shoving started happening, and chaos started erupting among the locals.

00:22:20.080 --> 00:22:24.160
JON: The infantry guys didn’t know how to take charge because they’re not trained

00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:25.690
on that specifically.

00:22:25.690 --> 00:22:32.970
In many cases, they’re not trained to be malleable with certain situations.

00:22:32.970 --> 00:22:36.280
Also, they didn’t have a loudspeaker.

00:22:36.280 --> 00:22:42.940
We saw no value in our position on this hilltop, so we moved down to the – where the ruckus

00:22:42.940 --> 00:22:48.720
was going on ‘cause a lot of times, escalations can go bad really quick.

00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:56.260
[MUSIC] If you’re not able to calm it down, you either need to leave quickly or something

00:22:56.260 --> 00:22:57.740
bad is gonna happen.

00:22:57.740 --> 00:23:03.240
‘Cause right there, when you’re sitting in a position and there’s a crowd of people,

00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:04.740
you don’t know any of these people.

00:23:04.740 --> 00:23:08.070
They could have a suicide vest, there could be all these different variables.

00:23:08.070 --> 00:23:12.420
JACK: The PSYOPS team wanted to take charge and calm the whole situation down.

00:23:12.420 --> 00:23:16.760
Now, keep in mind, Henry here has been studying the language and the culture for months simply

00:23:16.760 --> 00:23:21.680
to understand why these people do what they do, so he starts looking to see who’s involved

00:23:21.680 --> 00:23:22.680
in this.

00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:24.220
He’s looking to see who’s here.

00:23:24.220 --> 00:23:29.039
JON: This is a town, so towns are small, villages are small, everybody knows everybody.

00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:31.190
Typically, there’s a leader, that’s the oldest.

00:23:31.190 --> 00:23:37.080
JACK: He starts looking for a voice of reason and he finds this old guy who looked calm,

00:23:37.080 --> 00:23:40.590
concerned, helpful, possibly a trusted member of the community.

00:23:40.590 --> 00:23:45.090
Henry has been trained to understand their culture so he picked this one guy to help

00:23:45.090 --> 00:23:46.090
out.

00:23:46.090 --> 00:23:50.340
Henry grabs a manpack and this is a speaker with a backpack built in, and he throws it

00:23:50.340 --> 00:23:52.650
over his shoulder and goes up to the older guy.

00:23:52.650 --> 00:23:57.530
Again, he picked this particular guy [00:25:00] because he seemed like a cog, a center of

00:23:57.530 --> 00:24:01.400
gravity, someone that everyone in that area might listen to.

00:24:01.400 --> 00:24:07.230
JON: We had that cog speak through the loudspeaker and had him speak to calm down everybody and

00:24:07.230 --> 00:24:10.600
say hey, we’re working on making the community better.

00:24:10.600 --> 00:24:11.600
Everybody calm down.

00:24:11.600 --> 00:24:13.140
JACK: This worked.

00:24:13.140 --> 00:24:17.970
The person he picked out to use the loudspeaker, he spoke the local language and was able to

00:24:17.970 --> 00:24:22.540
diffuse the whole situation, and everyone calmed down.

00:24:22.540 --> 00:24:26.880
Huh, the PSYOP mission statement is becoming more clear now.

00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:30.870
JON: The mission statement of PSYOP is to persuade, change, and influence the hearts

00:24:30.870 --> 00:24:34.200
and minds of foreign nationals to meet US objectives.

00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:36.700
JACK: Influence, influence.

00:24:36.700 --> 00:24:39.659
That part is still hard for me to fully understand.

00:24:39.659 --> 00:24:43.510
[MUSIC] You’re telling me that US troops are going over to foreign countries to get

00:24:43.510 --> 00:24:45.700
people to change their mind on things?

00:24:45.700 --> 00:24:47.700
JON: Yes, that’s part of the objective.

00:24:47.700 --> 00:24:51.039
JACK: Alright, we’re gonna take a quick break and when we come back, Jon’s gonna

00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:57.550
tell us a story about how he used PSYOP to discover a weapons cache.

00:24:57.550 --> 00:25:04.960
Alright, let’s hear another PSYOP mission.

00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:10.530
This one is one that Jon conducted while he was stationed in Iraq.

00:25:10.530 --> 00:25:17.960
JON: It was, I believe October 2008, and I had just moved from Baghdad where we were

00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:22.730
getting blown up on a fairly regular basis, to central Iraq.

00:25:22.730 --> 00:25:27.559
JACK: Down in central Iraq, he wanted to find where terrorists were storing weapons like

00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:28.789
bombs and rifles.

00:25:28.789 --> 00:25:35.350
He wanted to see if he could conduct a psychological operation to uncover the location of these

00:25:35.350 --> 00:25:36.350
weapons.

00:25:36.350 --> 00:25:41.510
JON: Went to a map and pulled out this – just essentially the old school pen and paper.

00:25:41.510 --> 00:25:46.950
It’s the only time I’ve ever actually done this; sat down with the huge map sprawled

00:25:46.950 --> 00:25:51.429
out on the floor in the PSYOP headquarters and just put a pin for everywhere that we

00:25:51.429 --> 00:25:56.950
knew there was a historic cache site where Americans had found a large number of bombs

00:25:56.950 --> 00:25:59.169
before.

00:25:59.169 --> 00:26:05.740
Known HVTs, high-value targets, known bad guy locations; where did these guys sleep?

00:26:05.740 --> 00:26:07.730
Where did they live?

00:26:07.730 --> 00:26:13.750
[MUSIC] And known historic attack sites, so where had IEDs gone off previously in the

00:26:13.750 --> 00:26:14.750
area?

00:26:14.750 --> 00:26:19.419
From that data, there seemed to be a very obvious – about three-kilometer by three-kilometer

00:26:19.419 --> 00:26:25.309
cluster near a fairly small population center.

00:26:25.309 --> 00:26:33.080
It looks like a village; looks like the town square for a village or something.

00:26:33.080 --> 00:26:41.549
My team, for reasons that are kind of rare, my team ended up all on vacation at the same

00:26:41.549 --> 00:26:42.549
time.

00:26:42.549 --> 00:26:46.360
Even though I was the lowest man on the team, it was my team.

00:26:46.360 --> 00:26:53.480
I decided that the mission that I was going to do was try to execute this counter-IED

00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:54.480
push.

00:26:54.480 --> 00:27:01.590
I went out every day and talked with every single local I could, made sure that anybody

00:27:01.590 --> 00:27:06.789
coming in and out heard our loudspeaker message as well, and then also disseminated all sorts

00:27:06.789 --> 00:27:07.789
of different leaflets.

00:27:07.789 --> 00:27:14.000
This is why PSYOP often gets the derogatory term ‘combat paperboy.’

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:16.810
JACK: The loudspeaker, what’s going on there?

00:27:16.810 --> 00:27:20.750
Is that coming out of your jeep or something in their language?

00:27:20.750 --> 00:27:24.010
JON: Yes, there is, yes, yeah.

00:27:24.010 --> 00:27:29.760
There’s a native linguist that works with the PSYOP teams and is usually on the mission

00:27:29.760 --> 00:27:31.930
with us.

00:27:31.930 --> 00:27:37.770
We drive around and we have loudspeakers that sit in the turret.

00:27:37.770 --> 00:27:43.570
It’s more important that our – keeping our loudspeakers up is more important to a

00:27:43.570 --> 00:27:45.790
PSYOP team than keeping the main gun up.

00:27:45.790 --> 00:27:47.250
We’re usually with tons of infantry.

00:27:47.250 --> 00:27:50.649
They have the guns; we’re the only ones with the loudspeaker.

00:27:50.649 --> 00:27:59.529
I know it sounds silly but honestly, we were so effective that there were specific [00:30:00]

00:27:59.529 --> 00:28:02.000
orders to target the trucks with the loudspeakers.

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:06.289
JACK: On this mission, besides driving around broadcasting the message and besides going

00:28:06.289 --> 00:28:11.039
around shaking hands and meeting as many people as he could in town, he was also passing out

00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:16.940
leaflets or pamphlets, sometimes even sticking them up on doors and walls around town.

00:28:16.940 --> 00:28:21.179
He was doing this in his full battle fatigues as well, with an assault rifle in his hands

00:28:21.179 --> 00:28:25.110
and a helmet on, because he is in a hostile area still.

00:28:25.110 --> 00:28:27.740
But the leaflets he was passing around, they had a message.

00:28:27.740 --> 00:28:35.900
JON: [MUSIC] Essentially that this – IEDs are just as much – they damage the population;

00:28:35.900 --> 00:28:38.730
they damage the civilians just as much as they damage us.

00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:41.370
These guys are not very accurate when they aim.

00:28:41.370 --> 00:28:45.710
You are just as likely to get exploded as we are.

00:28:45.710 --> 00:28:51.990
But also brings criminal elements into your city which then necessitates the increase

00:28:51.990 --> 00:28:53.850
in our presence.

00:28:53.850 --> 00:28:54.850
We don’t want to be here.

00:28:54.850 --> 00:28:56.340
You don’t want us here.

00:28:56.340 --> 00:28:59.840
We don’t want to see explosions in your neighborhood; you don’t want to see explosions

00:28:59.840 --> 00:29:01.140
in your neighborhood.

00:29:01.140 --> 00:29:05.779
Help us make sure there are no explosions in your neighborhood.

00:29:05.779 --> 00:29:09.100
Report to this tips line number.

00:29:09.100 --> 00:29:11.620
Usually that’s roughly how the message goes.

00:29:11.620 --> 00:29:18.299
What ended up happening was that a – the driver of one of these major trucks had just

00:29:18.299 --> 00:29:25.100
finished delivering this huge shipment of IEDs from Iran, got handed one of my leaflets

00:29:25.100 --> 00:29:31.690
from one of the checkpoints, and went straight to the American base.

00:29:31.690 --> 00:29:36.700
With a strip map drawn on the back of the leaflet, it showed us exactly where the IEDs

00:29:36.700 --> 00:29:37.700
were.

00:29:37.700 --> 00:29:40.470
It resulted in the third-largest cache in the history of the war.

00:29:40.470 --> 00:29:42.490
JACK: Whoa, interesting.

00:29:42.490 --> 00:29:48.029
With just the loudspeaker and these leaflets, he was able to take control of a massive weapons

00:29:48.029 --> 00:29:49.029
cache.

00:29:49.029 --> 00:29:51.539
What a fascinating way to conduct war.

00:29:51.539 --> 00:29:54.510
JON: Over three thousand EFP components.

00:29:54.510 --> 00:29:58.669
Those have an 80% kill rate, enough to make over a thousand EFPs.

00:29:58.669 --> 00:30:05.179
JACK: [MUSIC] Okay, so in this situation, fine; you’ve disarmed the enemy of not only

00:30:05.179 --> 00:30:10.179
the US but also the local people in the area, and that is a good job.

00:30:10.179 --> 00:30:14.740
Okay, but PSYOPS isn’t always this clear and understood.

00:30:14.740 --> 00:30:18.299
There’s three kinds of PSYOPS; there’s white, grey, and black.

00:30:18.299 --> 00:30:21.419
JON: Yeah, white PSYOP is truth, it’s the truth.

00:30:21.419 --> 00:30:23.929
You could put a face behind it, right?

00:30:23.929 --> 00:30:24.929
JACK: Gotcha.

00:30:24.929 --> 00:30:29.250
White PSYOPS is just like we heard so far; honesty-type stuff, a clear message with a

00:30:29.250 --> 00:30:32.480
clear sender and receiver with a clear objective.

00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:36.860
But then there’s grey PSYOPS which may not always be so clear or truthful.

00:30:36.860 --> 00:30:38.399
This is a little bit more hidden.

00:30:38.399 --> 00:30:42.320
To notice it, you might have to squint a little and still, you aren’t sure.

00:30:42.320 --> 00:30:46.960
It’s kind of like when you see a viral video of something online that’s funny or cool.

00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:50.919
You watch the whole thing and then at the end there’s a person that has a name-brand

00:30:50.919 --> 00:30:55.049
shirt on or is holding a drink with a label clearly visible.

00:30:55.049 --> 00:31:01.190
You wonder wait a minute, was this just some clever ad or was this somebody actually making

00:31:01.190 --> 00:31:02.580
a funny video?

00:31:02.580 --> 00:31:04.980
It’s hard to tell.

00:31:04.980 --> 00:31:06.980
Then there’s black PSYOPS.

00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:09.330
Black PSYOPS is almost impossible to spot.

00:31:09.330 --> 00:31:14.000
They pose as legitimate messages from one person to another, but something is wrong

00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:15.240
about it.

00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:20.660
Maybe that person didn’t actually send the message or the message isn’t factual.

00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:24.970
But it’s so cleverly put together than it’s too hard to tell.

00:31:24.970 --> 00:31:29.440
For instance, if I invaded a region of the world which has two different enemy factions

00:31:29.440 --> 00:31:35.090
both fighting with me, what if I could start a war between those two factions?

00:31:35.090 --> 00:31:39.419
This way, they’d waste their energy and resources fighting each other and I could

00:31:39.419 --> 00:31:43.950
just kind of wait until they’re out of energy and then try to fight them.

00:31:43.950 --> 00:31:46.710
Black PSYOPS does stuff like this.

00:31:46.710 --> 00:31:50.899
It might be posing as the leader of one of the enemies sending a message to the people

00:31:50.899 --> 00:31:56.130
to attack the other enemy but then purposely getting that transmission leaked into the

00:31:56.130 --> 00:32:00.909
enemy’s hands so that they think an attack is coming, and then they attack first.

00:32:00.909 --> 00:32:05.870
Because PSYOPS teams know this culture so well and they know the enemy so well, they

00:32:05.870 --> 00:32:10.580
can craft a message that is indistinguishable from an authentic one.

00:32:10.580 --> 00:32:15.019
Here, I have an example of a grey or black PSYOP mission.

00:32:15.019 --> 00:32:17.450
As I’m looking into this, I’m learning that this isn’t new.

00:32:17.450 --> 00:32:21.090
I’m just not up on how military conducts their affairs.

00:32:21.090 --> 00:32:24.540
Apparently PSYOPS has been going on for decades, ever since World War I.

00:32:24.540 --> 00:32:29.070
There was this one mission in Vietnam called Operation Wandering Soul.

00:32:29.070 --> 00:32:32.029
It’s just as scary as it sounds.

00:32:32.029 --> 00:32:34.570
Here, listen to this.

00:32:34.570 --> 00:32:42.269
[STRANGE HAUNTING SOUNDS] These are the sounds that the PSYOPS troops were playing for the

00:32:42.269 --> 00:32:45.070
enemy in Vietnam over the loudspeakers.

00:32:45.070 --> 00:32:48.460
Of course, they played it at night from helicopters, from jeeps, and from stations within the jungles.

00:32:48.460 --> 00:33:01.730
[00:35:00] Eventually, there’s a voice.

00:33:01.730 --> 00:33:13.730
[ECHOING VOICE] See, the PSYOPS teams learned that in Vietnam, when someone is improperly

00:33:13.730 --> 00:33:19.429
buried, some Vietnamese people believe their soul wanders forever.

00:33:19.429 --> 00:33:26.160
They played this message in Vietnamese of a person who died and is wandering.

00:33:26.160 --> 00:33:32.350
It specifically says things like ‘leave this place, honor my space as a wandering

00:33:32.350 --> 00:33:35.130
soul of this area.

00:33:35.130 --> 00:33:38.230
Go away.’

00:33:38.230 --> 00:33:43.029
Nobody knows if this actually worked or not, whether it chased out any Viet Cong.

00:33:43.029 --> 00:33:44.159
What the heck is this?

00:33:44.159 --> 00:33:46.460
Is this grey PSYOP or black PSYOP?

00:33:46.460 --> 00:33:52.080
I mean, if I were Viet Cong and I heard this in the jungle, it might not be clear to me

00:33:52.080 --> 00:33:53.590
who was sending this message.

00:33:53.590 --> 00:33:56.799
Would I know it’s some kind of psychological trick?

00:33:56.799 --> 00:34:02.080
If I believed the US was broadcasting it, then this would be grey PSYOP, but if I truly

00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:06.860
believed there was a wandering soul in the jungle trying to chase me out, this would

00:34:06.860 --> 00:34:08.879
be black PSYOP.

00:34:08.879 --> 00:34:12.409
I guess that’s why I think PSYOPS is so weird because in my head, there has to be

00:34:12.409 --> 00:34:18.150
a ton of operations being conducted which are grey and black PSYOPS which is freaky.

00:34:18.150 --> 00:34:22.030
From what I can tell, the army doesn’t engage with this kind of PSYOPS though, because they

00:34:22.030 --> 00:34:25.879
don’t want to undermine the trust of the local people and they want to be honest and

00:34:25.879 --> 00:34:27.020
straightforward.

00:34:27.020 --> 00:34:30.210
They like to stick with a clear and honest message.

00:34:30.210 --> 00:34:35.690
If you think about it, this is really just propaganda just done in a tactical way.

00:34:35.690 --> 00:34:37.280
Okay, so, where were we?

00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:38.640
Let’s get back to Jon.

00:34:38.640 --> 00:34:43.540
He goes on to tell me that while he was an atmospherics manager in Afghanistan, something

00:34:43.540 --> 00:34:44.619
odd happened.

00:34:44.619 --> 00:34:51.000
JON: Throughout that time, it appeared – it seems pretty obvious to me that the cyber-threat

00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:56.399
was looming.

00:34:56.399 --> 00:35:02.050
Anonymous was right there at the peak of operations and we had Wikileaks doing its thing.

00:35:02.050 --> 00:35:07.510
There were a large number of these – these smaller hacker groups were starting to crop

00:35:07.510 --> 00:35:12.079
up, one of them being Junaid Hussain’s crew.

00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:16.010
TeaMp0isoN was their name.

00:35:16.010 --> 00:35:22.400
Even though my official tasking of monitoring them was no longer applied when I switched

00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:28.240
positions and went to Afghanistan, I still kept the finger on the pulse of what was going

00:35:28.240 --> 00:35:33.530
on in the hacker world, simply out of boredom and curiosity if nothing else.

00:35:33.530 --> 00:35:36.750
There’s not a lot to do in your free time in Afghanistan.

00:35:36.750 --> 00:35:40.790
There’s only so many reruns of House I could watch.

00:35:40.790 --> 00:35:49.390
I was in an IRC channel and somebody hit me in a PM which is essentially like a DM.

00:35:49.390 --> 00:35:51.620
It’s the same concept, right?

00:35:51.620 --> 00:35:58.490
[MUSIC] Two users talking to each other outside of the public view.

00:35:58.490 --> 00:36:02.080
He stated to me that there were missiles headed my way.

00:36:02.080 --> 00:36:05.770
I said you know, I’m overseas right now.

00:36:05.770 --> 00:36:07.810
I get rocketed fairly regularly.

00:36:07.810 --> 00:36:10.410
Missiles are a different thing, though.

00:36:10.410 --> 00:36:14.980
Who are you and do you know the difference?

00:36:14.980 --> 00:36:16.670
He said yes, I do know the difference.

00:36:16.670 --> 00:36:22.369
I know that these are coming because I’m on the Pakistani side of the border and I

00:36:22.369 --> 00:36:26.320
just saw them flying overhead.

00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:32.890
This is one of those very weird moments ‘cause I – it’s what we call single-source unvetted.

00:36:32.890 --> 00:36:35.310
I haven’t vetted this actor.

00:36:35.310 --> 00:36:39.400
He’s just one guy, so unvetted and single-sourced.

00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:44.870
It’s some random dude in some random IRC channel on the internet.

00:36:44.870 --> 00:36:48.849
I quietly take that report and I handwrite it.

00:36:48.849 --> 00:36:52.500
This is one of those I don’t even want touching my e-mail inbox.

00:36:52.500 --> 00:36:57.790
I walk that report over to the intelligence people, just hand it to them.

00:36:57.790 --> 00:37:00.450
I don’t want to touch that anymore; don’t tell me anything about it.

00:37:00.450 --> 00:37:02.369
Just, here you go.

00:37:02.369 --> 00:37:05.240
Then I go to bed that night.

00:37:05.240 --> 00:37:12.180
Wake up the next morning and I’m doing my – I’m just meeting with my sources and

00:37:12.180 --> 00:37:17.069
three individual sources said all the Pashtun people are talking about – the Pashtun are

00:37:17.069 --> 00:37:25.119
largely the people that live in the Afghan tribal zone area that you hear about.

00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:31.670
They said all those people are talking that a village had been hit in the Kunar province

00:37:31.670 --> 00:37:34.830
by Pakistani missiles.

00:37:34.830 --> 00:37:39.420
Three or four or five of these people are all reporting back the same thing, multiple

00:37:39.420 --> 00:37:44.160
reports from each of them that that’s all the Pashtun people are talking about today.

00:37:44.160 --> 00:37:51.920
That’s enough for me to hop back and drive straight back to base, hope onto IRC, say

00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:54.080
who the hell are you?

00:37:54.080 --> 00:37:59.450
[MUSIC] The dude tells me who he is and says he wants to hire me back in America.

00:37:59.450 --> 00:38:05.910
[00:40:00] He was hiring me to be a – to lead the threat intel analyst team ‘cause

00:38:05.910 --> 00:38:11.150
he knew that I knew how intelligence worked and knew that I was fairly up on what hackers

00:38:11.150 --> 00:38:13.250
were doing.

00:38:13.250 --> 00:38:18.220
After I finished my one year in Afghanistan, I moved to New York City and started work

00:38:18.220 --> 00:38:19.220
on that.

00:38:19.220 --> 00:38:25.900
At that point, it was now my job to engage with hackers, identify what was going on every

00:38:25.900 --> 00:38:27.859
single day, and report that up.

00:38:27.859 --> 00:38:33.510
JACK: Interesting, so while Jon was trained on how to distill what was going on with adversaries

00:38:33.510 --> 00:38:39.760
in foreign nations, now he’s shifting his focus to listen to the hacker world and report

00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:43.980
what’s happening there to his clients which were large companies who hired him.

00:38:43.980 --> 00:38:47.950
JON: To get advanced knowledge of what kind of attacks are coming down the pipeline and

00:38:47.950 --> 00:38:49.290
to mitigate attacks that are ongoing.

00:38:49.290 --> 00:38:52.829
JACK: This is commonly known as threat intelligence.

00:38:52.829 --> 00:38:56.470
I can certainly see the parallels here between PSYOPS and threat intelligence.

00:38:56.470 --> 00:39:00.800
See, most organizations have no clue what cyber-attacks are coming down the pipe.

00:39:00.800 --> 00:39:05.140
They just don’t have the network monitoring skills or maturity to do this.

00:39:05.140 --> 00:39:08.099
Even if they had the knowledge, I’m not sure they’d even know what to do with this

00:39:08.099 --> 00:39:09.630
advanced warning.

00:39:09.630 --> 00:39:14.660
But some organizations are larger and more mature and can pay to have a threat intelligence

00:39:14.660 --> 00:39:15.660
team.

00:39:15.660 --> 00:39:20.530
With this, they are getting early warnings on who may be doing an attack and why.

00:39:20.530 --> 00:39:24.740
Let’s hear a story of something that Jon did while he was there.

00:39:24.740 --> 00:39:29.240
He had clients and their main website all of a sudden went down for this company.

00:39:29.240 --> 00:39:35.000
JON: I believe it was a NTP DDoS attack against the primary website; Network Time Protocol.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:39.329
JACK: Okay, so typically, you’re not gonna find out who is doing this unless they tell

00:39:39.329 --> 00:39:40.329
you directly.

00:39:40.329 --> 00:39:41.830
That’s just the nature of cyber-attacks.

00:39:41.830 --> 00:39:44.170
They go unresolved forever.

00:39:44.170 --> 00:39:49.270
But Jon’s job was to try to have an awareness of what was going on in the hacker world.

00:39:49.270 --> 00:39:58.160
JON: They put out a request to see if we can identify who’s doing it.

00:39:58.160 --> 00:40:02.930
JACK: Jon hit the usual spots he knows that hackers go to to see if he can figure out

00:40:02.930 --> 00:40:03.930
who’s doing this.

00:40:03.930 --> 00:40:07.890
JON: In those days it was fairly easy when you had Anonymous bragging about it on Twitter.

00:40:07.890 --> 00:40:08.890
JACK: A-ha!

00:40:08.890 --> 00:40:13.400
First clue; if Anonymous is tweeting about this, then he can go to Anonymous to learn

00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:14.400
more.

00:40:14.400 --> 00:40:19.090
He goes to where people in Anonymous like to hang out which was an IRC chatroom at the

00:40:19.090 --> 00:40:20.300
time.

00:40:20.300 --> 00:40:24.100
In these chat channels, you can just join them and then hang out in there forever.

00:40:24.100 --> 00:40:29.150
While you’re there, you could record all the conversations that are going on.

00:40:29.150 --> 00:40:34.990
Jon scours through the channels looking for any mention of his client and bingo; he found

00:40:34.990 --> 00:40:38.790
the person who was claiming responsibility for taking down his clients’ websites.

00:40:38.790 --> 00:40:43.800
JON: I think they were in an IRC channel, like an EFnet channel that wasn’t masking

00:40:43.800 --> 00:40:46.900
their IP address.

00:40:46.900 --> 00:40:51.750
From there, we were able to get to a specific small city in West Virginia.

00:40:51.750 --> 00:40:55.760
JACK: The more you start to know about someone, the easier it becomes to find them.

00:40:55.760 --> 00:41:00.290
Combine a username, IP, and a city into Google, and see what you get.

00:41:00.290 --> 00:41:05.020
From this, Jon was able to figure out this guy’s name and phone number and with a name

00:41:05.020 --> 00:41:08.060
and phone number, Jon calls him up and told him.

00:41:08.060 --> 00:41:11.220
JON: I’ve got you dead to rights.

00:41:11.220 --> 00:41:17.130
I’m hoping that this is – we can stop this before they arrest you.

00:41:17.130 --> 00:41:26.780
I had a fairly good sense of who was at the SOC over in the defending organization.

00:41:26.780 --> 00:41:32.119
We were drinking buddies on the weekend so it was fairly easy for me to say hey, I found

00:41:32.119 --> 00:41:37.010
the dude, he’s agreed to stop, let’s just drop it here.

00:41:37.010 --> 00:41:42.970
He turned out to be like, a sixteen-year-old kid.

00:41:42.970 --> 00:41:48.530
Having that discussion, I was hopefully able to keep one dude out of prison and not destroy

00:41:48.530 --> 00:41:52.760
somebody’s career, and also get everybody the warm-and-fuzzies that they were no longer

00:41:52.760 --> 00:41:53.760
getting attacked.

00:41:53.760 --> 00:41:57.119
JACK: Did that kid comply or what was his response to you?

00:41:57.119 --> 00:42:01.540
JON: Yeah, he complied and he’s spoken at several conferences since.

00:42:01.540 --> 00:42:10.069
We’ve lost touch but as far as I know, he’s still running around giving talks at different

00:42:10.069 --> 00:42:11.069
conferences.

00:42:11.069 --> 00:42:13.369
He’s making a name for himself in the community.

00:42:13.369 --> 00:42:14.780
JACK: Huh.

00:42:14.780 --> 00:42:17.609
Wait, where am I?

00:42:17.609 --> 00:42:19.599
What string am I even pulling on right now?

00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:23.980
See, this is what happens when I get into an episode; I just get thrown off-course like,

00:42:23.980 --> 00:42:24.980
all the time.

00:42:24.980 --> 00:42:26.891
The tech world is so fascinating to me.

00:42:26.891 --> 00:42:29.300
I can’t help diving into all these different things to learn more.

00:42:29.300 --> 00:42:31.940
Oh yeah, yeah, this episode is about PSYOPS.

00:42:31.940 --> 00:42:35.740
Okay, I feel like I have a good understanding of what PSYOPS is at this point.

00:42:35.740 --> 00:42:39.380
But there’s still a lingering question that I bet some of you are thinking about right

00:42:39.380 --> 00:42:46.450
now which is if the US army is out there trying to persuade, change, and influence the behavior

00:42:46.450 --> 00:42:52.030
of a target audience, then is there anyone conducting these kinds of operations against

00:42:52.030 --> 00:42:54.030
us? Well, yeah.

00:42:54.030 --> 00:42:56.470
Yeah, definitely, in a big way.

00:42:56.470 --> 00:42:59.780
Just listen to this; someone paid millions of dollars to [00:45:00] try to permanently

00:42:59.780 --> 00:43:05.230
etch these jingles into your brain to the point that we all have them memorized now.

00:43:05.230 --> 00:43:07.970
MCDS: [MUSIC] Ba-da-ba-ba-ba, I’m lovin’ it.

00:43:07.970 --> 00:43:19.810
STATEF: [MUSIC] Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

00:43:19.810 --> 00:43:20.810
KITKAT: [MUSIC] Give me a break, give me a break, break me off a piece of that Kit Kat

00:43:20.810 --> 00:43:21.810
bar.

00:43:21.810 --> 00:43:22.810
JACK: This is obvious, right?

00:43:22.810 --> 00:43:24.830
The mad men and the ad agencies of the world are using every trick in the book to influence

00:43:24.830 --> 00:43:26.280
us to buy their products.

00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:29.150
We’re inundated with this kind of stuff all day long.

00:43:29.150 --> 00:43:34.580
But now we carry the internet in our pockets and put so much of our life on it.

00:43:34.580 --> 00:43:39.150
Online ad agencies have found ways to target us by tracking us, watching what we say online,

00:43:39.150 --> 00:43:43.650
and what we buy, and what we do, and what we search for, and then they give us tailored

00:43:43.650 --> 00:43:46.150
and custom ads just for us.

00:43:46.150 --> 00:43:48.599
The level of sophistication here is unbelievable.

00:43:48.599 --> 00:43:53.580
I mean, they’re even listening to what we’re saying through our mics and giving us ads

00:43:53.580 --> 00:43:55.480
based on what they hear.

00:43:55.480 --> 00:43:57.619
It’s nuts. It’s creepy.

00:43:57.619 --> 00:44:02.020
It’s dystopian and it’s PSYOP.

00:44:02.020 --> 00:44:03.470
What’s the deal with news today?

00:44:03.470 --> 00:44:07.589
There’s so many channels that don’t seem to be reporting honestly or accurately and

00:44:07.589 --> 00:44:12.030
are broadcasting something to push a certain agenda or propaganda.

00:44:12.030 --> 00:44:16.849
My dad used to tell me not to play too many video games because it might warp my brain

00:44:16.849 --> 00:44:23.720
but is it possible that if he consumes enough slanted or biased mainstream media that his

00:44:23.720 --> 00:44:26.560
brain might become the one that gets warped?

00:44:26.560 --> 00:44:28.650
But actually, that’s not the lingering question.

00:44:28.650 --> 00:44:34.720
I bet what you’re really wondering is whether or not Russia has been running psychological

00:44:34.720 --> 00:44:38.470
operations on people in the US to influence us in the way we vote.

00:44:38.470 --> 00:44:40.349
Well yeah, they are.

00:44:40.349 --> 00:44:44.359
There’s overwhelming evidence about this at this point but just to give you one piece

00:44:44.359 --> 00:44:49.480
of evidence, here’s an interview on PBS’s Frontline with James Clapper.

00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:53.950
James Clapper was the director of national intelligence at the time of the 2016 election.

00:44:53.950 --> 00:44:55.190
Here’s what he said.

00:44:55.190 --> 00:45:01.550
JAMES: If you go back to, actually, the 60s, there was evidence of Russians attempting

00:45:01.550 --> 00:45:05.270
to interfere with or influence somehow the outcome of our elections.

00:45:05.270 --> 00:45:10.829
Not very successfully, but given the advent of all the technology now, there’s a certain

00:45:10.829 --> 00:45:16.990
ambient level that we would expect the Russians to engage in anyway.

00:45:16.990 --> 00:45:21.750
JACK: Okay, so there’s always been some kind of Russian involvement with our elections.

00:45:21.750 --> 00:45:25.020
James Clapper knows this because he’s the director of national intelligence.

00:45:25.020 --> 00:45:29.440
He’s been briefed by the NSA and CIA about the history of these matters.

00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:33.280
JAMES: In this case though, as we documented it in our intelligence community assessment

00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:38.430
that we published on the 6th of January, this was the most aggressive and most direct and

00:45:38.430 --> 00:45:45.099
most assertive campaign that the Russians ever mounted in the history of our elections

00:45:45.099 --> 00:45:48.490
to interfere and to somehow influence the outcome.

00:45:48.490 --> 00:45:53.339
[MUSIC] This felt as though he’d been dissed by President Clinton.

00:45:53.339 --> 00:46:00.040
That, compounded by what he was convinced in his own mind, I guess, was an attempt at

00:46:00.040 --> 00:46:02.930
a color revolution and to unseat him.

00:46:02.930 --> 00:46:10.300
He was convinced that the administration, led by Secretary Clinton, was out for a regime

00:46:10.300 --> 00:46:11.300
change.

00:46:11.300 --> 00:46:18.490
That is what the source of the animus that actually we believe motivated Putin to interfere

00:46:18.490 --> 00:46:22.330
as much as he did and as aggressively as the Russians did.

00:46:22.330 --> 00:46:26.000
JACK: Okay, so we have the motive and Russia has the know-how.

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:33.349
JAMES: What characterized this, that the 2016 campaign is so different than the others,

00:46:33.349 --> 00:46:38.350
were the variety and intensity of the techniques that they employed.

00:46:38.350 --> 00:46:46.200
Apart from the famous or infamous hacking of the DNC e-mails and the exquisitely-timed

00:46:46.200 --> 00:46:52.760
dumping of them, were their use of – very skillful, sophisticated use of social media;

00:46:52.760 --> 00:46:55.849
social media trolls, planting fake news.

00:46:55.849 --> 00:47:02.990
A very, I think, sophisticated, slick propaganda campaign mounted by RT which of course is

00:47:02.990 --> 00:47:05.720
a government propaganda arm.

00:47:05.720 --> 00:47:11.240
The combination of all these tools that they use constituted this aggressiveness and the

00:47:11.240 --> 00:47:14.380
multi-dimensional nature of the campaign.

00:47:14.380 --> 00:47:18.840
That’s what distinguished it from any other in our history.

00:47:18.840 --> 00:47:23.339
JACK: Okay, so Russia wanted to mess with our elections by hacking into stuff and using

00:47:23.339 --> 00:47:28.520
fake news, bots, trolls, and social media to influence voters.

00:47:28.520 --> 00:47:33.400
But with any good PSYOP mission, they had specific objectives that they were trying

00:47:33.400 --> 00:47:34.400
to accomplish.

00:47:34.400 --> 00:47:40.400
JAMES: First of which was to cast doubt or cause doubt in the minds of the public or

00:47:40.400 --> 00:47:41.940
the electorate.

00:47:41.940 --> 00:47:48.520
Then secondly, of course, was again this animus, personal animus Putin had towards Secretary

00:47:48.520 --> 00:47:49.520
Clinton.

00:47:49.520 --> 00:47:57.589
JACK: Russia started spreading a lot of anti-Hillary propaganda, targeting US audiences by publishing

00:47:57.589 --> 00:48:02.460
articles that [00:50:00] smear her legitimacy, by making memes that say things like ‘lock

00:48:02.460 --> 00:48:06.069
her up,’ and by feeding the narrative of how bad she is.

00:48:06.069 --> 00:48:11.680
I’m not gonna get into whether or not any of this was fake news or actually factual.

00:48:11.680 --> 00:48:16.520
All I’m trying to point out here is that Russia was spending money and resources to

00:48:16.520 --> 00:48:22.480
influence the way we vote in the United States by taking part in anti-Hillary propaganda.

00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:28.320
JAMES: As things unfolded, because initially the Russians, I don’t believe took Trump

00:48:28.320 --> 00:48:32.950
seriously as a candidate just like no one else did, either.

00:48:32.950 --> 00:48:37.260
But as things transpired and particularly when he became their public nominee, their

00:48:37.260 --> 00:48:39.710
focus kind of changed.

00:48:39.710 --> 00:48:42.290
What could they do to favor him?

00:48:42.290 --> 00:48:48.420
Because clearly, they would prefer him over her, not withstanding the animus towards her

00:48:48.420 --> 00:48:54.210
just because he was known as a business man, somebody you could make deals with, and had

00:48:54.210 --> 00:48:56.240
some prior dealings with the Russians.

00:48:56.240 --> 00:49:03.589
The thought was that he would go easy, for example, on human rights.

00:49:03.589 --> 00:49:11.370
For their – I’ll say their objectives, I think kind of evolved as the campaign unfolded.

00:49:11.370 --> 00:49:17.059
JACK: The Director of US Intelligence, James Clapper, would be in the position to know

00:49:17.059 --> 00:49:19.200
this stuff better than anyone.

00:49:19.200 --> 00:49:25.410
It’s fascinating to hear him explain how Russia has used PSYOP campaigns against us.

00:49:25.410 --> 00:49:30.260
These were all very cleverly done by people in Russia who clearly understood American

00:49:30.260 --> 00:49:33.040
culture and what influences us.

00:49:33.040 --> 00:49:36.610
But I think this is a much bigger topic than what I’m willing to get into right now because

00:49:36.610 --> 00:49:38.110
there’s just so much to it.

00:49:38.110 --> 00:49:42.270
We could go into Cambridge Analytica, and the DNC hacks, and how voting machines are

00:49:42.270 --> 00:49:43.819
vulnerable, and so much more.

00:49:43.819 --> 00:49:48.510
Ah, but actually, there is something more I want to say about this; that’s about memes.

00:49:48.510 --> 00:49:51.270
I just read a bunch about memetic warfare.

00:49:51.270 --> 00:49:55.200
This is where people are taking memes and turning them into weapons.

00:49:55.200 --> 00:50:00.599
A meme is just text over a picture and it spreads on social media.

00:50:00.599 --> 00:50:05.010
These meme-makers will take something which has a kernel of truth and then twist it or

00:50:05.010 --> 00:50:08.840
distort it in a way that’s designed to get you upset about something.

00:50:08.840 --> 00:50:13.730
Either it paints a political party or a person in a negative way or talks about a political

00:50:13.730 --> 00:50:14.790
agenda.

00:50:14.790 --> 00:50:18.720
If you think about it, how many thousands of memes have you seen about republicans or

00:50:18.720 --> 00:50:20.200
democrats by now?

00:50:20.200 --> 00:50:24.309
Or about Brexit or Calexit or flat earth or anti-vaxx?

00:50:24.309 --> 00:50:29.430
Not all of these are designed with the intent on dividing us but there absolutely are people

00:50:29.430 --> 00:50:35.010
out there who are spreading these memes with the intent to confuse us, cast doubt on us,

00:50:35.010 --> 00:50:36.580
and to separate us.

00:50:36.580 --> 00:50:39.660
We are not ready for World War Meme.

00:50:39.660 --> 00:50:43.670
When we consume information online now, we do it in a staccato kind of way.

00:50:43.670 --> 00:50:47.579
We bounce around all over the place, looking at article headlines instead of actually reading

00:50:47.579 --> 00:50:51.640
them, and memes satisfy this quick fix that we’re seeking online.

00:50:51.640 --> 00:50:56.920
But they influence us because when we see other people posting things that are slightly

00:50:56.920 --> 00:51:02.260
untrue, we don’t always know what part of it is untrue, so we might believe it is true,

00:51:02.260 --> 00:51:05.859
or we get that feeling that wow, other people are talking about this or retweeting it, so

00:51:05.859 --> 00:51:07.360
it must be true.

00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:10.420
There is a whole social-proof thing involved in all this, too.

00:51:10.420 --> 00:51:14.260
We believe that things that have more likes or upvotes are probably more true than things

00:51:14.260 --> 00:51:15.770
that don’t have as many upvotes.

00:51:15.770 --> 00:51:21.090
When we’re in this fast-paced online world, we don’t always have time to stop and fact-check

00:51:21.090 --> 00:51:23.290
memes to see if they are true.

00:51:23.290 --> 00:51:28.480
When we see it, upvote, and move on, it just becomes a bee in our ear and we think about

00:51:28.480 --> 00:51:29.480
it more later.

00:51:29.480 --> 00:51:34.510
It knocks around in our head and then the next day, we see something similar but a little

00:51:34.510 --> 00:51:38.860
bit more distorted, and we start believing it even more.

00:51:38.860 --> 00:51:44.369
Even the memes that try to refute things that are untrue have the opposite effect sometimes

00:51:44.369 --> 00:51:46.890
because people sometimes say wait a minute, what?

00:51:46.890 --> 00:51:51.119
They look into what this meme is trying to refute, and they end up learning about a totally

00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:55.470
ridiculous made-up thing and start questioning whether that’s true.

00:51:55.470 --> 00:52:00.030
A lot of social media algorithms are designed to get you to stay on their site longer and

00:52:00.030 --> 00:52:03.420
will try to present you things that make you stop scrolling.

00:52:03.420 --> 00:52:07.960
When you do, the platform notices this and starts looking for more content like that

00:52:07.960 --> 00:52:12.040
which ends up getting you surrounded with stuff that’s controversial or outrageous

00:52:12.040 --> 00:52:13.309
to you.

00:52:13.309 --> 00:52:18.700
Yeah, propaganda machines are learning how to use memes and algorithms to divide us or

00:52:18.700 --> 00:52:21.119
to get us angry about something.

00:52:21.119 --> 00:52:26.010
When you combine memes with highly-addicting social media that most of us use on everyday

00:52:26.010 --> 00:52:32.260
basis, you get an amazingly dangerous tool that can be used to shape opinion in a very

00:52:32.260 --> 00:52:33.810
subtle way.

00:52:33.810 --> 00:52:40.000
The internet molds what we see and who we are and if we use it enough, it changes who

00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:42.500
we are as a society.

00:52:42.500 --> 00:52:48.890
[MUSIC] But the point is, we’re all being targeting by PSYOPS constantly all day, every

00:52:48.890 --> 00:52:54.200
day, whether we watch TV, read the news, or just surf casually on the internet in any

00:52:54.200 --> 00:52:55.200
capacity.

00:52:55.200 --> 00:53:01.400
So many companies and organizations are spending [00:55:00] millions of dollars to persuade,

00:53:01.400 --> 00:53:04.970
change, and influence our behavior.

00:53:04.970 --> 00:53:09.880
It’s particularly hard in the US to stop it since there’s this whole First Amendment

00:53:09.880 --> 00:53:11.050
free speech thing.

00:53:11.050 --> 00:53:14.780
If somebody wants to say something, they should be allowed to say it.

00:53:14.780 --> 00:53:21.130
But what if someone is part of a major propaganda machine with horrible motives and lots of

00:53:21.130 --> 00:53:24.840
resources to cause havoc in our country?

00:53:24.840 --> 00:53:28.760
Should they have unchecked free speech rights, too?

00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:30.910
It’s really complex.

00:53:30.910 --> 00:53:33.460
Let me take a minute to talk about algorithms.

00:53:33.460 --> 00:53:38.240
We’re living in a world that history has never seen before where computers sometimes

00:53:38.240 --> 00:53:41.069
know more about us than we do.

00:53:41.069 --> 00:53:45.580
What has historically limited this has been our lack of understanding of biology and our

00:53:45.580 --> 00:53:48.730
lack of ability to collect huge amounts of data on people.

00:53:48.730 --> 00:53:53.920
But today, we’ve overcome these obstacles and so algorithms and AI are now hard at work

00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:55.950
learning everything about you.

00:53:55.950 --> 00:54:01.140
I’ll give you an example; I’ve really been into Yuval Noah Harari lately.

00:54:01.140 --> 00:54:05.559
He wrote these amazing books Sapiens and 21 Lessons for a 21st Century, and listening

00:54:05.559 --> 00:54:08.030
to him talk about algorithms is so fascinating.

00:54:08.030 --> 00:54:09.059
Here’s Yuval.

00:54:09.059 --> 00:54:15.589
YUVAL: I was twenty-one when I finally realized that I was gay and it should have been obvious

00:54:15.589 --> 00:54:17.480
at age sixteen, fifteen.

00:54:17.480 --> 00:54:23.910
An algorithm would have realized it very quickly and you can build algorithms like that today

00:54:23.910 --> 00:54:25.819
or in a few years.

00:54:25.819 --> 00:54:29.760
You just need to follow your eye movements.

00:54:29.760 --> 00:54:35.940
You go on the beach or you look at the computer screen and you see an attractive guy and an

00:54:35.940 --> 00:54:39.079
attractive girl, and just follow the focus of the eyes.

00:54:39.079 --> 00:54:42.900
Where do the eyes go and whom do they focus on?

00:54:42.900 --> 00:54:44.730
It should be very easy.

00:54:44.730 --> 00:54:51.440
Such an algorithm could have told when I was fifteen that I was gay.

00:54:51.440 --> 00:54:57.549
The implications are really mind-boggling when an algorithm knows such an important

00:54:57.549 --> 00:55:00.660
thing about you before you know it about yourself.

00:55:00.660 --> 00:55:03.490
Now, it can go in all kinds of directions.

00:55:03.490 --> 00:55:08.200
It really depends on where you live and what you do with it.

00:55:08.200 --> 00:55:12.849
Maybe I don’t know about myself that I’m gay, but Coca Cola knows because they have

00:55:12.849 --> 00:55:14.550
these algorithms.

00:55:14.550 --> 00:55:18.809
They want to know that because they need to know which commercials to show me.

00:55:18.809 --> 00:55:23.090
Let’s say Coca Cola knows that I am gay and I even know it about myself, but they

00:55:23.090 --> 00:55:25.450
know it and Pepsi doesn’t.

00:55:25.450 --> 00:55:30.850
Coca Cola will show me a commercial with a shirtless guy drinking Coca Cola but Pepsi

00:55:30.850 --> 00:55:34.630
will make the mistake of showing a girl in the bikini.

00:55:34.630 --> 00:55:41.109
Next day, without my realizing why, when I go to the supermarket, when I go to the restaurant,

00:55:41.109 --> 00:55:43.130
I will order Coca Cola, not Pepsi.

00:55:43.130 --> 00:55:45.450
I don’t know why, but they know.

00:55:45.450 --> 00:55:50.940
JACK: Google and Facebook can just look at your browsing history to determine your gender,

00:55:50.940 --> 00:55:54.440
political views, sexual preferences, what you’ve bought recently, what you’re thinking

00:55:54.440 --> 00:55:58.400
about buying next, how many kids you have, and they’ll even keep track of their age

00:55:58.400 --> 00:55:59.900
through the years.

00:55:59.900 --> 00:56:05.589
They collect all this information because they’re selling it to people like ad agencies

00:56:05.589 --> 00:56:10.920
and they want to keep you on their site longer, so they’ll custom-tailor your experience

00:56:10.920 --> 00:56:12.930
to be the best for you.

00:56:12.930 --> 00:56:17.059
Netflix is always trying to pick what movie they think I want to watch next.

00:56:17.059 --> 00:56:20.869
Spotify is looking at my play history and automatically throwing in a song mix that

00:56:20.869 --> 00:56:23.980
I didn’t tell it to play, but it thinks it might like.

00:56:23.980 --> 00:56:25.450
Why are they doing this?

00:56:25.450 --> 00:56:30.460
Because companies know these algorithms work and they know our brains are hackable and

00:56:30.460 --> 00:56:36.079
can be persuaded to keep using their services for longer periods of time if given the right

00:56:36.079 --> 00:56:38.400
dose of information.

00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:43.390
When I was young, I was told to follow my heart and to try to live out my dreams.

00:56:43.390 --> 00:56:49.369
This sounds like good advice but I can’t help but think now that my heart and dreams

00:56:49.369 --> 00:56:56.640
have been influenced and persuaded by nation states, ad agencies, and stuff I’ve just

00:56:56.640 --> 00:56:58.510
seen randomly online.

00:56:58.510 --> 00:57:01.400
They’re probably not my actual dreams.

00:57:01.400 --> 00:57:07.150
[MUSIC] It’s almost dangerous now to tell someone to follow their heart, because their

00:57:07.150 --> 00:57:09.599
heart might have been hacked.

00:57:09.599 --> 00:57:15.550
It’s not who they really are.

00:57:15.550 --> 00:57:21.030
I guess I knew all this was happening for a while now but what I didn’t know is how

00:57:21.030 --> 00:57:25.599
the US army was conducting this on foreign nationals.

00:57:25.599 --> 00:57:31.049
Troops are out there using loudspeakers, handing out leaflets, but it goes beyond that.

00:57:31.049 --> 00:57:35.541
Sometimes they fly over a town and dump leaflets on the town, or sometimes they’d fly over

00:57:35.541 --> 00:57:40.450
a town and broadcast TV or radio signals that can be picked up by anyone in the town.

00:57:40.450 --> 00:57:46.349
I also read the US army knows that their adversaries are spreading propaganda online through forums

00:57:46.349 --> 00:57:49.549
and telegram groups which has popular chat apps, and Twitter.

00:57:49.549 --> 00:57:56.099
If the adversary is on there, US PSYOPS teams must be able and ready to listen and respond

00:57:56.099 --> 00:58:01.390
to these channels, too, which moves [01:00:00] PSYOPS to the online world and that just opens

00:58:01.390 --> 00:58:03.880
up the playing field in a major way.

00:58:03.880 --> 00:58:10.049
Also, I learned the military has changed the name of PSYOPS; since it has a negative connotation,

00:58:10.049 --> 00:58:17.289
they now call it MISO which stands for Military Information Support Operations.

00:58:17.289 --> 00:58:18.880
Is any of this new, though?

00:58:18.880 --> 00:58:23.910
Now that I get it and step back to take a look at it, this is just propaganda and if

00:58:23.910 --> 00:58:28.970
I’m gonna talk about propaganda, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about Edward Bernays.

00:58:28.970 --> 00:58:34.420
He passed away in 1995 when he was 103 years old, but there is an archival interview I

00:58:34.420 --> 00:58:36.119
found of him from 1986.

00:58:36.119 --> 00:58:41.620
INTVR: Edward L. Bernays, you’re the father of public relations.

00:58:41.620 --> 00:58:46.880
What led you more than sixty years ago to see the need for public relations?

00:58:46.880 --> 00:58:47.880
EDWARD: I…

00:58:47.880 --> 00:58:50.030
JACK: He was ninety-four years old during this interview.

00:58:50.030 --> 00:58:58.320
EDWARD: …was a member of the United States committee on public information in World War

00:58:58.320 --> 00:58:59.320
I.

00:58:59.320 --> 00:59:03.880
JACK: What Edward Bernays did in World War I, is he went to President Woodrow Wilson

00:59:03.880 --> 00:59:08.109
and said hey, look, if you want to win this, you’re gonna have to sell this war to the

00:59:08.109 --> 00:59:09.790
American people.

00:59:09.790 --> 00:59:13.420
Edward started up one of the first propaganda machines ever.

00:59:13.420 --> 00:59:24.480
EDWARD: [MUSIC] I found that ideas were weapons and were even more effective than bullets.

00:59:24.480 --> 00:59:29.590
JACK: He understood that if you want to persuade people, don’t use facts or try to logically

00:59:29.590 --> 00:59:30.990
get people to follow you.

00:59:30.990 --> 00:59:33.730
Instead, go for their emotions.

00:59:33.730 --> 00:59:39.050
Skip the facts and just draw on their instinctual urges and maybe even scare them.

00:59:39.050 --> 00:59:40.740
Get them to act based on fear.

00:59:40.740 --> 00:59:44.980
He starts designing these propaganda posters in an attempt to get the American people to

00:59:44.980 --> 00:59:48.099
get behind World War I and join the fight.

00:59:48.099 --> 00:59:54.109
One poster is of a Statue of Liberty in tatters, in flames, with bombs falling on it.

00:59:54.109 --> 00:59:59.710
Another is a picture of the world being gobbled up by the bloody hands of a gorilla who’s

00:59:59.710 --> 01:00:02.000
wearing a German uniform.

01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:03.470
Facts didn’t matter to him.

01:00:03.470 --> 01:00:08.420
His mission was to persuade people and to get them to bend, to change their hearts and

01:00:08.420 --> 01:00:12.410
minds, and he was wicked good and very successful.

01:00:12.410 --> 01:00:17.650
A total of three US presidents employed the help of Edward Bernays to get him to influence

01:00:17.650 --> 01:00:22.330
the people of the United States for whatever political agenda there was at the time.

01:00:22.330 --> 01:00:25.020
In 1928, he wrote a book titled…

01:00:25.020 --> 01:00:28.210
SPKR: Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays.

01:00:28.210 --> 01:00:33.059
JACK: Which reads like a how-to on persuading people on a major scale.

01:00:33.059 --> 01:00:35.829
SPKR: Chapter One; Organizing Chaos.

01:00:35.829 --> 01:00:40.349
JACK: He was also very clever at changing the names of things to make them sound better.

01:00:40.349 --> 01:00:45.010
Like for instance, in 1929 it was taboo for women to smoke cigarettes but he would pay

01:00:45.010 --> 01:00:49.760
women to march in the New York Easter Day Parade smoking cigarettes.

01:00:49.760 --> 01:00:51.839
When people asked the ladies what are you smoking?

01:00:51.839 --> 01:00:54.589
They said we’re smoking torches of freedom.

01:00:54.589 --> 01:00:59.289
The newspaper printed this outrageous stunt not knowing it was an attempt to sell more

01:00:59.289 --> 01:01:00.289
cigarettes.

01:01:00.289 --> 01:01:06.190
When the newspapers called cigarettes torches of freedom, that sparked a whole wave of women

01:01:06.190 --> 01:01:07.700
who started to smoke.

01:01:07.700 --> 01:01:10.420
Frank Luntz is the modern-day Edward Bernays.

01:01:10.420 --> 01:01:14.609
Frank has changed the way people feel about certain things just by changing the name of

01:01:14.609 --> 01:01:15.609
the thing.

01:01:15.609 --> 01:01:19.880
Like for instance, Frank realized that when you say ‘oil drilling,’ it has a certain

01:01:19.880 --> 01:01:21.140
emotion to it.

01:01:21.140 --> 01:01:27.770
But if you change it to ‘energy exploration,’ that becomes more neutral and less people

01:01:27.770 --> 01:01:28.770
complained.

01:01:28.770 --> 01:01:33.190
There also used to be a thing called Death Tax but Frank changed that to Estate Tax.

01:01:33.190 --> 01:01:37.180
Instead of wiretapping, Frank calls it electronic intercepts.

01:01:37.180 --> 01:01:42.059
If you listen closely, you’ll notice that a lot of politicians use this kind of language

01:01:42.059 --> 01:01:48.680
when discussing these topics which drastically changes the way we feel about those topics.

01:01:48.680 --> 01:01:51.990
But enough about Frank; listen to this guy.

01:01:51.990 --> 01:01:57.210
MELVIN: There are Pentagon contracts with news organizations in terms of how to manipulate

01:01:57.210 --> 01:01:58.210
the news.

01:01:58.210 --> 01:02:03.990
There are Pentagon officials involved in press releases that go to the media in which intelligence

01:02:03.990 --> 01:02:09.180
is used to manipulate public opinion which is a violation of the charter of any intelligence

01:02:09.180 --> 01:02:10.730
organization.

01:02:10.730 --> 01:02:15.190
Then you have retired generals who serve as press spokesmen for all the networks.

01:02:15.190 --> 01:02:19.990
It’s never revealed which military industrial firms they work for.

01:02:19.990 --> 01:02:21.810
JACK: This is Melvin Goodman.

01:02:21.810 --> 01:02:26.710
He’s a former CIA analyst and he’s saying that the US government is in the business

01:02:26.710 --> 01:02:28.849
of manipulating public opinion.

01:02:28.849 --> 01:02:31.470
Here’s another clip from The Associated Press.

01:02:31.470 --> 01:02:36.109
REPORTER1: The defense department is ramping up its spending as it delves further into

01:02:36.109 --> 01:02:39.579
shaping public opinion around the world and at home.

01:02:39.579 --> 01:02:48.000
MELVIN: This is a fight for the human terrain means that being able to influence populations,

01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:49.700
to support government objectives.

01:02:49.700 --> 01:02:53.190
REPORTER1: It’s a fight the Pentagon is taking seriously.

01:02:53.190 --> 01:02:58.710
In all, it’s spending nearly five billion dollars with more than 27,000 people working

01:02:58.710 --> 01:03:00.640
to [01:05:00] get its message out.

01:03:00.640 --> 01:03:05.660
However, some in congress are questioning if it’s also breaking the law by engaging

01:03:05.660 --> 01:03:07.410
in domestic propaganda.

01:03:07.410 --> 01:03:09.910
JACK: What the heck is going on here?

01:03:09.910 --> 01:03:12.390
The bottom of the story is just falling out.

01:03:12.390 --> 01:03:14.369
Billions are spent on propaganda?

01:03:14.369 --> 01:03:15.369
What?

01:03:15.369 --> 01:03:19.130
The PSYOP soldiers I talked to said they’re not allowed to conduct any missions targeting

01:03:19.130 --> 01:03:25.410
American civilians but is it illegal for the US government to put out propaganda to change

01:03:25.410 --> 01:03:26.750
civilian opinion?

01:03:26.750 --> 01:03:29.500
Let’s take a look at history to try to see.

01:03:29.500 --> 01:03:33.990
The US has engaged with a lot of domestic propaganda over time; World War I and World

01:03:33.990 --> 01:03:35.660
War II are obvious, of course.

01:03:35.660 --> 01:03:39.690
Just Google propaganda poster and chances are you’re gonna see a World War II poster

01:03:39.690 --> 01:03:44.109
created by the American government targeting American citizens to get them to get behind

01:03:44.109 --> 01:03:45.109
the war.

01:03:45.109 --> 01:03:48.490
Then there’s also propaganda campaigns to get people behind the Cold War.

01:03:48.490 --> 01:03:51.089
Also, let’s not forget when Nixon said this.

01:03:51.089 --> 01:03:57.080
RICHARD: America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.

01:03:57.080 --> 01:04:03.460
In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive.

01:04:03.460 --> 01:04:07.700
JACK: This started the war on drugs which has lasted fifty years now.

01:04:07.700 --> 01:04:11.310
The US government has funded quite a lot of propaganda around this.

01:04:11.310 --> 01:04:12.420
AD: This is drugs.

01:04:12.420 --> 01:04:16.450
This is your brain on drugs.

01:04:16.450 --> 01:04:21.530
JACK: It’s also known that the Ad Council which is a non-profit which distributes public

01:04:21.530 --> 01:04:26.569
service announcements, it is funded and works closely with the US government to convey messages

01:04:26.569 --> 01:04:27.569
to the people.

01:04:27.569 --> 01:04:31.980
I mean, that’s shaping public opinion, right?

01:04:31.980 --> 01:04:36.609
Check this out; see, once you know what to look for, you start seeing it everywhere.

01:04:36.609 --> 01:04:40.760
I’m watching Netflix last night and there’s this show called Waco which goes over the

01:04:40.760 --> 01:04:42.150
story of David Koresh.

01:04:42.150 --> 01:04:46.220
He’s hiding out in this building with like, seventy other people but the police and FBI

01:04:46.220 --> 01:04:48.109
want him to come out because he’s dangerous.

01:04:48.109 --> 01:04:51.760
I kid you not, this is what the police and the FBI say in the show.

01:04:51.760 --> 01:04:52.760
POLICE: So, what’s your plan, then?

01:04:52.760 --> 01:04:54.989
FBI: It’s time to apply pressure.

01:04:54.989 --> 01:04:58.180
Decker wants to start implementing PSYOPS to get them out.

01:04:58.180 --> 01:05:00.500
POLICE: You want to psychologically torture them?

01:05:00.500 --> 01:05:01.680
FBI: It’s not torture.

01:05:01.680 --> 01:05:03.220
It’s a safe way to push them.

01:05:03.220 --> 01:05:05.680
POLICE: This is not an FBI sanctioned strategy.

01:05:05.680 --> 01:05:06.680
You do understand that, right?

01:05:06.680 --> 01:05:08.450
FBI: Don’t think I haven’t thought this through.

01:05:08.450 --> 01:05:13.390
JACK: The story goes, the FBI brought in a PSYOP team and during the night, they would

01:05:13.390 --> 01:05:18.910
shine searchlights on the compound and play this noise through the loudspeaker.

01:05:18.910 --> 01:05:25.950
[STRANGE DRONING NOISES] As best I can tell, this was the actual soundtrack played for

01:05:25.950 --> 01:05:32.740
hours in Waco to try to drive these people out of their compound.

01:05:32.740 --> 01:05:40.079
In the videos of this stand-off, you see military tanks ramming into the building.

01:05:40.079 --> 01:05:45.480
The FBI doesn’t have tanks so if they had to get help from the military for the tanks,

01:05:45.480 --> 01:05:51.160
I wonder who they got help from to do PSYOP.

01:05:51.160 --> 01:05:57.119
This is a clear example of when the US government has conducted psychological operations on

01:05:57.119 --> 01:05:58.770
American civilians.

01:05:58.770 --> 01:06:05.200
Let’s look at the law now; in 1946, the Smith-Mundt Act went into effect which banned

01:06:05.200 --> 01:06:08.700
the State Department from disseminating information to US civilians.

01:06:08.700 --> 01:06:12.690
It’s illegal for the Pentagon to push propaganda to us Americans.

01:06:12.690 --> 01:06:16.829
But in 2013 we were facing a new enemy; Al-Qaeda.

01:06:16.829 --> 01:06:22.170
They were actively recruiting US civilians to fight for them and conduct terrorist activities

01:06:22.170 --> 01:06:24.220
in the US.

01:06:24.220 --> 01:06:31.059
President Obama lifted the ban on domestic propaganda in an attempt to combat Al-Qaeda.

01:06:31.059 --> 01:06:37.079
This allowed the State Department to push propaganda materials to us US citizens, now.

01:06:37.079 --> 01:06:40.059
This law has not been changed since 2013.

01:06:40.059 --> 01:06:45.790
I guess it’s legal and that alone is another rabbit hole.

01:06:45.790 --> 01:06:50.380
The US government is legally allowed to spend money and resources to try to persuade me

01:06:50.380 --> 01:06:51.760
to do something?

01:06:51.760 --> 01:06:56.210
Which I guess makes it legal for them to try to craft a new story and alter the messaging

01:06:56.210 --> 01:06:58.430
on mass media. Aargh!

01:06:58.430 --> 01:07:02.200
Are things becoming more clear now or is it more blurry?

01:07:02.200 --> 01:07:05.200
I don’t know but let’s bring all this back to PSYOP.

01:07:05.200 --> 01:07:07.930
Do you remember when the US invaded Iraq?

01:07:07.930 --> 01:07:15.059
If so, I bet you have a vivid memory of the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled over

01:07:15.059 --> 01:07:17.770
by US troops. Am I right?

01:07:17.770 --> 01:07:24.039
How exactly is that image of one statue falling etched into your memory so strongly?

01:07:24.039 --> 01:07:26.660
PSYOP, that’s how.

01:07:26.660 --> 01:07:31.380
Let me explain; here is an interview with a BBC World Affairs reporter who was there

01:07:31.380 --> 01:07:34.279
filming that statue being toppled over in 2003.

01:07:34.279 --> 01:07:39.839
REPORTER2: The entire live cameras of the world’s press were on the balcony of the

01:07:39.839 --> 01:07:41.470
Palestine Hotel.

01:07:41.470 --> 01:07:48.180
That was really the only event that they saw about Iraqis coming out.

01:07:48.180 --> 01:07:50.440
It was a sort of made-for-TV moment.

01:07:50.440 --> 01:07:55.839
JACK: The US army conducted an investigation into Operation Iraqi Freedom and published

01:07:55.839 --> 01:08:00.460
a five-hundred-page report outlining many of the [01:10:00] major events of that war.

01:08:00.460 --> 01:08:06.049
In here is a story from a PSYOP team who was there when the statue was toppled.

01:08:06.049 --> 01:08:12.160
According to the US army, PSYOP soldiers were present for this and taking part in the toppling

01:08:12.160 --> 01:08:13.160
of the statue.

01:08:13.160 --> 01:08:15.279
They saw the media circus that was there.

01:08:15.279 --> 01:08:19.230
In fact, they even said there was just as many media people as there were Iraqis there

01:08:19.230 --> 01:08:20.319
that day.

01:08:20.319 --> 01:08:23.739
If you look at the footage, you can see tons of people with video cameras in the crowd.

01:08:23.739 --> 01:08:28.700
The PSYOP team saw the local Iraqis were already beating the statue with sledgehammers so they

01:08:28.700 --> 01:08:33.179
jumped into action and started using the loudspeakers to talk to the locals, organize them, and

01:08:33.179 --> 01:08:36.640
conduct crowd control while the US troops tear down the statue.

01:08:36.640 --> 01:08:41.560
At one point, the PSYOP team even ran an Iraqi flag up the statue and then got some local

01:08:41.560 --> 01:08:45.100
kids to climb on the wrecker which was bringing down the statue.

01:08:45.100 --> 01:08:46.940
Eventually it fell.

01:08:46.940 --> 01:08:54.920
[CHEERING] This was a major PSYOP mission and the world was tuned in and watching, because

01:08:54.920 --> 01:09:02.159
it’s not so easy to show that a city has fallen, but you can use symbols like this

01:09:02.159 --> 01:09:07.870
which is powerful because this kind of stuff speaks so much louder than words do.

01:09:07.870 --> 01:09:13.640
Yeah, I have that memory from watching the news then, but this meant a lot more to the

01:09:13.640 --> 01:09:16.330
Iraqi people than it did to me.

01:09:16.330 --> 01:09:22.259
This PSYOP mission was likely targeting the Iraqi people to bolster support from the locals

01:09:22.259 --> 01:09:24.170
who disliked Saddam Hussein.

01:09:24.170 --> 01:09:30.739
But when the world’s news cameras all captured it, it had a secondary effect.

01:09:30.739 --> 01:09:37.700
It gave the impression that the US was winning the war which stoked emotions in the US people;

01:09:37.700 --> 01:09:39.940
either yay! Go us!

01:09:39.940 --> 01:09:41.069
USA, USA!

01:09:41.069 --> 01:09:43.630
Or you might have looked at this and said what’s wrong with us?

01:09:43.630 --> 01:09:46.970
Why are we invading and messing with these people?

01:09:46.970 --> 01:09:52.420
Either way, as an American watching the statue come down probably would have given you an

01:09:52.420 --> 01:09:54.190
emotional reaction of some kind.

01:09:54.190 --> 01:09:59.650
I guess what I’m hoping for here is that with all this information, now when you see

01:09:59.650 --> 01:10:04.500
something on TV that’s a stunning image or something on social media that’s affecting

01:10:04.500 --> 01:10:08.730
how you feel, stop and double-check the source of this message.

01:10:08.730 --> 01:10:14.420
Is this message trying to provoke an emotion in you, especially a negative emotion like

01:10:14.420 --> 01:10:16.130
hatred or fear?

01:10:16.130 --> 01:10:20.670
That’s a tactic of propaganda, a PSYOP trick.

01:10:20.670 --> 01:10:22.670
Don’t fall for it.

01:10:22.670 --> 01:10:25.710
Look behind it and try to see where is this message coming from?

01:10:25.710 --> 01:10:27.909
Is it a paid message like an ad?

01:10:27.909 --> 01:10:32.420
Or from a news outlet that has historically created propaganda?

01:10:32.420 --> 01:10:36.550
Was it designed to get you to act on fear?

01:10:36.550 --> 01:10:40.830
Is it giving non-factual information that’s trying to rile you up?

01:10:40.830 --> 01:10:44.750
You’ve got better eyes now to see through this.

01:10:44.750 --> 01:10:45.909
Use them wisely.

01:10:45.909 --> 01:10:50.460
Don’t trust any politician that tries to get people to vote based on fear.

01:10:50.460 --> 01:10:53.750
It’s a shady trick designed to manipulate you.

01:10:53.750 --> 01:10:58.800
Heck, don’t even be part of any groups that has fear as a central point to it.

01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:01.520
Fear is malware in your brain.

01:11:01.520 --> 01:11:07.010
It affects you negatively and causes you to do things that often aren’t good for you.

01:11:07.010 --> 01:11:09.489
Your anti-virus is logic and facts.

01:11:09.489 --> 01:11:10.870
Don’t get infected.

01:11:10.870 --> 01:11:23.400
JACK (OUTRO): [OUTRO MUSIC] A big thank you to our guests this episode Henry

01:11:23.400 --> 01:11:24.790
and Jonathan Nichols.

01:11:24.790 --> 01:11:26.830
You can catch Jonathan on Twitter.

01:11:26.830 --> 01:11:30.690
His name there is @WvuAlphaSoldier.

01:11:30.690 --> 01:11:34.520
This show is created by me, the psy-guy, Jack Rhysider.

01:11:34.520 --> 01:11:38.851
Sound design was done by Garrett Tiedemann, editing help this episode by Damienne, and

01:11:38.851 --> 01:11:42.889
our theme music is by the bobble-top Breakmaster Cylinder.

01:11:42.889 --> 01:11:47.540
Even though my mind is being controlled by spurious transmissions from space every time

01:11:47.540 --> 01:11:55.050
I say it, this is Darknet Diaries.