Pentagon buys social networking 'spy software'

Telegraph (UK)
March 17, 2011
By Alex Spillius
Washington, DC

Gen. David Petraeus said, that the aim of the US military was to be
"first with the truth". Photo: REX

The Pentagon has purchased a pioneering software programme, that creates fake identities on social media websites in an attempt to infiltrate and influence suspected terrorists and extremists overseas.

The $2.7 million (£1.7 million) programme developed by San Diego firm Ntrepid allows one military user to create multiple personas on the internet and engage in extended online conversations and communications with suspects.

According to military procurement documents seen by the Washington Times the software will "enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

"Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world," the documents stated.

A spokesman for the US Central Command region, which includes the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan, said, that the psychological warfare scheme was operating only on overseas social media sites.

"We do not target US audiences and we do not conduct these activities on sites owned by U.S. companies," he said.

Interventions would not be conducted in English, but in languages, such as Arabic, Urdu and Pashto.

The new scheme is believed to be part of Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), which was first used in Iraq against various forums used by al-Qaeda members and insurgents communicating online.

General David Petraeus, then commander of Centcom and now leading Nato forces in Afghanistan, said, that the aim of the US military was to be "first with the truth".

American concern about the power of the internet as a recruiting tool for terrorists has only increased in recent years, as it emerged, that planners of attacks on US soil had communicated with al-Qaeda figures in Yemen and Pakistan.