[cripplecreek]

The 4 minute men go high tech.

[9YearLurker]

This may be the most horrifying story I’ve read in a horrifying week!

[ClearCase_guy]

We live in a science fiction story. And it’s dystopic.

[Travis McGee]

This is supposed to be brand new? Please.

[FrankR]

This will only work on airheads who don’t read and can’t think for themselves...they usually don’t vote anyway.

[WOBBLY BOB]

Gubmint Spambots-—wonderfull.

They’re probably working overtime spamming WI area newspaper website comment sections.

[andy58-in-nh]

The potential for abuse does of course exist, but in this case, the client is the US Air Force and the contractual places of performance are listed as: MacDill AFB, Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq.

[listenhillary]

US Airforce?
Contracting Office Address:
2606 Brown Pelican Ave.
MacDill AFB, Florida 33621-5000
United States
Place of Performance:
Performance will be at MacDIll AFB, Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq.
MacDill AFB , Florida 33679
United States
Russell Beasley,
Contracting Officer
russell.beasley-02@macdill.af.mil
Phone: (813) 828-4729
Fax: (813) 828-5111

[Big Bronson]

I’ve seen these bots in action on financial sites. “Bernanke good - gold bad!”

[King Moonracer]

Just creating the fake people to back up the fake votes. Imagine if we vote by the Internet. Chocago’s dwindling population, fewer now than in 1920, will have a resurgence of Chicagoans.

[kearnyirish2]

This is great; soon we’ll have “FReepers” posting about how efficient our government is, how intelligent our “president” is, how thin his wife is, how low our tax burdens are, etc.

How bizarre...

[struggle]

So the government can be jailed for creating spam?

[Junior_G]

Wouldn’t be surprised to see another “grassroots” call for vote-by-Internet soon.

[pepperdog]

Disgusting, but not unexpected. Perception management, it's what they do.

[Steely Tom]

Finally, an explanation for Ash.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

We talked about this last night.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2676641/posts

And the author of the piece has it wrong...it's NOT a contract but a "sources sought" notice looking for potential vendors.

And, it is for CENTCOM, based at MacDill AFB, with work performance to be located in Baghdad and Kabul.

But NO RFP/RFQ has been issued and NO contract has been awarded (yet).

[Future Snake Eater]

This is true not. I am from Heartland and read Bible. Elvis favorite. 2.134 kids and evil handy SUV is my ride. Dog is fun. Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama Vote for Obama

[meyer]

Great - a new “tool” to creat false consensus. Should work well for the global warmists when they invent thousands of new “scientists” that support their position.

“But the science is settled” has been their mantra. It will appear even more settled when a few thousand non-existent scientists support their view.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It's fun to see dangers everywhere, but please take a moment to look at the original solicitation at Persona Management Software. You will see the buyer is the US Air Force, USCENTCOM, Air Mobility Command at MacDill Air Force Base. It looks like an anti-terrorist or counter-intelligence program aimed at the Middle East where social media are being used very effectively to foment revolution and infiltrate the bad guys. There could be two possible explanations:

1. This is a black hat op designed to infiltrate our enemies who are pretty darn good at using the Net for their nefarious deeds. Makes a lot of sense to me. The whole approach could be for real.

2. Or, the entire solicitation could be a bogus psyops designed to make the bad guys believe we can create these fake "personas." Essentially, we would be creating fake double agents to throw the bad guys off balance. Achmed would not know if we really could do this and that would really confound him. If this were a real op, then why would CENTCOM put the solicitation out in the public?

On the plus side, one genuine good guy at CENTCOM could run a whole team of pretend double agents who would not have to risk life and limb.

This has the makings of a good spy novel. Obviously, tactics such as these have been used since the beginning of time to deceive the other side and/or learn what they are doing. The recent book "A Genius For Deception: How Cunning Helped the British Win Two World Wars" is a fun read and shows you how things like this were used very successfully to help the good guys win wars.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Does FR have a way to sniff these things out?