Friday, June 21, 2013

Personal PSYOP - The Time is Nigh


In the PSYOP and MISO world we generally think in terms of campaigns and motivating groups. This week I was thinking about the notion of personal PSYOP. Sort of an advanced version of activities you might have practiced on the playground or in High School.

The aim of personal PSYOP is to ‘mess with’ the mind of the target. Essentially you want the target so concerned about a peripheral matter that it takes their mind of the really important things they have to do.

Of course this requires an intimate knowledge of the target individual and for this particular example to work the target needs to be dependent on Social Media, Especially Facebook. Previously I posted about how a hijacked Twitter account brought some very bad publicity to Jeep and Burger King.

In today’s scenario Tommy The Target (T) is addicted to Facebook. Even though he is  a rising star in a prominent law firm and is deeply committed to his lovely girlfriend. Tommy is also very concerned about how he looks to his friends and checks his Facebook account regularly.

Arnie the Adversary (A) works with T in the same law firm. A knows that he and T are vying for the next opening for Partner and that their meeting with the Managing Partner is scheduled for the next day.

A manages to takeover Greta (Tommy’s Girlfriend’s )(G) Facebook Account. Seems Arnie found out he could get a password cracker on the Internet for free and Greta, a graduate student in art is not very concerned about her security.

Once in the account Arnie posts some pictures that look like T. These pictures show T engaged in smoking what looks like pot, and shows other compromising views. In addition G has made some negative statements about T and has broken up with him.

T is devastated after he checks his FB page in the morning. Needless to say his performance at the Managing Partner interview does not go well.

This is an example of Personal PSYOP in the commercial sector, I’m sure all y’all can see how it can be applied for MISO purposes.

 Comments always welcome and see you at Bragg for graduation.

Photo Source: Facbeook.com

1 comment:

Jim Monroe said...

Awesome, this sounds like you're channeling AF Col John Boyd. His OODA loop concept was not just about doing our processes faster and better, there was a flip side of disrupting the adversary's processes, with the ultimate goal being cognitive paralysis. On a side note, it might just be a semantic distinction, but much of your personal MISO example is deception--not a bad thing.