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
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.
ReplyDelete