Police Using AI Personas to Infiltrate Online Activist Spaces

[UltraBudgie]

I think we all pretty much knew technology like this exists and is being used, but now it's being acknowledged...

American police departments near the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected drug and human traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications 404 Media obtained via public records requests.

Massive Blue, the New York-based company that is selling police departments this technology, calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.” According to a presentation obtained by 404 Media, Massive Blue is offering cops these virtual personas that can be deployed across the internet with the express purpose of interacting with suspects over text messages and social media.

https://www.404media.co/this-college-pro...-for-cops/
No paywall: https://archive.ph/LXFTQ

Here is the Massive Blue website: https://www.massiveblue.io/
They're "ethical!"

FOIA response from Yuma Sheriff's Dept: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/yuma-county...le-1235468

Types of personas they can make for police:



"Raised in San Francisco" lol

While the documents don’t describe every technical aspect of how Overwatch works, they do give a high-level overview of what it is. The company describes a tool that uses AI-generated images and text to create social media profiles that can interact with suspected drug traffickers, human traffickers, and gun traffickers. After Overwatch scans open social media channels for potential suspects, these AI personas can also communicate with suspects over text, Discord, and other messaging services. The documents we obtained don’t explain how Massive Blue determines who is a potential suspect based on their social media activity. Salzwedel, of Pinal County, said “Massive Blue’s solutions crawl multiple areas of the Internet, and social media outlets are just one component. We cannot disclose any further information to preserve the integrity of our investigations.”

[k0rn]

Gotta love being a baker and an activist. Which one is its hobby?

[sahgwa]

You know you are in a sad society when politics have become a hobby.  But a lot of people have used it like that, like a weird religion , let alone a sport, for a long time now. 
Search for meaning indeed. 

I am very curious how such a programme would sound/act when 'interfacing' with people.  I wonder if it's very obvious.  MAYBE IT'S ME!

[MichSwampbuck]

The issues with AI are coming on so fast now, it reminds me of the fevered pitch I had to do my research on COVID back in 2020 (The Year of Clear Sight, for me anyway) to get up to speed on that situation. I can think of a few things they might be useful, but any strategy that might work now will certainly be obsolete in short order.

It may come down to self-censoring by word filtering the known red flag words just for starters. Then using some kind of shifting coded slang perhaps, but now it has gotten to the point that nothing will allow for free speech in a public online forum no matter what you do. It has to be some kind of encrypted communications, but it will only be good for real people in some kind of a chain mail/message network and only those who can be trusted.

[sahgwa]

I love the old Daoist view of , refusing to play the game on it's own terms. 
If people stop caring about control mechanisms and just behave naturally regardless, ie posting saying whatever you want, ie real free speech, then the System cannot possibly keep up fast enough let alone physically restraining people.
Overload.  Then the people are back in control.  It's all about attention.  Ties into quantum physics, let alone sociology. 
Not to mention, stop giving the bully the attention he wants. 
etc etc.

[xuenchen]

Perfect Red Herring strategies being used and developed to keep people off base and flocking to other comm methods that are setup and just patiently waiting for mass data collections from unsuspecting targets. Publishing the "new" methods is perfect bait and tackle to steer people to corralled "safe zones" 

BE AWARE: where you "feel" the safest is most likely the most dangerous! 

"It's always about a maybe this or maybe that"

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

I think we all pretty much knew technology like this exists and is being used, but now it's being acknowledged...


https://www.404media.co/this-college-pro...-for-cops/
No paywall: https://archive.ph/LXFTQ

Here is the Massive Blue website: https://www.massiveblue.io/
They're "ethical!"

FOIA response from Yuma Sheriff's Dept: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/yuma-county...le-1235468

Types of personas they can make for police:
[Image: https://www.404media.co/content/images/2....59-AM.png]

[Image: https://www.404media.co/content/images/2....09-AM.png]
"Raised in San Francisco" lol

Then SightEngine.Com should be a household name.

Hive Moderation is also good, both tell you the AI program they used, but SightEngine gives you more free ones before they want money.

[Sirius]

Bots chasing bots.

[UltraBudgie]

Then SightEngine.Com should be a household name.

Hive Moderation is also good, but SightEngine tells you the AI program they used.

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/image...ternet.jpg]

Two things. Don't you just have to train the bot to say "well of course i fed my picture into ai, who would post a real photograph online? that would be stupid!". And on a more coverty note, I wonder if the alphabet agencies have backdoors into these detection sites, so they can place their fingers on the scale for particular images? hmm, I bet they do...


Edit: rm -f ribbing

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

Well, the post that is here is irrelevant now. And just looks narcissistic without the lead in post.

You either saw it or didn't...