{"id":25507,"date":"2014-07-17T07:26:29","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T06:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=25507"},"modified":"2014-07-17T07:26:29","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T06:26:29","slug":"suppose-no-one-really-reads-this-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2014\/07\/17\/suppose-no-one-really-reads-this-at-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Suppose no one really reads this at all?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/izakaminska\" target=\"_blank\">Izabella Kaminska<\/a> of the FT drew attention on Twitter <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/security\/2014\/07\/ghcqs-chinese-menu-of-tools-spread-disinformation-across-internet\/\" target=\"_blank\">to a blog on the apparent ability of GCHQ to manipulate the internet<\/a>, as revealed by Edward Snowden. It is reported that they have a number of programs available:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>Underpass is used to \u201cchange outcome of online polls.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>Slipstream and Gateway can be used to manipulate traffic to a website, inflating its page views and raising its\u00a0search rank to alter perception of its popularity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>Gestator can be used for \u201camplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<blockquote><p>Clean Sweep allows GCHQ to \u201cmasquerade Facebook Wall Posts for individuals or entire countries.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, suppose no one reads this blog at all. Suppose <a href=\"http:\/\/labs.ebuzzing.co.uk\/top-blogs\/source\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog-F9JW\" target=\"_blank\">this blog ranking for this site was fak<\/a>e?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-07.52.59.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-25508\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2014-07-16 at 07.52.59\" src=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-07.52.59-612x1024.png\" width=\"490\" height=\"819\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-07.52.59-612x1024.png 612w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-07.52.59-179x300.png 179w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-07.52.59-134x225.png 134w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Screen-Shot-2014-07-16-at-07.52.59.png 626w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But I seriously doubt that GCHQ would choose to rank this blog at number 1, so that seems pretty unlikely.<\/p>\n<p>The point, though, is a serious one. \u00a0Google is no longer reliable with regard to the past and GCHQ can apparently fake internet traffic. How long is it before we lose faith in something we have come to rely on? I do wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Izabella Kaminska of the FT drew attention on Twitter to a blog on the apparent ability of GCHQ to manipulate the internet, as revealed by<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2014\/07\/17\/suppose-no-one-really-reads-this-at-all\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}