Document originally published on the Tennesee Educator by an unknown author How the CIA’s Social Network Analysis is being applied to Facebook and the EDL – Why theEDL must self-assess its internal security.Social Network Analysis or SNA has long been a useful tool in the covert intelligence community’stool bag by which to determine how best to manipulate and take down terrorist cells and destabilizeterrorist networks. In March of 2007, Lieutenant Russell G. Schuhart II delivered his mastersthesis on the topic at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterrey, California, a school known for turning out top Naval Intelligence Officers and supporting the advancement of U.S Warfare theoryin general…no pun intended.Schuhart’s Thesis, entitled

Hacking Social Networks: Examining the Viability of Using Computer Network Attack Against Social Networks

offers a great deal of insight into how the U.S. IntelligenceCommunity currently functions in regards to destabilizing terrorist cells and or other covert groupsthat end up in the CIA’s crosshairs.For the purpose of this article, I ask the reader to ask themselves this question: Could SNA beused by the CIA to destabilize non-covert organized groups of people interacting on Facebook?For the sake of argument, let’s say yes. And for our purpose here, we shall use the EnglishDefence League, or the EDL as example of a group that could become a target of such an operationin the future.I for one believe that SNA has already been applied in varying degrees to the EDL, and caution itsleaders to be vigilant in the future to this regard. Therefore, what I will lay out below is how theCIA, MI6, and other agencies might one day come after the group or may already be attempting tomanipulate the group.

In Schuhart’s thesis, the following is noted:

SNA was designed to destabilize covert networks that are difficult to penetrate. This work presentsa possible way to improve SNA’s performance against a covert social network by employing theComputer Network Attack (CNA) model. The CNA model is used by computer network security torepresent the traditional approach to hacking a computer network. The CNA model should be ableto improve the accuracy of SNA when applied to a covert social network by standardizing thedestabilization process and allowing for frequent challenges of operating assumptions.

SNA Terminology and Theory

In Social Network Theory, the actors, or members of a target group, or terrorist cell are called

nodes.

You can think of a node as a circle with a name on it on an organizational chart.The idea is to either isolate nodes, turn them into double agents, feed some of them disinformation,turn them against one another or simply take them out of the equation, such as the CIA and SEALTeam 6 recently did in killing Osama Bin Laden.A

mode

is a group of actors, or a terrorist cell, or in the case of our example all the members of theEDL. Schuhart states in his thesis that:

If all the actors come from the same set (group, religion, party, school, etc.), then it is a one mode network. If the set of actors come from two different groups (two different political parties, groups, teams, etc.) then it is a two mode network. Note that an actor/node can be an event or a location. If a group of people are meeting at a location, it would be a two mode network. The first mode is the group of people and second is the location or the meeting itself. Any number of modes beyond two is generally referred to as a multimode.

Furthermore,

Schuhart states that “

tie

is used interchangeably with

relationship

to express the shared bond among actors or nodes.”

Thus we can state that the EDL, being that it is made up different and convergent groups of actors(

nodes

) from different cities that come together or mobilize for direct group action, that the groupas a whole would be considered by intelligence agencies to be a

multimode.

Application of SNA to the EDL

The next step an intelligence agency would use in running a destabilization operation against theEDL would be to map out the organization on a chart

(sociogram or sociomatrix)

and determineexact relationship amongst individual members (

nodes

). This is akin to the Scotland YardDetective in a movie charting out the clues and suspects of a crime on a large blackboard.According to Schuhart’s Thesis:

SNA’s greatest potential lies with its ability to display relational data. This is most commonly done as a sociomatrix or as a sociogram. Both sociograms and sociomatrices have been in use since the 1930s and are a product of the science of sociometrywhich studies affective relations among actors such as like/dislike or love/hate (Wasserman and Faust, 77).

Once the relationships have been mapped out, the intelligence agency can then begin to determinewhere the vulnerable or weak links in the chain are.In the case of the EDL, the most likely methods that the CIA or MI6 will use against theorganization are the following:1.Disinformation

2.Creating tension and conflict between varying factions of the EDL(

modes)

which in thiscase would be the varying individual city groups3.Using disruption of communications to prevent contact between groups4.Using law enforcement pressure through government to prevent group contactLet’s take a look at each on these methods.

Disinformation & Creating Tension and Conflict go hand in hand:

A government agent plant could infiltrate a single EDL City group

(mode)

and informmembers of one group that another group are working for the government. This wouldcreate tension between groups and lessen the effectiveness of the organization.2.A government agent plant could send one EDL group disinformation about another group’sleader, such as

Leader A of City A wants to dethrone Tommy and become the new leader of the EDL

. This would serve to cause paranoia between (

nodes

) or individual actors of theorganization and effectively weaken the effectiveness of the leadership.3.A government agent could inform one City group

(mode)

that an event has been cancelled,thereby lessening the impact of the group effort in a demonstration.4.A government agent could plant false information in the press to associate the EDL withsome known evil, or connect them to a crime or treasonous act that would mark the group as bad for the nation.

* Note – I believe this has been used against the EDL from the startby the British Media’s attempt to associate the EDL with Fascists Right WingSkinhead groups, etc.,

5.A government agent could hack the Facebook account of a known member and filter in falseinformation into the Facebook news thread of the EDL, or vulgar information to make thegroup look bad.

*Note – I believe this has been done at varying times in the growth of EDL’s Facebook page.

6.Planting rumors that one member’s girlfriend is sleeping with another member, or somevariation of this type of conflict intrusion.

Disruption of Communications:

1.Government use of cell phone blocking technologies that could black out communicationsof the group during an event.2.Government use of cell phone blocking technologies that could shut down leader’scommunications within home cities.3.Government shutdown of internet communication via phone lines, or the main trunk lines of the internet. *

Note – This recently happened in the Mideast uprisings.

4.Government infiltration and or cooperation of Facebook executives to shut downcommunication between members at and around planned event times.

*Note – We believethis is already in place. We believe the courtship of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergby G-8 government ministers has laid the groundwork for such cooperation.