What is Obama’s ShadowNet?
In October 2007 I went to Iraq on a 1-year contract for $240,000. My job was to help build a capability that would allow the 4th Psychological Operations Group (4th POG) to transition from dropping flyers from planes to a targeted, covert, social media psychological warfare capabilities. It is here the ShadowNet and iPsy was born, battlefield tested, and then made commercially available to the highest public or private bidder.
I won’t discuss any specific missions or the dissemination process as it relates to my time in Iraq, or after the ShadowNet program was massively expanded immediately after president Obama took office. It was an incredibly capable information operations project management tool capable of the same covert, social media psychological warfare the FBI just indicted 13 Russian’s for. So, I suppose the question that should be asked is do we only care if a foreign adversary is using it to influence our elections and other social issues? Or, do we agree anyone using such ethically questionable methods is a bad thing that jeopardized the integrity of our election process, which is the core of our nation’s democracy?
What I can discuss is what the ShadowNet was after Dynology, which was a small, family owned defense contracting company, owned by Obama’s National Security Advisor, Gen. James Jones, did with the application and database when it was made commercially available to the public. The attached marketing slick describe the ShadowNet and iPsy. It was likely one of the only, battlefield tested capability of its kind at the time.
The quote used below in the 2008 marketing slick #1 by Sun Tzu best describes the purpose of Obama’s ShadowNet. It is the playbook for everything you have seen democrat leadership create, from the Russian dossier, to the Ukrainian election influence operation on 2010 (educated guess, not proven) and even the circus you’ve witnessed during the Kavanaugh inquisition.
“If your opponent is of choleric temper, try to irritate him. If he is arrogant try to encourage his egotism. If the enemy troops are well prepared after reorganization, try to wear them down. If they are united, try to sow dissension among them”.
~ Sun Tzu’s The Art of War”.
After losing the rebid for another year in Iraq, I returned to CENTCOM and continued to expand the program, taking the things we learned along the way and improved it. The company I worked for, Dynology, kept the intellectual property rights to the ShadowNet and iPsy.
Let’s break the marketing slicks down listed below. As you are reading this, think about everything you have witnessed with respect to Russian collusion, DNC email hacking/social engineering. Heck, for that matter, do you think the women showing up to attack Jeff Flake was an accident? These kind of “flash” events are exactly what the ShadowNet and iPsy was built to manage. From coordinating the person dropping the women off, access to the elevator, and likely multiple fake, anonymized personae used to disseminate the video taken from by-standers as quickly as possible, using the most current search engine optimization capabilities.
Information Operations in the Internet Age.
“The challenge lies in your ability to operate within this new information age to engage threats discriminately, to balance security and synchronization of actions, and to integrate white, grey, and black PSYOP product categories so that every series of actions and products is aligned with established themes and objectives”.
The ShadowNet could make it look like everything was coming directly from the Kremlin if that was the mission requirement, and I don’t know of a single intelligence agency on the planet that could tell the difference.
iPSY – “… [Is] a web-based solution with an intuitive user interface that allows for easy and accurate collection of data during online and social network surveillance and influence operations… Users can create online personas to interact with electronic targets (online forums, blogs, and chat services etc.), collect information for target audience analysis, and influence persons of interest through online interaction.
If you believe anything online, you don’t understand the game being played. What did president Trump say, something about journalists being on the payroll of these military contracting companies? I don’t know, but seems to me like you should listen to him on this…
So, if you are an American, I’m not aware of any laws you would be breaking using the ShadowNet to win your next election, or to lobby some new widget. That being said, does what you just read in Dynology’s marketing slick sound a lot like what we just indicted the Russian’s for? Now remember this product was developed under an Obama, taxpayer appropriated and funded department of defense contract. This contract and others have made Obama’s NSA millions, both while in uniform as the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, and as Obama’s NSA. It is worth noting that Gen. Jones, the owner of Dynology, was a lifelong friend of Sen. John McCain., and Dynology was a preferred partner with Paul Manafort’s company, 3EDC, back in 2008 when Manafort’s company was in charge of McCain’s presidential primary.
I suppose it is just a coincidence that Paul Manafort, a man indicted for social media influence operations in several countries, just happens to list Dynology on his website as his #1 preferred partner. I’m sure a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander would never do anything using the social media psychological warfare applications his company owns to do anything that could harm Russia…
Below is a copy of the memorandum I received for my work in the classified IIA program in Iraq.
