A Saga of Brainwashing Gone Awry

Figure 1: Barbie spotted in soldiers pack. I guess real men do play with dolls.

Why is Dick Cheney so surprised that George Bush went soft?
Didn’t he order George W’s brain washing? I may be getting a little ahead of myself. Allow me to explain.

Here We Go Again
Our old friends at the US Military are at it again, but this time with less than stellar results.  It has recently been discovered that under the 2000 to 2008 Bush Administration, Uncle Sam and his warmongering cronies have set course for the planet brainwash. But don’t allow those chills to creep too far down your spine, faithful reader – incompetence has won the day. Specifically, technological incompetence has not only foiled big brother’s plans, but also resulted in a rather amusing situation.

Denizens of the 80s may remember a story about the Air Force using arcade coin-op classic Defender to hone the reflexes of its personnel. And more recently Flight Simulators (like, say, Microsoft Flight Simulator which was under scrutiny during the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon) have been used by airlines for pilot training. So it should come as no surprise to us that interactive electronic environments are prevalent in the training programs of our government and military in the public branches of the armed forces and perhaps as part of shadier black ops portions of our government.

All of that sounds fine and good, but a closer examination reveals a darker side to the program. The majority of the electronic training programs are developed by a stand-alone agency (top-secret, of course) and then disseminated as appropriate. Now, no matter what anyone might tell you, subliminal messaging is a technique very much within the repertoire of our government, and was apparently introduced into the electronic training program some time back. Our information is somewhat limited on this subject, but we do know that both visual and aural techniques were used. The goals are typically to increase loyalty to the government organization in question and also to subtly alter the personality of the viewer so as to amplify desired characteristics. Potentially problematic ethical traits would be repressed as best possible, while other, more aggressive aspects of the personality would be encouraged. It’s certainly devious, and potentially a very effective strategy if our information is accurate. Unfortunately for Uncle Sam, it would appear that the integrity of the program has been compromised.

Hack Attack
The hacking of internet sites belonging to the U.S. military is no new event, with the largest mass-defacing occurring in years past. At least, that event is the largest known publicly. The key piece of information to this National Exposer story involves deep penetration by hackers into government mainframes, and we think that you, our concerned constituency, will find this story to be one of the more amusing that we’ve published to date.

The identity of the hacker or hackers remains unknown to us, but we believe that we can recontruct the hacking process itself.  Our unnamed assailant, perhaps on a routine probe of military electronic security, found a hole, sort of an “electronic rabbit hole.”  Following this path, our hacker gained access to a surprising amount of information.  Perhaps at first shocked and overwhelmed, our intruder (or intruders) grinned as the possibilities at hand began to dawn on them.  Lacking not for creativity, they set to work.

Fluffy Bunnies Flying Fighters
The fruits of their labors, while not immediately noticeable, did not stay hidden for long.  The first signs appeared to be isolated incidents. Army grunts purchasing fuzzy animals out of the PX; a Barbie doll’s head poking out of a Marine’s backpack; a drill sergeant offering a helping hand to a trainee on the obstacle course. No connection between these incidents was noted; in fact, many of them were not even reported at the time. But the incidents escalated: navy sailors boosting the economy of the port-of-the-week, but by purchasing sewing supplies instead of frequenting the traditional industry. Big, tough marines playing jacks and hopscotch. Military higher-ups discussing favorably the inclusion of women at the Citadel. An ace Air Force pilot flying a patrol wearing pink bunny jammies instead of his regular flight suit. One group of soldiers even went AWOL to join the moonies. The top brass began to be worried, and began  to suspect a connection between these events.

What we here at National Exposer have learned is that our hacker friend (or friends) stumbled upon a computer mischief-maker’s dream. The unnamed governmental agency whose job it is to make the electronic training and promotional material had created a completely modular system designed to add subliminal content that required virtually no technical skill to operate.  Files representing different subliminal effects were stored individually on the agency’s mainframe, and they could be mixed into any training film or simulator with the touch of a few buttons. If, for instance, it was desired that fighter pilots training on a certain simulator should be conditioned to be more willing to risk their lives to ensure the success of their missions, the person operating the subliminal messaging compiler need only insert the media containing the simulator’s code and push buttons labeled “fearless” and “patriotic”. The compiler would then insert the appropriate images and sounds.  The images would have been added as still frames faded into an existing frame, effectively concealing their existence from the conscious mind, but leaving them clearly visible to the subconscious. Sounds, likewise, were blended into existing aural effects to prevent their detection.

Whoops
This all sounds well and good, but what made the process so vulnerable to tampering was a lack of quality control. The subliminal compiler’s operator could not easily proof the end result, as the subliminal content was by definition invisible to the conscious senses. The compiler itself contained surprisingly few fail safes, trusting its database to match desired effects with source files it could then go and grab off of the network. No actual content analysis was done on these files, however, which made the hack alarmingly simple. The hacker simply had to replace the source image and sound files with other files of like type but substantially different content.  Suddenly marines that were supposedly being shown images of Rambo and John Wayne were instead having their sub consciences exposed to Barbie.

It wasn’t until the damages began to truly mount that the scope of the cyberprank became evident.  Eventually, the security hole was found and plugged.  As for what happened to the subliminal messaging program, we can’t say for certain.  Two things, though, are clear to us: 1) if the military can resurrect the program effectively, it will, and 2) we got a good laugh out of the whole debacle.