Infiltrating Communities

Communities are wary of strangers and dangerous questions

When infiltrating an online community…

• Lurk & learn - the lingo, issues, events, views, facts

• Or pose as an enthusiastic “newbie”

• Don’t ask too many questions

• Instead - let people offer information

• Display discretion – do offer "offline" email communication

• Is your cover story plausible? 

• Can they call you?

• Do you really need to communicate?

• Beware – your message will be permanent

What can compromise your cover?

• Poor cover story

• Choose a clean, common name (that doesn't belong to another journalist!)

• Excessive, unreasonable demands for information

• Carelessness – timing, spelling, no contact details

• Technical – viruses, IP betrayal, email ubiquity

Remedies

• Don’t post from work!

• Cybercafes are suspicious looking

• Use a proxy like 

  • Anonymization  

  • Guardster

  • ProxySpinner

  • Anonymizer

• Test your connection - see how much you are betraying!

• Use an innocuous ISP like AOL but….Create a fresh new account with no “history”