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Last week's NewsNews article for the week of 3/31/09. All a Twitter About the New weaponisation By Grey Technology Every military around the world has sought technology that would give it an edge over opponents both real and perceived. The wheel, iron working, flight, rocketry, yodelling, Simon Cowell, and now social networking has become the latest development to be considered as a weapon of war. This is not an entirely new concept, during the first Gulf War there was considerable work put into weaponising personal ads. Facebook has been considered but the more cutting edge Twitter, effectively a microblog that can be updated at anytime with events as exciting as putting out the washing or as mundane as bringing in the washing, is thought of as the better long term bet. According to leaked documents there have been a few attempts at converting Twitter into aerosol form, where it can easily be inhaled by the enemy. Exactly what this is supposed to have achieved I don’t know. Similarly liquid and capsule form of Twitter just make no sense. At all. Used as a propaganda tool is supposedly now under development by the United States military, The British Armed Forces, the French Airforce, the Not-KGB in Russia, and some old guy in the back of Australia who claims Twitter put his eye out. As usual the forces of villainy and not niceness have leapt upon the readily available technology and spun it for their own means. Generally this is seen as the trigger for research by Western powers when previously it was dismissed as a child’s toy. For some the shift came when Osama Bin Ladin twittered the following comment: “”Yankee Doodle Dandy. Don’t no one get it? Dandy. Flouncy, limp wristed, cravat wearing dandy. Like a homosexual only dandy. This is the American pig dog hero? Cravat!” While few take most of Bin Ladin’s statements seriously since he failed to predict who the 2007 winner of America’s Top Model would be, these sorts of insults have begun to cut to the bone since Yankee Doodle is number three on President Obama’s list of people who don’t suck. If someone in Al Qaeda were to start on his heroes list then nuclear retaliation on that portion of Afghanistan is a distinct possibility. In an odd twist the two local residents in that portion of Afghanistan who have access to both electricity and computer technology have twittered “bring it on, the whole neighbourhood is a disgusting dump, all we have is a Denny’s.” This incident has spawned rumours of using Twitter less as a weapon in itself, and as more of a delivery system in the same way that flight, rocket propulsion and Dr Phil have been used in the past. Using Titter to deliver intelligence, computer viruses and stinging burns on foes could see the world of social networking become the next great battlefront. Considering the heavy use Twitter sees from attention starved celebrities the potential for collateral damage in Hollywood is incalculable, but not exactly something anyone is worried about. |
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