The government figured out sockpuppet managment but not "persona management".

[penultimate]

165. I was thinking of ways that they might implement it, but it really does pose some interesting

hurdles. For example, it's easy to get it so different IPs are used, but that right there in itself would be a red flag for me as an admin. If someone constantly connects with a new IP, something is probably funky. Even more so if you can identify the IP as originating from device functioning as proxy. Although, I could easily create something that spins up cheap cloud server every time I want a 'clean' IP, and then use that server proxy traffic for me. Of course all IPs in that case would be assigned to the same entity and appear to come from the same place. Also, if it's apparent it's a IP coming from something like that, then that's another red flag. So really for it to really work, I'd think they'd need to have a pool of IPs in different location that they could grab and assign to each persona within every context in which they are operating. The IP should match up with the general location that they say they're located at to add that extra credibility to admins who might be digging deeper.

The idea of virtual machines make sense, for a few reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. First it helps ensure that any signatures the browsers, plugins and whatever else don't give them away. Or that there isn't anything like secret flash cookies that expose themselves. Also, it seems like it would help them immerse themselves in the persona. Each one could have their notes all self-contained, they can put up pictures of the person they're pretending to be to keep them in the zone. Maybe even each VM could have some software that will auto-adjust grammar and spelling habits based on certain rules defined during its creation. For example, maybe a persona commonly confused words like "there", "their", and "they're" or than and then. You know? Then if they take screen shots during their discussions, it will look legit because they can customize it to look like something the person they are pretending to be would have (maybe add a wallpaper of the person's supposed husband or pet cat) It also ensure that suspicious people can't look closely and compare matching font sizes, types, taskbar icons, OS type, color schemes, timezones make sense etc... I've discovered sock puppet accounts before based on the fact the person used netzero and had many of the same programs running (plus the fonts used were similar and the person had the same IE toolbars installed)

Woah, I just went off spewing a bunch of nonsense. I'm sure some people are now eyeing me with a bit suspicion hehe... I swear, I was just typing shit that popped into my head for some reason.