Text 27 Black pr

Information is the single most important thing that moves the global economy, influences political regimes, and constructs human behavior. It is a tool of our trade and a powerful ally, but it is mainly a weapon of mass destruction. Information management and manipulation, social engineering, and traffic shaping are the black crafts of the digital age. There are countless real-life examples in which information is used to cause harm. Call it Black PR (BPR), industrial espionage, information warfare...all make use of the latest information-gathering techniques to stay ahead in the black information market.

So, what is Black PR? The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia: “Black Public Relations (BPR) or negative PR is a process of destroying someone’s reputation and corporate identity. In other words, instead of concentrating your efforts in the maintenance and the creation of a positive reputation/ image of your clients, you are trying to discredit someone’ else (usually your business rivals). Unlike the regular services in Public Relations, those in BPR rely on the development of industries such as IT security, industrial espionage, social engineering and competitive intelligence. Their main objective is finding all of the dirty secrets of their target and turning them against their very own holder.”

In summary, BPR is all about professional smear strategies, industrial espionages, propaganda and information hacking because data accessibility is crucial for every BPR campaign. The building of a black PR campaign, also known as a dirty tricks or a smear campaign is a long and a complex operation. Traditionally it starts with an extensive information gathering and follows the other needs of a precise competitive research. The gathered information is being used after that as a part of a greater strategical planning, aiming to destroy the relationship, e.g. between the company and its stakeholders.

Those who control the information flow now govern the world. New technologies and web applications have changed the entire communication blueprint. The big corporations have realized that they might lose control over the masses by letting normal people produce and share their own content—a trend that is already happening with the growth of Web 2.0 social technologies. Getting into a person’s mind and maintaining a good reputation is becoming more and more difficult than ever before. Companies are being forced to compete under different sets of rules and exposed practices that were unthinkable years ago.

According to Ivana Kalay (founder of SpinHunters, the first PR security company in the world), the tendencies show that many highly skilled black-hats (skilled information security hackers who pursue their interests illegally) will be hired by large enterprises to get into internal rival’s network and steal sensitive information. This information includes employee names, data with consumer complaints, and shareholder’ details. After profound professional analysis, this information will be used to create various communication plans to be used against the former owner.

Of course, none of the companies will make this type of confession. Black PR leads not only to the collapse of small/middle-sized business but also to the birth of a new black-hat hacker elite, which will be well funded and politically protected.

Questions:

1. What are the black crafts of the digital age?

2. What does Black PR make use of to stay ahead in the black information market?

3. What do people in BPR rely on?

4. What is the main objective of BPR?

5. How does a BPR campaign start?

6. How is the gathered information used?

7. What has changed the entire communication blueprint?

8. What have the big corporations realized?

9. What do the modern tendencies in PR show?

10. What does sensitive information include?