The problem of military intelligence being given away by social networking is a very old one. Directly useful OSINT (i.e., extranet social postings directly translatable to location) has become a rarity among contemporary military forces, due to greater technical capabilities and COMSEC discipline; however, negative social OSINT is still an issue. When extranet social postings from military-affiliated or -contracted individuals cease due to COMSEC, it is possible to infer that this is due to a forward deployment, and for a competent MILINT analyst to deduce from this such information as units deployed, specializations involved, possible deployment locations, etc., etc.

To address this issue, the Fifth Lord of the Admiralty created NATTER SPATTER.

Under the aegis of OPERATION NATTER SPATTER, the Stratarchy of Data Warfare maintains a team of AI forgers which monitor the extranet social postings of Imperial Military Service personnel and contractees, learn how to precisely model and imitate them, and are prepared to step in at a moment’s notice when COMSEC takes effect with a consistent stream of forged data – memeweave postings, imagery, slinky recordings, and even exomemories – indirected in such a manner as to be indistinguishable from the genuine article, and demonstrating a continued civilian life. A stochastic social event generator seasons the basic event stream with sufficient nonrepresentative variation to prevent NATTER SPATTER content from being identified by excessively consistent mundanity.

While NATTER SPATTER postings will not, naturally, survive a full consistency check against the complete event record, public and private, such a full consistency check is beyond the capacity of many intelligence agencies and serves, in other cases, to drive the cost of obtaining this type of OSINT higher in terms of computation and time than can be justified.

– SDW: Ongoing Operations Summary (IMS ONLY: NOFORN)