DISARMframeworks/generated_pages/techniques/T0151.009.md

Technique T0151.009: Legacy Online Forum Platform

• Summary: Examples of Legacy Online Forum Platforms include Something Awful (SA Forums), Ars Technica forums, and NeoGAF, and the forums available on the Mumsnet and War Thunder websites.
  
  Legacy Online Forum Platforms are a type of message board (using software such as vBulletin or phpBB) popular in the early 2000s for online communities. They are often used to provide spaces for a community to exist around a given website or topic.
  
  Legacy Online Forum Platforms allow users to create Accounts to join in discussion threads posted to any number of Forums and Sub-Forums on the platform. Forums and Sub-Forums can be Gated, allowing access to approved users only. They can vary in size. Some are larger platforms that host a wider set of topics and communities while others are smaller in scope and size.

• Belongs to tactic stage: TA07

Incident	Descriptions given for this incident
I00105 Gaming the System: The Use of Gaming-Adjacent Communication, Game and Mod Platforms by Extremist Actors	In this report, researchers look at online platforms commonly used by people who play videogames, looking at how these platforms can contribute to radicalisation of gamers: Gamer Uprising Forums (GUF) [is an online discussion platform using the classic forum structure] aimed directly at gamers. It is run by US Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin and explicitly targets politically right-wing gamers. This forum mainly includes antisemitic, sexist, and racist topics, but also posts on related issues such as esotericism, conspiracy narratives, pro-Russian propaganda, alternative medicine, Christian religion, content related to the incel- and manosphere, lists of criminal offences committed by non-white people, links to right-wing news sites, homophobia and trans-hostility, troll guides, anti-leftism, ableism and much more. Most noticeable were the high number of antisemitic references. For example, there is a thread with hundreds of machine-generated images, most of which feature openly antisemitic content and popular antisemitic references. Many users chose explicitly antisemitic avatars. Some of the usernames also provide clues to the users’ ideologies and profiles feature swastikas as a type of progress bar and indicator of the user’s activity in the forum. The GUF’s front page contains an overview of the forum, user statistics, and so-called “announcements”. In addition to advice-like references, these feature various expressions of hateful ideologies. At the time of the exploration, the following could be read there: “Jews are the problem!”, “Women should be raped”, “The Jews are going to be required to return stolen property”, “Immigrants will have to be physically removed”, “Console gaming is for n******” and “Anger is a womanly emotion”. New users have to prove themselves in an area for newcomers referred to in imageboard slang as the “Newfag Barn”. Only when the newcomers’ posts have received a substantial number of likes from established users, are they allowed to post in other parts of the forum. It can be assumed that this will also lead to competitions to outdo each other in posting extreme content. However, it is always possible to view all posts and content on the site. In any case, it can be assumed that the platform hardly addresses milieus that are not already radicalised or at risk of radicalisation and is therefore deemed relevant for radicalisation research. However, the number of registered users is low (typical for radicalised milieus) and, hence, the platform may only be of interest when studying a small group of highly radicalised individuals. Gamer Uprising Forum is a legacy online forum, with access gated behind approval of existing platform users (T0155.003: Approval Gated, T0151.009: Legacy Online Forum Platform).
I00109 Coordinated Facebook Pages Designed to Fund a White Supremacist Agenda	This report examines the white nationalist group Suavelos’ use of Facebook to draw visitors to its website without overtly revealing their racist ideology. This section of the report looks at the Suavelos website, and the content it links out to. In going back to Suavelos’ main page, we also found: A link to a page on a web shop: alabastro.eu; A link to a page to donate money to the founders through Tipee and to the website through PayPal; [and] a link to a private forum that gathers 3.000 members: oppidum.suavelos.eu; Suavelos linked out to an online store which it controlled (T0152.004: Website, T0148.004: Payment Processing Capability), and to accounts on payment processing platforms PayPal and Tipee (T0146: Account, T0148.003: Payment Processing Platform). The Suavelos website also hosted a private forum (T0151.009: Legacy Online Forum Platform, T0155: Gated Asset), and linked out to a variety of assets it controlled on other online platforms: accounts on Twitter (T0146: Account, T0151.008: Microblogging Platform), YouTube (T0146: Account, T0152.006: Video Platform), Instagram and VKontakte (T0146: Account, T0151.001: Social Media Platform).
I00118 ‘War Thunder’ players are once again leaking sensitive military technology information on a video game forum	In an effort to prove that the developers behind a popular multiplayer vehicle combat game had made a mistake, a player went ahead and published classified British military documents about one of the real-life tanks featured in the game. This truly bizarre turn of events recently occurred in the public forum for War Thunder, a free-to-player multiplayer combat sim featuring modern land, air, and sea craft. Getting a small detail wrong on a piece of equipment might not be a big deal for the average gamer, but for the War Thunder crowd it sure as hell is. With 25,000 devoted players, the game very much bills itself as the military vehicle combat simulator. A player, who identified himself as a British tank commander, claimed that the game’s developers at Gaijin Entertainment had inaccurately represented the Challenger 2 main battle tank used by the British military. The self-described tank commander’s bio listed his location as Tidworth Camp in Wiltshire, England, according to the UK Defense Journal, which reported that the base is home to the Royal Tank Regiment, which fields Challenger 2 tanks. The player, who went by the handle Pyrophoric, reportedly shared an image on the War Thunder forum of the tank’s specs that were pulled from the Challenger 2’s Army Equipment Support Publication, which is essentially a technical manual. [...] A moderator for the forum, who’s handle is “Templar_”, explained that the developer had removed the material after they received confirmation from the Ministry of Defense that the document is still in fact classified. A user of War Thunder’s forums posted confidential documents to win an argument (T0089.001: Obtain Authentic Documents, T0146: Account, T0097.105: Military Personnel Persona, T0115: Post Content, T0143.001: Authentic Persona, T0151.009: Legacy Online Forum Platform).

Counters	Response types

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