Thought reform and the psychology of totalism
2022 Hardcover Reprint of 1961 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Lifton's research for the book began in 1953 with a series of interviews with American servicemen who had been held captive during the Korean War. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15 Chinese who had fled their homeland after having been subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, which in some cases occurred regularly for over a year, Lifton identified the tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in one's opinions and personality and "brainwash" American soldiers into making demonstrably false assertions. This work has become a classic text in the field and continues to serve as a fundamental guide in the debriefing of former cult members. Lifton's famous eight criteria for thought control are: Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large. Mystical Manipulation. There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes.
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- Interesting find, but I'd label this more soft propaganda intended to discredit or nullify arguments for regulation.
On its face it would seem to be absurd without knowing the related history, the video appears to purposefully be meant to be absurd, and blunted in efficacy.
Starting with the documentation coming out in the 1950s with the return of PoWs from the Korean Conflict under Mao, who were quite irrevocably changed, brainwashing and thought reform have been a worrying subject for quite awhile; and rightfully so to the rational minded citizen that is the cornerstone of any strong/resilient nation.
The study of this area is about how you break people down mentally to build them back up again in a way your government wants in the process removing resistance or inducing blindness. The resistance is required of good citizenship to keep government functional. Many who know the truth of these things find it frightening that such a thing exists, but there are defenses against these dark arts (for the most part).
Intrinsic in this study are the very finite limits of free-will, and willpower under external structure and pressure based in mental compulsion and manipulation, and of the breaking of individual perception as a whole.
To be clear there is no doubt that brainwashing, thought reform, and cult programming; are all very real things that share quite a lot, and they are not as has been characterized in the media. They are quite different.
They exist, and the people who don't believe they exist are at the greatest risk because they are wholly without defense to the malign influence inherent in some of the related tools, techniques, and structures.
Special interests have been at this for quite a long time to associate absurdity with the these subjects to discredit the danger the science poses which is based in real science. You see this broadly when media portrays hypnosis as absurdity as well leaving false beliefs that induce blindness.
The same thing basically happened with oil companies discrediting scientists about climate change back when it would have cost a lot less to fix. PFAS too.
It is important to keep in mind that the history at the time of this video was the FCC/FTC was actively investigating this and would come to a ruling about subliminal messaging, stimuli, and other forms all based in these things which occurred in 1974. After that ruling, the special interests began a long campaign to defund and make impotent the FTC which can be seen as successful today (its toothless, and government based in our foundations is collapsing as a direct result).
Torture for the uninitiated is simply the structured imposition of psychological stress, which upon reaching certain levels of exposure reduce the ability of the recipient to form coherent rational thoughts, induces involuntary hypnosis where the person seeking relief from such stress may unconsciously adopt any perceived stance of the torturer including engaging in their own self-torture/destruction culminating in false confessions, and eventual psychological decoherence or break to non-responsive dissassociation, or a semi-lucid violent psychosis capable of planning which seeks annihilation on a target while also seeking self-annihilation. Everyone breaks, its just a matter of time and exposure.
Some have suggested that screens are harmless, and that is reductionist to the point of absurdity.
They are communications, and within the base thought processes involved in communications there are psychological blindspots which can be leveraged and degraded towards these horrible things. Propaganda is a real thing as are its effects.
Joost Meerloo and Robert Lifton cover the basis for these things in depth. There are also many modern programs that are demonstrably effective based on these lines of scientific progress if one knows where to look. (Cult deprogramming, Covert Hypnosis, Game Design/Social Media which is associated with modern forms of operant conditioning, narco-analysis, and similar structures to induce dopamine-triggered addiction; which makes one more susceptible to these things and may accompany regression towards infantile states).
The methods in this tape are purposefully made to seem absurd to those who do not understand how these things work in practice. In many cases, the structure and associated clustering is just as important as the elements for efficacy.
The authors seem to purposefully remove clustering aspects in this film which makes it seem absurd. Importantly also, there is this concept in hypnosis therapies as well as psychology as a whole of psychological reversal, which is an opposing force in response to recognized external mental compulsion. The harder you push someone the more they push back.
When you are manipulated by someone to your detriment and you recognize the means by which they do it, you get almost irrationally angry in response to that stimuli. This can happen when its sustained, but also quite suddenly when you catch on slightly after-the-fact. The latter is far more powerful. This here in the film is used to blunt the efficacy in the tape (by telling your conscious mind what is happening). Some people in hypnosis call the normal process of induction overcoming/bypassing the critical mind/attention/factor. The methods present do the opposite here seeking to engage it.
Subliminal aspects would be beneath the threshold of perception, if you recognize text that isn't below the threshold; and they are not doing real subliminals in the way you expect, in this film.
Destructive interference and mis-association occurs in the surgery pictures.
Most people believe they are special and hold that belief as a core self-concept; i.e. they are more than just bone, muscle, and sinew, and showing these images is meant to upset this belief and induce feelings associated with the backlash connected with the purpose of the film (subliminal messaging, and its efficacy), conflating people with false senses that these things aren't real.
There are things that people will not and cannot believe until they experience it firsthand (to their own detriment), when they cannot see how it works or recognize external facts. Torture, compulsion, and hypnotism are some of these things. You may not notice what is happening, but you notice something has happened, its often accompanied by confusion.
This is the same kind of experience one has when they went out to look at used cars only to look, and somehow find themselves back at home or after-the-fact where they now have a new car. They may have struggled to avoid that, but they lost that struggle because these types of influence can force your psychology to fight itself, and all the salesperson has to do is trigger and structure things a certain way and then just wait until you wear down.
https://progressiveawareness.org/research_desk_reference/leg...
Robert Cialdini, "Influence" is all about psychological blindspots used in clustering; excepting distorted reflected appraisal.
Robert Lifton, "Thought Reform, and the psychology of totalism"
Joost Meerloo, "Rape of the Mind", covers the Nazi's contributions to this as well though a bit dated.
Igor Ledochowski, has a number of programs that push the SOTA with regards to hypnosis. Torture is based in involuntarily induced hypnosis.
Neuro-linguistic programming originated in research to de-program victims of cults.
Ilyin, "On resistance to evil by Force", provides a useful older framework which after reading this other subject matter places appropriate context for the many aspects in which "Influence" based in such things should be considered, and provides some useful skills of discernment that apply as well. Overcoming a previously induced perceptual blindness is quite challenging.
- TL;DR The article has several good points, but mixed into those points are as many or equal omitted portions that flavor the post in the same ways that the author draws attention to as a bad thing. This is cherry-picking towards a narrative, one that is aimed at making the US the bad guy while neglecting through omission the real environment. (i.e. the fallacy of isolation/overgeneralization).
There are objective measures which can be done and evaluated on such content and mechanisms, and its promoting through implication there being no objective truth left. That's a fallacy.
The absence of certain clear examples which make far stronger arguments beg the question of motives, and intent.
For example, the communist regime under Mao, are the originators of the modern paradigm of what we call thought reform, or mind control today. This started in the 1950s during the Korean Conflict, where PoWs were subjected to such torture and psychological manipulation. The Nazi's knew a few things, the Chinese under Mao took it to a whole different level; effectively breaking perception (and people).
The CIA began their research in response to these abuses, and also in the following continuous use of same research by a great number of communist countries.
None more infamous than the Stasi, who used these things to repress and disunify their population under Zersetzung. It unclear whether the rise of cults in the 60s and on were the result of CIA programs, or a subversive attack by foreign powers. Cults utilize closely parallel working knowledge which was not common knowledge at the time (as far as can be verified).
The CIA and other agencies engaged in the same research, including parallels to narcosynthesis/analysis (the LSD experiments), but they were late to the game. The Chinese used this as a weapon, and great injustices occur everywhere its used because the incentives allow for it to happen. Some of these incidents have still not seen the full light of day. COINTELPRO for example, and its successors; and the materials related to Martin Luther King Jr. have yet to be fully released.
There is little doubt such programs still exist in secret today, under new names, and directives, and activists understand this coercive harassment more than most. Some criminals may be telling the truth about unlawful acts committed against them by law enforcement, but were unable to prove because of the sophistication of such systems. It begs serious questions, which have been kept secret.
The direct evidence of any actual incidents of parallel construction is sufficient to merit much further examination which has never been fully disclosed.
With the growing societal dependency on technological systems that are in effect a state of "complete compromise", these things have only grown in scope, allowing systems such as "Social Credit" to be applied arbitrarily to citizens, without their knowledge, through third-party intermediaries (Big Tech), perhaps in some cases just third-party sockpuppet groups.
These things are a big problem, because fundamentally whenever you engage in such behavior as state apparatus (indirectly or directly, inaction or action), if the government fails to step in and correct it in a timely manner; its considered a formal objective breaking of the social contract.
Sufficient breakage of societal norms, lack of an effective rule of law, unchecked corruption and abuse towards any person that forces them to disadvantaged survival or indentured servitude, aka slavery; leads to revolution, or eventual socio-economic collapse, and there are many examples of this throughout history.
Even persistent monitoring can meet these objective indicators, as people have fourth amendment constitutional rights to be secure in their persons, and that right has dependencies based in privacy, even when in public ways. For example, using such surveillance to determine when the person isn't home so they can break in and vandalize the victims property, or create further threats against such person.
An entity utilizing such complete surveillance in bulk or individually treats such people as animals; violating these rights, and breaking the social contract when its sponsored in any part by government. Any government contract to said entity directly or indirectly thus makes them automatically complicit when these things are done, and an objective but indirect breaking of constitutional oaths making such people involved oath-breakers/traitors. Similar abuses and their derivatives can be found in the response to the King during the American Revolution (~1776), 27 grievances.
Even the simple act of non-enforcement, or front-of-line blocking can create complicity when they prevent corrective action. So such entities may even include foreign powers, as a scapegoat or otherwise.
One thing is certain. Dark times are ahead, because the type of people doing these things are reinforcing a runaway positive feedback system that has only one logical end, and that end is running off the rails, destructive, and its entirely preventable if stopped before a certain point which has already passed. Right now, its full steam ahead.
For anyone interested in the real mechanics of these things. I've included some references below to the foundations that are vetted experts on the subject matter.
All but the first, are dark reads, and most marketing, public relations, addictive design, and psychology more recently has obscured these origins using different terms and words. Certain hypnosis articles, papers, and programs are also somewhat based in this research (and aimed towards deprogramming such as cult deprogramming), involuntary hypnosis is the 2nd stage of torture, and inconsistent mental states and world views impose psychological stress.
Torture is simply an individual threshold where exposure imposes psychological stress that results in physiological outcomes.
Robert Cialdini, "Influence", - Psychological blindspots leveraged except distorted reflected appraisal (through communications).
Joost Meerloo, "Rape of the Mind" - Overview of torture for thought reform, WW2 thru Mao.
Robert Lifton, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" - Case Studies of returning PoWs 1950s, Mao China - Elements, Structuring, Clustering.
- These type of people are the people who haven't realized they've been indoctrinated, addicted, and tortured.
They have been induced towards a corruption by dependency scheme in subtle ways, and as a result their rational thought has diminished without them realizing it.
This naturally happens in any totalitarian state where you become dependent on the state for your decisions and values.
Religion in a way used to help protect against this, but with the spread and rise of nihilism and pacifism, religion has taken a back seat especially given the recent controversy and destructive path orthodoxy is taking.
These are the values that are so widely promoted and embedded in things today, following a War and Peace philosophy, which is acceptance of evil, or rather towards inducing a wilful self-inflicted blindness towards evil.
You may find the book "On Resistance to Evil by Force", by Ivan Ilyin, an enlightening read, written around the early 1900s, near the dawn of modern psychology. It discusses the topic of evil, in a objectively tied way (not delusion or mere opinion). It does this in a fairly refined way properly following rational principles, first with definition, and then building from there following Method, and the Hyper-rational practices of that generation. A translation to English only recently became available, it was originally written in Russian prior to and through the Bolshevik/Communist takeover.
There are aspects discussed that you can see were used incompletely in the design of the modern day prison system in the U.S and many other insights.
The book was published to refute War and Peace, since the philosophies written about in that book induce evil over time which follows in line with the Banality of evil (the complacent/slothful) becoming the radical evil (related to the Nazi's, and the Wannsee Conference). A semi-recent movie was produced in 2001, that uses the minutes taken at that conference to depict how it happened (quite excellently, albeit dark). Conspiracy(2001).
The problem with totalitarian regimes is people in these societies will attack those that threaten their belief systems, and that threat might include the imposition of the responsibility of deciding things for themselves.
See these authors for more material on the torture/menticide aspects: They are all experts in their fields, or have been recognized by established experts for the excellence of their published works.
Joost Meerloo, "Rape of the Mind" (1950s) Robert Cialdini, "Influence" (1990s) Robert Lifton, "Thought Reform and the psychology of Totalism" (1950s)
- I'd suggest you check out the books I mentioned.
The case studies written in Robert Lifton's book, "Thought Reform, and the Psychology of Totalism", have many details of the elements, taken from first-hand accounts (PoWs), back in the 50s. Many of these people never recovered.
Joost Meerloo, Rape of the Mind has an overview of the process, observations, and some early diagnostic criteria (Schizophrenia/delusion is often found as a characteristic in such early cases).
More recently, Social Engineering in the context of movie character design touches on another aspect where distorted reflected appraisal is used to often impart gender or cultural maladaptive behaviors, or destructively interfere in belief systems, such as religion, or groups (the nuclear family), under a guise of inclusion.
Pixar and Disney are two companies which often touch on this subject matter, Apple too, and there have been whistleblowers from the first, who have come out and talked about what happens behind close doors.
Some examples, association of the handsome man always being the evil villain (targeting teen women), the religious or trusted community figure or leader acting and looking crazy and goofy with no one paying attention, the hero being so weak they need to be defended by their romantic interests (targeting teen men), or their romantic interests emasculating them in the guise of defending them (targeting women), normalizing maladaptive behavior that only causes friction between genders, and other cohorts. Similar targeting for the nuclear family, where mimicking behavior (something kids naturally do) becomes malign.
I remember reading some studies where language processing was examined. I can't quite remember where it was from now but basically Children read differently from adults, where descriptive language is modified indirectly. Children take the literal (first simple meaning and stick to it), whereas adults get the correct context after gymnastics.
Basically, with enough natural/destructive friction, people isolate themselves to limit exposure which makes the messaging all the more effective for the majority of the population, as long as you hit those three things I previously mentioned.
As torture is an involuntarily induced hypnotic state, you can find a good deal of more modern material under hypnotism (bypassing the critical factor/attention, and hypnotic reversals which cause irrational emotional response against something when they believe they notice the manipulation.
The TV Show Hannibal, used similar means to induce and associate delight in the audience with the colorfully posed victims, of the serial killer, which was sickening on so many levels.
Igor Ledochowski has several programs, Mindbending Language, and Conversational Hypnosis which take this to SOTA back in 2000.
NLP and Cult deprogramming has been an active area of research.
There are many areas where these things intersect, some relying on distorting communication as that is usually the simplest way to distort reflected appraisal, others to shape sentiment.
Karma bots on social media as an example of the latter (where karma dictates whether you are squelched or not by the majority).
The large tech companies basically used their government funding and constructed echo chambers for all of us individually. Inconsistency in reflected appraisal tends to drive us crazy (as humans), but also leaves us in a state where we are easily manipulated (Joost Meerloo touches on this robotization that inevitably is inflicted on the individual within totalitarian societies).
Google had a leak of their selfish ledger awhile back for a concrete example of the sophistication of the propaganda. While, horrifically flawed, its still convincing if you didn't know better (which is a result of inoculation).
Quite a lot of this research originated in Russia/China, but has continued globally under Irregular Warfare/Political Warfare subject matter. If you have a high discernment, going to the source material and understanding what is meant can provide useful insights, as well as the history of the Jesuits (which Marx/Engels seemed to have stolen somewhat heavily from).
Psycho-politick was interesting as well, albeit older. There is a ebook available from USMC Press on Political Warfare (published 2020), albeit doesn't touch as much as I'd like on the nuts and bolts.
Most of this has until just recently, been understood by those in the know, but publicly discounted/nullified. The history is quite interesting on its own, albeit hard to piece together given the clandestine nature of it all. A lot of this falls under regime-change strategy, and military doctrine of divide and conquer.
If you can segment people into roughly three groups, one unresponsive, one psychotic, and one rational. The rational cohort is too busy offsetting the fires created by the psychotic, and only a small group is needed (in theory) following a four stage process. Demoralization, Destabilization, Crisis, and Re-normalization, based in psychology.
Hopefully that provides some useful springboards for your research. Knowing how it happens, can provide some useful defensive measures, albeit one must be careful about anchoring on stimuli, since people who use some of the more sophisticated aspects often will notice the lack of effect, and adjust and will often try to invert, or induce an irrational reaction, which can bypass simple measures, and you can't remain hyper-vigilant all the time without detrimental effects (jumping as shadows). They'll paint you as a crazy person after goading you to destroy your social credibility.
- I'm going to assume that your question is genuine and sincere, and not meant sarcastically.
If you read the following books by established experts, you should be able to rationally answer the question for yourself as to the why and the how. The subject matter involves torture for thought reform, real not fantasy. This differs from SERE training which is geared towards resisting information extraction.
China by their own words (internal leaked documents), seeks the destruction of the national will, of their enemies. This involves an identity based approach to torture/thought reform, which falls under the military strategy, Divide and Conquer. Digital attacks are cost effective when weighed against other options.
Anything you believe, love, or common experiences that you share with other people is fair game for inducement and then destructive interference to promote nihilism, while segmenting individuals into two groups, disassociative responses (apathetic/non-response), and psychotic break responses.
The items targeted include chess, along with many other things. Inducement of struggle sessions to break people.
If you spend the time to review the material I mentioned, you'll likely find out that a core belief of yours is untrue, that belief being that something like this is fantasy and impossible. This has a way of breaking the weak-willed, often in a psychological reversal/delusion.
I hope you are a strong person, we need more rational people if we are to survive as a species.
Robert Lifton (Thought Reform and The Psychology of Totalism) Joost Meerloo (Rape of the Mind) Robert Cialdini (Influence) USMC Press (Political Warfare)(Free ebook at their website)
- > You're describing what a hypothetical future-booggieman can do...
Unfortunately no, being deadly serious here I'm describing what can be done today fairly trivially (to any target), and done in a way without alerting the victim that its even happening. They simply seem to have bad luck with a monkey on their back that they can't see everywhere they go in society. They are deprived of opportunities without their knowledge, be it gender relations, labor relations, citizen-government relations etc; its applies equally at all levels.
There are multiple ways than just what follows to do this:
Shall we go down the rabbit hole?
Starting off with a compromise and transparent SSL proxy termination through failures at the network edge (firmware level, between Router or Cable Modem and ISP/Internet).
Note the point the guy makes that Cable Modem standards require 56bit encryption to remain working, and there being no authentication for sensitive requests (i.e. query then update that firmware for one of something like 8 models of microcontroller architecture).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hk2DsCWGXs
From here, middle man most traffic (it says encrypted to the victim, its not encrypted), Deny service selectively (delayed update of antivirus, certificate revocation, etc), deny service selectively of inbound email and/or remove specific emails (breaking communication with a non-response you never receive), close opened resolution processes posing as the user, or the vendor CSR using generated correspondence or voice AI based in unofficial versions of GPT. The more induced frustration the better (higher cost).
Analyse traffic behavior for time spent on entertainment as potential targets. Isolate communications, prune social networks gradually.
Delay interrupt driven communications to the point of uselessness (friends ignore you, relationships wither and die, they see it as you not being interested/flaky, you see it as them not being interested; no way to validate and a lack of belief that it follows you across services; they firmly believe you are either crazy or are ghosting them and withdraw because you don't respond to communications they send you which you don't know about, and communications on their side are not impaired with other people).
ISPs may extend their cellular coverage through edge-based repeaters/mesh network allowing interception. Prevent or delay SMS/Voice Communications of all forms targeted and intermittently. (i.e. medical communications to coordinate scheduling/testing for cancer/mortal diseases early? etc...) Failures are systemic failures of the company not an adversary... or so they perceive. "It is just everyone is so incompetent, it can't be malice", someone would have ensured this is unthinkable.
If they love something (what your identity is based on), like chess, pose as the chess server and always match and win against them using an engine to demoralize. They would see perfect play 7/10 times, assume its representative of the state of thing, and despite having the expectation that they are playing against people they are constantly being the victim of deceit. This Distorts Reflected Appraisal changing their worldview subtly, the more wide in subject/situation, the worse the distortion gets; it destructively interferes with Self Concept and their Identity hollowing them out inducing hypnotic states commonly known and seen in torture from WW2/Mao but without that physical threat (its just an omnipresent threat). The mind in these states is malleable and remembers details more easily, this is where ads come in. Induce hate, disunity, derision, disgust in every one and thing they love; segment the victim into a cohort.
Make what they love shit, pose as the user for any number of harmful effects (i.e. request mail forwarding to some other address now the victim gets no mail and it goes to lost mail once the forwarded address says not here), report the property as vacant, intercept e-file make it so it appears to be submitted (when it doesn't); what happens when you don't file taxes or pay taxes?, or replace with incorrect taxes posing as the user (fraud, whose responsible?).
Google Information Services can have a fake business listing registered at an address. The victims own devices generate a busy time graph as they do for any business which is public. This is when they are home.
A Roku/Smart TV may be remotely triggered to enable the voice control mic to turn on regularly and place shows that destructively interfere with your view in their queues. They would see this as the company.
All this happens outside the users ability to perceive or largely control. It forms the basis for a struggle session (mental coercion/torture) they cannot escape from it.
With isolation and distorted view of the world you can ramp this up continually until they break psychologically, no physical presence needed. Slow, steady, and increasing the anaconda coils. If you don't minutely adjust within some arbitrary viewpoint the anaconda eats you.
If you've made fun of those insane Trump Supporters that are still with him despite everything he has done, this is a perfect example of the long-lasting permanency of mental coercion with persistence that naturally comes with demagogues, but is also being engineered using the same elsewhere for purpose.
The victims of this menticide either disassociate no longer contributing anything to anyone or reacting to anything, commit suicide, or become psychotic taking it out on other people violently until they are stopped. No physical presence needed because every single IOT/tech system has been shimmed towards benefiting a malicious adversary without a trace (since detailed network logs aren't kept longer than a certain period due to storage costs).
Need I continue?
Psychologically unstable people can be easily manipulated by timely showing solutions or ways out that temporarily resolve difficulties (pay for play to be that solution) in the middle of such torture.
Ever talk about purple dog collars with friends for awhile repeating the word and then see purple dog collars in all those ads on all your devices for up to 2-3 days later?
How do you think they know to show you those ads? The devices largely don't have the hardware specifications to do that computation at the edge so its collected, aggregated into a profile centrally, and used against you in sophisticated brainwashing/torturous ways that are simply claimed to be harmless marketing/adtech (you have to prove otherwise).
Incidentally, this is the why and how false confessions to crimes people didn't do are made, its been known since the 1950s.
Tech makes the links ephemeral with a false but generalized presumption that they are working in all cases unless you can prove otherwise which has no paper trail because it vanished immediately after it happened.
If you'd like to research these mechanisms for Thought Reform and indoctrination from sound expert material further (its dark), I'd suggest Robert Lifton "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism", and John Meerloo "Rape of the Mind" for the foundational material. Its not absurd like most people are conditioned to believe from the irrational association of this depicted subject in media.
Communists use this as a divide a conquer strategy for regime change (most governments do too).
Monopolists use this to pressure consumers to buy things they wouldn't normally buy. This is how they capitalize on the inducements of anxiety and other emotional states they paid for via their marketing budget.
Governments use the shimmed parts to spy. Everyone benefits but the individual.
It is why the world today feels like torture to many rational people; it actually is torture and you just didn't realize it because you were not educated properly, and it was snuck in when you were not looking. It is also de-facto protected by the first amendment because of lack of standing and any interference by government to correct is a violation of the constitution.
It has been known by experts that free-will isn't guaranteed and has largely been broken for quite some time absent few exceptional individuals. These things warp people into stilted lesser versions of themselves that are incapable of further growth (by purposeful design).
Yes most of these things are very much against the law, but those laws are not self-enforcing and you have no proof, and opsec is simple when so many things are shimmed and ephemeral. Outside extreme measures coupled with extreme expertise it is impossible to detect, and equally challenging to hold those engaging in such evil to account.
Even most IT professionals lack an appropriate background knowledge to properly analyse firmware or log signal data between non-standard interfaces (i.e. coax beyond the demarcation point of responsibility, where law may punish any observer) which would be needed to overturn that irrational presumption that everything is working (uphill battle in any centralized/corrupt structure).
If you are thinking, this is crazy-making nightmare fuel...
It is, and it has valid and sound basis, and few outside the deepest niches and technical circles know (not belief).
It is an uphill battle just communicating the danger, in opposition to indoctrination caused by the many hidden systems designed for malign corruption and influence.
Edit: If you want to rip some of that indoctrination conditioning to shreds, I'd suggest Bazzel's book: Open Source Intelligence 10th Edition.
