Enigma comes to mind. IIRC, to camouflage it, the Brits specifically leaked messages claiming that it was due to some moles in Germany, not just explaining away how data kept leaking but actively impeding German operations. This was also seen in the Cold War where you had Soviet defectors who tried to discredit each other as agents sent to throw the CIA into confusion, and I’ve seen accusations that James Jesus Angleton was a spy or otherwise manipulated into his endless mole hunts by Russia specifically to destroy all agency effectiveness. For a more recent example, Assange’s Wikileaks was based on this theory, which he put forth in a short paper around that time: enabling easy leaking would sow distrust and dissension in networks that depended on secrecy, forcing compartmentalization and degrading efficiency compared to more ‘open’ organizations. EDIT: and appropriately, this is exactly what is happening in the NSA now—they are claiming that Snowden was leaking materials which had been made available to much of NSA, to assist in coordination, and they are locking down the material, adding more logging, and restricting sysadmins’ accesses, none of which is going to make the NSA more efficient than before… Similar to how State etc had to lock down and add friction to internal processes after Manning.
I don’t know if the tactic has any name or handy references, but certainly intelligence agencies are aware of the value of witch hunts and internal dissension.
The Assange paper in question: State and Terrorist Conspiracies. Written considerably prior to Wikileaks entering the spotlight (dated 2006 in that PDF).
Various leaks from Anonymous indicate the FBI (and probably local LEA) uses similar tactics against Occupy and other groups.
Enigma comes to mind. IIRC, to camouflage it, the Brits specifically leaked messages claiming that it was due to some moles in Germany, not just explaining away how data kept leaking but actively impeding German operations. This was also seen in the Cold War where you had Soviet defectors who tried to discredit each other as agents sent to throw the CIA into confusion, and I’ve seen accusations that James Jesus Angleton was a spy or otherwise manipulated into his endless mole hunts by Russia specifically to destroy all agency effectiveness. For a more recent example, Assange’s Wikileaks was based on this theory, which he put forth in a short paper around that time: enabling easy leaking would sow distrust and dissension in networks that depended on secrecy, forcing compartmentalization and degrading efficiency compared to more ‘open’ organizations. EDIT: and appropriately, this is exactly what is happening in the NSA now—they are claiming that Snowden was leaking materials which had been made available to much of NSA, to assist in coordination, and they are locking down the material, adding more logging, and restricting sysadmins’ accesses, none of which is going to make the NSA more efficient than before… Similar to how State etc had to lock down and add friction to internal processes after Manning.
I don’t know if the tactic has any name or handy references, but certainly intelligence agencies are aware of the value of witch hunts and internal dissension.
The Assange paper in question: State and Terrorist Conspiracies. Written considerably prior to Wikileaks entering the spotlight (dated 2006 in that PDF).
Various leaks from Anonymous indicate the FBI (and probably local LEA) uses similar tactics against Occupy and other groups.