In June 2010, the United States Air Force solicited for "persona
management" software that would "enable an operator to exercise a number
of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of
being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to
appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact
through conventional online services and social media platforms..."[59]
The $2.6 million contract was awarded to Ntrepid Corporation for
astroturfing software the military would use to spread pro-American
propaganda in the Middle East, and disrupt extremist propaganda and
recruitment