The Post-World-War II-period

After World War II the importance of propaganda still increased, on the commercial level as well as on a political level, in the era of the Cold War. The propaganda institutions of the different countries wanted their people to think the right way, which meant, the national way. In the USA the McCarthy-era started, a totalitarian system in struggle against communism. McCarthy even managed to publicly burn critical books that were written about him; and every unbeloved artist was said to be a communist, an out-law.
Cold War brought the era of spies with it, which was the perfect tool of disinformation. But the topic as a movie-genre seems still popular today, as the unchanged success of James Bond-movies show.
A huge net of propaganda was built up for threatening with the nuclear bomb: pretending that the enemy was even more dangerous than the effect of such a bomb.
And later, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, disinformation found other fields of work, like the wars of the 1990s showed us.

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Disinformation - A Definition

First of all disinformation can be explained as something that has to do with fears: it frightens us by taking away our individuality, as disinformation is not done for one single person. It is a manipulation; a manipulation the influenced persons did not ask for.

Disinformation is never the launching of one single information/message. Several - and in most cases many - different pieces make up a puzzle of deception. One single message can be called true or false, but only the combination of several and more informations makes up a system that has the power to influence opinions.
The purpose is what produces the disinformation, whereas a wrong information (even as a number of wrong informations) happening by accident represents simply a false information.
The person or group presenting a disinformation knows very well what he/it is doing. The aim is that the person who receives the disinformation gets influenced into a certain and well-planned direction. Therefore the wrong information has to reach the unconscious part of the mind, has to be integrated into personal thoughts.
A good way to reach that goal is to use a commonly known information, something familiar to reach the confidence of the recipient. The best is to use a quasi neutral message. Afterwards the real disinformation is woven into that other information. The mixture between truth, half-truth and lie is the most adequate method to get a disinformation into people's minds.
The knowledge about how to use material and how to slightly change it until the statement turns against someone or some idea, is a type of art to cope with words.

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Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)

Founded in 1973 by 239 banks from 15 countries, SWIFT is responsible for maintaining the world's most important network dedicated to financial transaction processing.
Although facing competition from smart cards, e.g., SWIFT can rely on an increasing clientèle. In September 1999 SWIFT served 6,710 live users in 189 countries.

http://www.swift.com

http://www.swift.com/
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Apple

Founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and headquartered in Cupertino, USA, Apple Computer was the first commercially successful personal computer company.

In 1978 Wozniak invented the first personal computer, the Apple II. IBM countered its successful introduction to the market by introducing a personal computer running MS-DOS, the operating system supplied by Microsoft Corporation. And IBM gained leadership again. Although by introducing the first graphical user interface affordable to consumers having started the desktop publishing revolution, Apple could not regain leadership again.

http://www.apple.com

For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,115726+1+108787,00.html

http://www.apple.com/
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