The recent report by VIGINUM regarding “Blackcore”—an orchestrated online disinformation campaign—has left many observers feeling uneasy. At a glance, the news seems encouraging; the investigation concluded that the operation’s attempts to manipulate public opinion largely failed, with the fake accounts gaining little to no genuine traction. However, this superficial victory obscures a much more disturbing reality. If we look past the immediate failure of the campaign, we realize that “persuasion” was never the true deliverable. Blackcore isn’t selling influence; it is selling a high-tech, resilient infrastructure that is specifically engineered to withstand the very scrutiny that VIGINUM applied to it. The product’s value lies in its durability: it is designed to be expendable, disposable, and modular, proving that even a full-scale forensic breakdown by a state agency is insufficient to actually shut down the operation.
The architecture of these operations is a masterclass in exploiting the gray areas between law and illicit activity. At the bottom, we find the “disposable” layer: thousands of fake avatars and shell websites designed to carry out the agitation. When the heat turns up and the press starts asking questions—as they did last May—these components are simply deleted, leaving investigators with nothing but a void. Meanwhile, the top layer of the organization is constructed with meticulous legal precision. By using registered companies with legitimate addresses and named directors in places like Sweden and the UK, the operators ensure they remain untouchable. Because these entities technically only provide “software” or “marketing tools,” they remain shielded behind a veneer of corporate normalcy that is virtually impossible for law enforcement to penetrate without stepping over the line into policing legitimate business.
The investigative cul-de-sac VIGINUM found itself in is no accident; it is the inevitable outcome of a system designed to be immune to government oversight. The trail leads directly to powerful figures, including former heads of national cyber agencies, whose professional histories are rooted in military intelligence. By framing the operation as a “marketing” venture, these individuals create a shield against legal repercussion. Even when investigators successfully navigate the technical maze and reach the corporate hierarchy, they hit a wall. An agency like VIGINUM can identify the links and expose the bad actors, but it lacks the mandate to put a nation’s economic export strategy on trial. Finding a registered businessman at the top of a shell company who claims to be selling mundane marketing services is a checkmate for current legal frameworks, which are not equipped to criminalize the professional application of psychological warfare.
To understand why this feels so difficult to disrupt, we must recognize that this is not a rogue operation; it is the evolution of a century-old strategy. Modern marketing as we know it was born in the trenches of the First World War. The pioneers of mass propaganda, such as Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann, helped the U.S. government “manufacture consent” using state-sponsored psychological techniques. When the war ended, these methods were not discarded; they were privatized and exported to Madison Avenue, becoming the foundation of global corporate advertising. The current Israeli model, where military intelligence expertise is repackaged and sold as high-end cyber-marketing tools, is simply the latest iteration of this historic pipeline. The state fosters these private-sector ventures, blurring the lines between national defense and commercial exploitation.
The tragedy of the VIGINUM report, therefore, is its inherent incompleteness. It climbs the mountain of evidence, correctly identifies the players, and then gets trapped in a procedural deadlock. It establishes that a “harm to the fundamental interests of the Nation” has occurred, yet it remains powerless to translate that finding into a conviction. The message sent by these corporate actors is clear: you can strip away our bots, you can expose our shell companies, and you can publish our names, but the underlying machinery is built to survive. The investigation ultimately stalls because there is no consensus on how to handle an industry that sells state-level manipulation under the guise of corporate consulting. As long as the legal system distinguishes between “illegal bots” and “legal software,” the architects of chaos will always be one step ahead of the regulators.
Ironically, while the French government intended to warn the public about a looming threat, the result has been a chilling demonstration of the product’s effectiveness. By confirming that the campaign was designed to be resilient against state intervention, the report inadvertently serves as a glowing review for potential clients. It demonstrates that the infrastructure is “battle-tested”—it can be compromised, analyzed, and publicly humiliated without actually being dismantled. Consequently, VIGINUM has inadvertently produced the ultimate sales brochure: a public confirmation that Israeli-style disinformation is a highly robust, “resilient” service. We are left with the uncomfortable truth that we have yet to develop a vocabulary, or a legal framework, that can effectively stop the privatization of psychological warfare.