Discovering NSA Code Names Via LinkedIn

Okian Warrior writes with this news as reported by TechDirt: "The Washington Post revealed some of the code names for various NSA surveillance programs, including NUCLEON, MARINA and MAINWAY. Chris Soghoian has pointed out that a quick LinkedIn search for profiles with codenames like MARINA and NUCLEON happens to turn up profiles like this one which appear to reveal more codenames: 'Skilled in the use of several Intelligence tools and resources: ANCHORY, AMHS, NUCLEON, TRAFFICTHIEF, ARCMAP, SIGNAV, COASTLINE, DISHFIRE, FASTSCOPE, OCTAVE/CONTRAOCTAVE, PINWALE, UTT, WEBCANDID, MICHIGAN, PLUS, ASSOCIATION, MAINWAY, FASCIA, OCTSKYWARD, INTELINK, METRICS, BANYAN, MARINA.' TRAFFICTHIEF, eh? WEBCANDID? Hmm... Apparently, NSA employees don't realize that information they post online can be revealed."

Comments

A fleeting moment of rich irony.

[Picass0]

>> "Hmm... Apparently, NSA employees don't realize that information they post online can be revealed."

I admit to laughing at this.

Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony.

[Bob the Super Hamste]

First thing I thought was pay back is a bitch.

Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony.

[dywolf]

first thing i thought was red herring

Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony.

[pegr]

Submitted earlier with a better headline. (sigh)

No, the gotcha is not revealing project code names. Why post code names if the names are secret? The gotcha is...(ahem)

REVEALING THE NAMES OF ANALYSTS WITH ACCESS TO TOP SECRET PROJECTS!

Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony.

[ganjadude]

Pretty much. Once we have the names of a program. we can submit FOIA requests on them. thats one of the catch 22s with FOIA. you have to know what you are looking for, you cant just say "I want all the info on the NSA spying on americans" you need to say" I want all information on codenameA codenameB codenameC." will they give it? doubtful but its a start.

Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because knowing there's a project called "DISHFIRE" is so utterly helpful to figuring out what they're doing. Because we all live in conspiracy theorist wish fulfillment movies where this one grizzled screwball is screaming about how he knew there was something called "DISHFIRE", and why didn't we believe him before, and now we can stop it... somehow... whatever it is.

The names are mostly random because they don't necessarily bear any resemblance to the projects.

But having a publicly-trawlable bunch of data that links real-world humans, their real-world qualifications, and the projects that they've been read in on, however, is precisely the sort of social graph that an adversary could use to figure out what the codenamed projects are actually all about.

If there are dozens of cunning linguists and digital signal processing experts working on DEATHSTAR, and all the people who list MSPACMAN happen to have oceanography backgrounds or prior experience at companies that make precision optics, it doesn't take a genius to see that despite their names, DEATHSTAR is the project that's more likely to be NSA Line Eater, and MSPACMAN the project that involves sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads.

Simple explanation

[Sparticus789]

Project code names are not classified, ever. Every project has a unclassified code name like any of the above which can be used for things like budgeting and frankly, resumes. A guy I know tried to get "FLUFFY BUNNY" approved as a code name, but they denied it. The easy way to tell, is that unclassified code names are single words chosen by a random computer word generator, and the classified code names are always 2 words, chosen again by a random computer word generator.

While this may be interesting, the reality of the Fort Meade area is that any job in intelligence, analysis, or IT with a location of Fort Meade or Annapolis Junction, MD is a NSA job. Some of them even post on Craigslist and one time, I had a Facebook add pop up that said "Want an NSA Clearance?" (not a typo, the company messed up their grammar).

Re:Simple explanation

[TheNinjaroach]

Want an NSA Clearance?

That grammar is not incorrect. Phonetically, the "N" begins with a vowel sound so "an NSA" is correct.

Re:Simple explanation

[heypete]

I had a Facebook add pop up that said "Want an NSA Clearance?" (not a typo, the company messed up their grammar).

According to Purdue, words that start with consonants may be preceded with "an" if they have a "vowel sounds". They give the example of "an MSDS" and "an SPCC". Similarly, words that start with vowels but have consonant sounds use "a".

I'm no expert in grammar, but it seems possible that "an NSA clearance" may be correct.

Any experts want to chime in?

Re:Simple explanation

[Sparticus789]

Simple answer, yes. Complex answer, sometimes the project managers want a hip and cool project name so they try to come up with a generic term for their project that is similar to what the project does. The project name has to go through a CAO (classification advisory officer), of which there are 20-25 at any given time. They are always people in positions that can be named to the public, so any name of an individual on the NSA website is a CAO. Like the Director of the NSA or the division chiefs. The CAO determines whether or not the project name gives away too much information about the details of the project.

In all reality, all of those project code names are probably one specific type of information that just came from different sources. Pinwale is e-mails. So one of them is a database of foreign HF intercepts, another is a database of foreign-bound cell phones, one is a database of every phone call made by political opponents of the administration, etc.

Re:Simple explanation

[BForrester]

You're mostly right.
  - "Want a NSA clearance?" is incorrect.
  - "Want an NSA clearance?" is better.
  - "Want NSA clearance?" would be better still. There's no need for an article at all.

Re:Simple explanation

[Mashdar]

In English, a/an are selected phonetically and are otherwise identical. "An" does not imply plurality (in fact it implies singularity).

Substituting "NSA" for "security" in your examples does make a difference, because "NSA" begins with a phonetic vowel sound, whereas "security" begins with a phonetic consonant.

Articles in English are selected phonetically, not typographically, and thus "an NSA" is correct, whereas "a NSA" is not. This can be confusing to look at, but who ever said English was easy?

Gives me an idea, though

[Anonymous Coward]

I really need a job. So, I figured I could pose as an NSA person. And when a potential employer calls for a reference, they'll just say, "We cannot confirm nor deny that he worked here."

My job description could be ANYTHING. I could make up ANYTHING.

Skilled in intelligence platforms such as: BANANA, MACARONI, METRICS, SAES, SPURIOUS, HEX, SEX, LEXX, PECS.

Programmed in Python, Jython, NSAthon.

Designed and developed a super computer that has broken all records.

Re:Gives me an idea, though

[Dr_Barnowl]

Developed a plaintext recovery attack for SHA-256

Re:Just saying Hi!!

[Sponge Bath]

You know who I am.

On the internet, the NSA knows you're a dog.

Re:Are all of these acronyms?

[SJHillman]

The government retains a crack team of acronymists. They spend days laboring over each acronym making it perfect. Some examples

MANPADS (Man-portable air defense system)
DILDO (Direct Input Limited Duty Officer)
ASSBAG (Airframe Structure Support Boeing Advisory Group)

**I didn't make these up, there are sources for them but that would take more effort than Slashdot is accustomed to. Plus I accidentally closed those tabs already.

But he lacks one skill

[Hentes]

All these skills and he still didn't figure out how to turn off capslock.

Re:Sounds like FOIA time

[alphatel]

To me this sounds like it is time to file a bunch of freedom of information act requests. The bigger question is what if anything will the media do with this newf ound info.

I requested more info for you, here is some you should enjoy
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/716069/boozallenhamiltonnsa.pdf

Apparently Booz employees forgot that their cloud documents are.... well, public

Re: Irony as now google is your pal

[Em Adespoton]

Digging a little deeper, if you refactor the contents of those search results, you get a VERY complete picture of what's going on... for example, PINWALE is the code name for Mission Systems, developed for the Military by Northrop Grumman. Most of the people who developed the system appear to be on LinkedIn :)

That's just a taste; anyone good at graph theory and data mining could probably put together quite a dossier of people and projects based on the public info available through LinkedIn/Google.

Re:Just saying Hi!!

[RabidReindeer]

Everyone's a foreigner to somewhere, right?

We prefer the term "potential enemy combatant".