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The NSA's Delightfully D&D-inspired Guide To the Internet (muckrock.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the 10-sided-dice dept.

"The NSA has a well-earned reputation for being one of the tougher agencies to get records out of, making those rare FOIA wins all the sweeter..." according to Muckrock.com, and "the fact that the records in question just so happen to be absolutely insane are just icing on the cake...." v3rgEz writes: In 2007, two NSA employees put together "Untangling the Web," the agency's official guide to scouring the World Wide Web. The 651-page guide cites Borges, Freud, and Ovid -- and that's just in the preface. MuckRock obtained a copy of the guide under an NSA Freedom of Information request, and has a write up of all the guide's amazing best parts.
They're calling it "the weirdest thing you'll read today".

43 comments

  1. Re:Slashdot is dead by HeadSoft · · Score: 1

    D&D is nerd stuff if anything ever was. I daresay moreso than the internet itself.

  2. If the nsa is smart... by fortfive · · Score: 1

    This is brilliant misinformation. If the nsa is average, this is a mindblowimg example of bureaucratic cancer.

    1. Re:If the nsa is smart... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've known a few NSA folks and they tend to be incredibly geeky, smart, and sometimes borderline autistic mathematicians, engineers, and linguists. My guess is that this was written by one of those types who couldn't resist having a bit of fun with it, or it was aimed at fellow geeks who would get a laugh out of an otherwise boring document.

    2. Re:If the nsa is smart... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I opened a project to update our datacenter's unix security policy with The Carpenter and the Walrus. Some people got it, some did not

    3. Re:If the nsa is smart... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are tens of thousands of "NSA folks". The only common thread is that they only care about getting the rocket up, and turn a blind eye to where it comes down, because that's not their department.

      This looks like the sort of thing I'd write when I was an insufferable 15 year old smartarse at boarding school. I realise America's culturally retarded, but this is just embarrassing...

    4. Re:If the nsa is smart... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We may be culturally retarded but at least we're not insufferably boring and so smug and self important that we enjoy sniffing our own asses.

    5. Re: If the nsa is smart... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ehhh hem; San Fransico much?

    6. Re: If the nsa is smart... by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      Yup. The ones you don't see often are even more so, from what I have heard.

    7. Re: If the nsa is smart... by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 1

      PS, I don't work for the NSA. I do live in an area where a lot of NSA employees are.

    8. Re:If the nsa is smart... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      The message, hmm, "come work for the NSA and get to browse the internet all day long, every day, we will pay you to, troll, hack and peak into people's private lives, whoot".

      The message they don't want you to see "We will also do it to you, more than everyone else, what you do to others, we will be doing to you". Apparently they now spy more on each other than they do the rest of us and that is now extending country to country spy vs spy style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Hacking into each others lives and with computers tracking everyone, it becomes easier to spot the agents, they represent distortions in digital space, absences in digital space with a physical presence and data mismatch. They'll be so busy spying on themselves and each other that, well, professional paranoia does no make for a healthy mind set. They will know better than anyone else how little privacy they have, especially them.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    9. Re:If the nsa is smart... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      It's the "reverse ninja" rule from movies. One ninja is awesome but if twenty attack the hero they are dealt with in seconds.

      In more real terms the talented people are accompanied by those that got to be their superiors via blatant nepotism and other factors that weaken an org. See the "Star Trek Set" example as to how fucked up things can be at the NSA.

      They are toy soldiers.

    10. Re:If the nsa is smart... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I've known a few NSA folks and they tend to be incredibly geeky, smart, and sometimes borderline autistic mathematicians, engineers, and linguists. My guess is that this was written by one of those types who couldn't resist having a bit of fun with it, or it was aimed at fellow geeks who would get a laugh out of an otherwise boring document.

      The NSA's sole job is basically geekdom. Think about all the work the NSA does - cryptographic, surveillance, analysis, etc. Now realize this work isn't done by managers or executives or people with business degrees.

      No, it's done by people with doctorates, masters and bachelor's in science and math. And it's got great gobs or engineers as well. Basically outside of NASA, the NSA is the other government geek heaven

      So yes, the documentation the NSA writes internally is probably going to be full of geek references because the whole agency is staffed that way.

  3. Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    does EditorDavid not understand the difference between "the internet" and "the world-wide web".

  4. Get out of the office... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...find a human...any human...talk...socialise...wise the fuck up. That was like reading a mental illness.

  5. Even the title of the book is wrong by De_Boswachter · · Score: 1

    ÜÑ[TANGLING THE W]Ëß

    I don't mind the unnecessary use of graphemes like umlauts and tildes, but I do find the use of the German sharp s very silly.

    UNTANGLING THE WESS

    1. Re: Even the title of the book is wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed, it's ignorant.

  6. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But the fact that the author thinks that this manual is "weird" clearly puts him in tech newbie status

    The parts that they highlighted came across to me as something that I would rather enjoy

  7. Re:Slashdot is dead by Megol · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    You use SJW -> you are part of the problem. Idiot.

  8. Some encouragement for recent graduates... by mariox19 · · Score: 1

    Liberal Arts majors need no longer restrict their job search to McDonald's, Burger King, etc.

    --

    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

    1. Re:Some encouragement for recent graduates... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not the work of a liberal arts major. This was clearly created by a huge nerd, who is almost certainly an engineer.

  9. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When did Slashdot go from being a site where nerds talked about technical stuff to now being a place where batshit crazy people where tinfoil hats and SJWs whine constantly? It doesn't seem like a place for nerds to discuss nerd stuff any longer. I'm more interested in cool software and hardware projects than the rampant paranoia dominating this site now.

    It happened when retards discovered that they could post their off-topic whining as AC. ^^^

  10. Repost by tiagosousa · · Score: 5, Informative

    This thing is so old that Amazon even sells it.

    1. Re:Repost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This thing is so old that Amazon even sells it.

      Um, yes... this. New flash from April 2013! Stay tuned following this Public Service Announcement...

  11. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SJW is a perfectly cromulent acronym.

  12. "the weirdest thing you'll read today"? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 2

    If MuckRock thinks that's the weirdest thing I'll read today, well, I guess I know one group that hasn't been tracking my browsing habits.

  13. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably around the time people started whining about Slashdot rather than scrolling past or commenting on an article. You know about Google? Google the shit you're into you whiny bitch

  14. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot is the last bastion of disgruntled programmers whom the world has passed by. So salty.

  15. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yarrr im a mid 40s white male and mad about any social progress!!!

  16. In the same sentence: "NSA" and "delight" by axewolf · · Score: 1

    Wow. Usually they conceal their bullshit attempts to change public opinion at least slightly.

    This site is part of this propaganda machine and you trust in more than you should.

  17. Re:Slashdot is dead by allo · · Score: 1

    stuff that matters.

  18. Re:Slashdot is dead by allo · · Score: 1

    Maybe he's actually right. Don't give these people audience, neither themself, nor by discussion their stuff, refuting, etc. Just ignore it.

  19. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Look around you, fuckface. If you think the quashing of free speech and third-wave feminism are "progress" in any form, you're the motherfucking problem.

  20. Seems familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It reads like the stuff in Umberto Eco's "Focault's Pendelum"; the faux conspiracy theories the protagonists were inventing.

  21. everything i read in the artcle seemed well though by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just read the excerpts in TFA. seems very well thought out.

  22. Scans of a digital document by loufoque · · Score: 1

    The article uses scans (not even properly levelled, cropped and aligned) even though the document is available in digital form.
    What a bunch of amateurs.

    Maybe they find professionalism in editing as funny as philosophing about the Internet.

    1. Re:Scans of a digital document by retchdog · · Score: 1

      it's part of the foia redaction protocol. by printing everything, they can take better advantage of the pool of people who've been doing this for decades. apart from maintaining operational security, there is also less room for technical error; no metadata leakage, fewer software bugs, etc. They just need to make sure the black marker completely obliterates the text when re-scanned.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  23. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yarr my power in society as a white male is being eroded!!!

  24. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, remember, the original computer hacker culture started at the NSA and their British and other equivalents. :P

  25. Re:Slashdot is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The term "social justice warrior" used to mean something before the MRA crowd got their hands on it. Now it means nothing.

  26. This has been around since 2013 :/ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.wired.com/2013/05/nsa-manual-on-hacking-internet/