Discovering NSA Code Names Via LinkedIn 201
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."
A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:5, Funny)
>> "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. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:5, Interesting)
first thing i thought was red herring
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first thing i thought was red herring
My first thought was "anchovy" (and so my second thought was "pizza!") but then I read the list again more carefully.
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First thing I thought was pay back is a bitch.
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.
On a side note, though, "DISHFIRE" is an incredibly hilarious name for just about any project.
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [catb.org], and MSPACMAN the project that involves sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads.
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Heh, someone the other day was trying to convince me about the 1970s speech recognition program. I was rather skeptical. Glad to see I'm not the only one.
-l
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DISHFIRE is just the NSA's experimental fast dishwasher project. It cost $10 Billion and doesn't actually work.
Or it might actually be something to do with satellite dishes.
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It isn't just the names that are revealed. You can infer from the profiles quite a bit of information about what these programs are used for. Take quotes like these (from various public posts):
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wikileaks might accept such a collection...
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>> "Hmm... Apparently, NSA employees don't realize that information they post online can be revealed."
I admit to laughing at this.
Or perhaps these are designed and planted to attract people interested in these acronyms and program names to lure them into some sort of trap, or merely to record who looked at these profiles.
Ah, ok, I'll go take my meds now. Latr, but remember: fcsjkeaw jlcekfw6eh ae nasje ki4tsvt!
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:4, Insightful)
People will keep looking until they find something. Give them what they wanted to find and they'll stop looking.
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Congress will keep looking until it's too much like work and they give up. Give them anything and they'll stop looking. From there it's just the whistleblowers that are left
Fixed to reflect new data.
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fcsjkeaw jlcekfw6eh ae nasje ki4tsvt!
Hey!
This is /.
ROT 13 and its multiples are the only acceptable encryption types to be used here.
So.
ROT 0
ROT 13
ROT 26
ROT 39 and so on.
Get your semi effective encryption out of here.
Gives me an idea, though (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Developed a ciphertext-only key-recovery attack on AES-256.
Re:Gives me an idea, though (Score:5, Funny)
Developed a plaintext recovery attack for SHA-256
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I can just imagine the interview (Score:3)
AC: Sorry, that information is unavailable.
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Most LOLworthy post so far.
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Skilled in intelligence platforms such as: ... HEX, SEX, LEXX, PECS.
I also listen to Hux Flux [wikipedia.org] and read Henry Miller [wikipedia.org] when I'm not driving my Lexus.
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:4, Interesting)
I laughed until I realized that these are the people who have legal permission to force IT giants to do whatever they want.
The world is screwed.
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:4, Interesting)
There are at least two confirmed idiots working for the NSA [1] [mobandmultitude.com], it's not that much of a stretch to think there's more where they came from.
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:4, Insightful)
These idiots have some level of access to the assets that the NSA is developing.
And that is reason enough to shut the NSA down completely, and charge its career bureaucrats with criminal negligence wrt corruption of the US Constitution which they are supposed to be protecting.
If the NSA can allow these idjits to mess around, then how many of their other, more intelligent, personnel have found ways to make a little cash on the side by selling the kind of stuff Snowden has given away?
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The woman who runs the blog elaborates on that in a later post, she says they claimed they have 55 years of experience between them at the NSA. They're recruiters in the sense that they work for NSA and were assigned to go there, not that that is all they do.
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:5, Insightful)
Submitted earlier with a better headline. (sigh) [slashdot.org]
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. (Score:5, Informative)
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It's even more asinine than that. You have to specify the document exactly that you want. So if you want a copy of an email you need to specify the subject, to and from, time and date, and who knows what else. If there is anything that does not match exactly they can reply that no such document exists and leave it at that.
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The NSA is exempt from the FOIA. You're best off to wait 20 years and submit a Mandatory Declassification Review request.
But unfortunately; i'm sure you can't just use a project codename, you have to request specific documents for the request to be valid.
You can use FOIA requests to ask for list of document names, to inform further requests
Re:A fleeting moment of rich irony. (Score:4, Insightful)
REVEALING THE NAMES OF ANALYSTS WITH ACCESS TO TOP SECRET PROJECTS!
That, and a lot more is easy to find now that the NSA data centres are off in the middle of no where.
When your major work is done in major metropolitan places this is hard, but in bluffdale Utah this is super easy. Look for the expensive houses on the land registry and being publicly listed. Anyone who doesn't have any obvious source of a big income works on something important at either camp williams or the NSA data centre. You have their house, spouse(s), kids, kids schools everything. All with public information.
Small towns are incredibly easy to infiltrate for this sort of thing. If you want to know who is most vulnerable all you need is the local pimp and an employee at the local credit union and you can find everything you need about enough people in the town to get everything you want.
There are other things you could look for too. Who has the fastest internet service, who gets a lot of computer parts packages from newegg etc. Who frequents the expensive restaurants, who drives the newest most expensive cars? If you want to figure out who the special forces guys are in any western country, go to the city where their training base is are and look for sports cars. (Gurkha's obviously not until recently as they weren't paid enough for sports cars).
Re: Irony as now google is your pal (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Sounds like FOIA time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like FOIA time (Score:5, Informative)
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 [documentcloud.org]
Apparently Booz employees forgot that their cloud documents are.... well, public
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There are grammatical errors as well, the word "suit" was used when "suite" should have been, my mind tripped over the error.
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Considering how the press reacted to Edward Snowden's revelations, they will probably ask the question, "Should LinkedIn be prosecuted for leaking this information?" and, "Is LinkedIn a traitor?"
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Obviously they aren't checking LinkedIn enough.... They will need to re-double their efforts to make sure we are safe from the terrororororists. And while they are at it they may have to disappear a few people, since they didn't make it to an enemy state.
Are all of these acronyms? (Score:2)
Because if so, how is it even possible for someone at the NSA to get this bored while listening to everyone's phone calls?
Re:Are all of these acronyms? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Simple explanation (Score:5, Informative)
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 [craigslist.org] 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 (Score:5, Informative)
Want an NSA Clearance?
That grammar is not incorrect. Phonetically, the "N" begins with a vowel sound so "an NSA" is correct.
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FTFY - Grammar police should endeavor to avoid use of the double negative.
Re:Simple explanation (Score:4, Informative)
You choose the appropriate article based on how the acronym is pronounced. NSA is pronounced "en es ay", so "an" precedes the "en". NASA is pronounced "na sa", so "a" would precede the "na".
If you pronounced NASA as "en ay es ay", you would use an "an" before it. Try actually saying "a N". It's awkward to say, which is why we say "an N".
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You choose the appropriate article based on how the acronym is pronounced. NSA is pronounced "en es ay", so "an" precedes the "en". NASA is pronounced "na sa", so "a" would precede the "na".
NASA is an acronym, but NSA is an initialism. ;)
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You choose the appropriate article based on how the acronym is pronounced.
That's one style. Abbreviation vocalization.
Word vocalization is also correct.
If you use the first style you get "An NSA ...."
If you use the second style, you look at the first word which is "National", that starts with a consonant sound, so you have "A NSA ...."
Both styles are correct.
What this just goes to show is.... Slashdot's full of grammar Nazis :)
Re:Simple explanation (Score:5, Informative)
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 [purdue.edu], 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" [purdue.edu].
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Simple explanation (Score:5, Informative)
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?
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My kids are terribly confused about C and K when it comes to spelling. It took their frustration for me to realize how difficult English is...
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How does "enessay" start with a consonant? "A" or "an" match the sound of the word.
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"Want an security clearance" is incorrect because it produces what is called a "glottal stop": that uncomfortable catching in your throat that you get when two sounds don't flow well together. For instance, if you say "a hour" as they are meant to be pronounced, you'll produce a glottal stop between the "a" and "h". That's why English speakers use "a" and "an" interchangeably depending on what sounds are involved. The "an" is used to avoid the glottal stop in situations where "a" would produce it, which is
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wouldn't "want the nsa clearance" suggest that the is s single clearance to obtain only ?
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I took french in High school, where consonant endings can run into the next word if it beings with a vowel sound (not just letter). In fact, even if the preceeding word has a silent consonant (the french seem to love silent consonants) they will pronounce it to make the connection.... So it always annoys me listening to the local NPR station as the restaurant "Chez Henri" is pronounced "Shay Enri", which would normally be correct for each word but, when taken together it should be pronounced more like a sin
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Chez Henri" is pronounced "Shay Enri", which would normally be correct for each word but, when taken together it should be pronounced more like a single word "ShayzEnri"
It annoys you because you're not familiar with what the letter h actually does in French. Sometimes — remember, this is French, so you'll always have a nice list of exceptions to cram into your brain —, words that begin with an h (1) will mean that there is a glottal stop, word initially.
Try comparing the phrases "sept amis" and "sept héros" and you'll understand what I'm talking about. It's impossible for a native speaker to pronounce the latter "saitero" No, sir, they'll always say "
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Your explanation is fine, but your example is wrong. The silent 'z' in this case would never make the "liaison". But a silent 't' or 's' might. "Ils sont abondants" would likely be said "ilsontabondan".
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I really wasn't sure, grammar wise. All I knew is that some sub-contractor was so desperate for employees that they posted Facebook ads.
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E.g. : "a university" but "an umbrella"
Remember: language is first and foremost spoken. Letters are scriptural elements, and as such, weigh much less in the language balance.
No. "an" is right. (Score:3)
"The rule is that you use a before words that start with a consonant sound and an before words that start with a vowel sound."
It's all about sound. "N" is pronounced "En." Hence, "an."
Grammar Girl: http://tinyurl.com/nuj8h5a [tinyurl.com]
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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.
That doesn't match my experience, but times change.
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It was a pretty recent change. Happened after the whole 2005 wiretapping thingy.
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So debian release names are unclassified and Ubuntu release names are classified. Makes sense.
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Re:Simple explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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.
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one is a database of every phone call made by political opponents of the administration
Whoa... talk about abuse of power......
sudo make me a sandwich
make: *** No rule to make target `me'. Stop. (What kind of sandwich?)
Black Briar (Score:4, Funny)
Treadstone
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Treadstone is all but decommissioned at this point.
But Black Briar... really feel has good traction. It's got legs. It'll run and run.
Missed out the important ones (Score:3, Funny)
So long as CODE NIGHTMARE GREEN, MAGINOT BLUE STARS, and SCORPION STARE aren't on the list, I'm happy.
Well, happier.
Well, less unhappy.
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SCORPION STARE was disappointing anyhow. I want a room where any camera in the panopticon state can be displayed on the wall monitor, and I want a basilisk in that room! Hand camera-weapons just seem so ... everyday.
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GORGON STARE is real.
ARCMAP is not a code name- (Score:2)
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Awesome! I don't work for the NSA, but I do use ARCMAP....although Esri would prefer it spelled "ArcMap". It's common GIS software, not a NSA program.
But there might be more than one ARCMAP. If you rearrange the letters you get "PAM CAR"
Makes perfect sense.... a mod_car.... CAR module for PAM could have its benefits....
arcmap (Score:4, Informative)
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Arcmap is the unofficial name for ESRI's flagship product ArcGIS Desktop.
Not quite,
ArcMap is a component of ArcGIS. There is an ArcMap.exe.
minority report (Score:2)
But he lacks one skill (Score:5, Funny)
All these skills and he still didn't figure out how to turn off capslock.
OMIGOD prosecute them all (Score:2)
Because this THIS is revealing state secrets for personal gain, which is worse, much worse than what Manning, Snowden Tice , Drake , Klein, Binney , Kiriakou
http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-whistleblower-william-binney-was-right-2013-6 [businessinsider.com]
Tice,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/01/21/687340/-Exposed-NSA-Watching-Everything-on-Anyone-Illegally-Updated-x3# [dailykos.com]
Drake,
http://www.whistleblower.org/action-center/save-tom-drake [whistleblower.org]
Kline,
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135645/The_NSA_wiretapping_story_nobody_wanted [computerworld.com]
Kir
don't realize that information can be revealed... (Score:2)
Paste that into Google and this is what you get. (Score:2)
Kinda surprised this isn't linked yet (as all you need to do is paste the string into Google)
Make of this [linkedin.com] what you will.
(Do I worry about being woken at 3 in the morning with a gun in my face? Well, yes, I do).
It's probably not all that secret (Score:2)
ANCHORY www.fas.org/irp/program/disseminate/anchory.htm Jan 29, 1998 - ANCHORY, formerly known as the SIGINT Online Intelligence System, is an NSA database of SIGINT-derived information. Access to the ...
DODIIS AMHS (Automatic Message Handling System) www.fas.org/irp/program/disseminate/amhs.htm Jan 26, 2000 - The Automated Message Handling System (AMHS) provides a user-friendly means to send and receive messages via the Automated
Re:Just saying Hi!! (Score:5, Funny)
You know who I am.
On the internet, the NSA knows you're a dog.
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You know who I am.
Yes, you're a foreigner, until proven otherwise.
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Everyone's a foreigner to somewhere, right?
Re:Just saying Hi!! (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone's a foreigner to somewhere, right?
We prefer the term "potential enemy combatant".
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BANYAN??? Isn't that the almost extinct government and defence email system, Banyan Vines??
I suspect that's exactly what it is referring to. I noticed at least one other word in that list, (NAVINT), that isn't really a program. NAVINT is just a nice short acronym for Naval Intelligence. [acronymfinder.com] It kind of makes me wonder if there isn't some other stuff in there that has nothing to do with classified programs.
Whoever got hold of this communication clearly wasn't really well-versed enough in that kind of work to tell what exactly is a technical term and what is is an actual NSA program.
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BANYAN???
Isn't that the almost extinct government and defence email system, Banyan Vines??
I was thinking of that hack comedian from the Seinfeld show; you know, the "That's gold, Jerry! GOLD!" guy?
Then I googled it, and found out the character's name is actually Kenny Bania, not Banyan.
Sad now :(
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Is this real info or is it disinformation?
My guess is, less than 25% of the terms are real, the rest are well-poison.
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Wtf is right. We haven't gotten this much attention since the Great Lakes Avengers branch.
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I thought the most telling names were FASCIA and BANYAN.
FASCIA: Immediately makes me think it has something to do with face recognition
BANYAN: Named after a parasitic tree that grows in the cracks of other trees. Uh huh...
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Addendum: And I guess ASSOCIATION is too obvious for mention, that's naming as straightforward as an old Microsoft product.
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I thought the most telling names were FASCIA and BANYAN.
FASCIA: Immediately makes me think it has something to do with face recognition
BANYAN: Named after a parasitic tree that grows in the cracks of other trees. Uh huh...
FASCIA is actually a real word: the name for the thin sheets of connective tissue that bundle other tissues into tubes [wikipedia.org]. It's not uncommon for someone with arch support problems to pull or tear a muscle fascia in their foot. More ominously, fasciae have previously made it into the news by way of "flesh-eating disease" (necrotizing fasciitis), which is where a bacterial infection (esp. strep or staph) breaches the superficial fascia and uses it to spread quickly under the skin, faster than the immune system
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I actually thought of the word from this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascia_(car) [wikipedia.org]
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On the other hand ANCHORY is an actual NSA system (http://www.fas.org/irp/program/disseminate/anchory.htm)
I guess they use both COTS and in-house developed software at NSA too...
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On the side, I wonder how many potential Snowden types are are lurking in the NSA, ready to explode with the wrong doing they see all around them.
More disturbing is the realization that there must be others who are like Snowden in terms of access and skills, but are motivated more by individual profit than by altruism. How many secrets of the Snowden type have been sold to whom?
The NSA is a nest of corruption that needs to be burned out, totally destroyed. With those in charge of it sent to prison for allowing such a criminal cesspool to exist within the USA government. These guys have their own secret courts and their own secret laws and lie with i
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