
The NSA’s guide to the internet - morisy
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/may/27/nsas-guide-internet-weirdest-thing-youll-read-toda/
======
matt_wulfeck
Some of the quotations here are actually rather profound observations about
the Internet.

> Remember those who use the Internet to do harm, to spread fear, and to carry
> out crimes are like the mythical Minotaur who, as well as being the monster
> of the Minoan maze, was also it's prisoner.

~~~
Aelinsaar
It's more like a profound case of projection.

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eganist
Good lord, muckrock makes it sound like a 651-page treatise on Rule 34.

In all seriousness and still on the topic of rules, page 305 is the most
useful one I've found so far in my brief skim
([http://i.imgur.com/r9vw4gj.png](http://i.imgur.com/r9vw4gj.png)). I'm still
flipping through it, but I might actually give this whole thing a read if only
because it feels like I'll learn something new about OSINT.

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pmoriarty
This document proves that the NSA hires not only mathematicians, but also
English majors.

~~~
eximius
A not small percentage of mathematicians I've met have been plenty eloquent.

~~~
theoh
Solomon Golomb, who died this month, is an example of a linguist (in the sense
of "speaks multiple languages") who also made fundamental contributions to the
theory of digital codes and was recognised for this by NSA (mysteriously "for
contributions to a program of national significance" which he never heard
anything more about). He was a mathematician, while most linguists (however
you interpret the term) aren't.

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Normal_gaussian
Page 22 mentions browser wars, and recommends setting up both IE and firefox.
It mentions 'new' features such as tabbed browsing (IE), non-html parsing (RSS
feeds), alongside a slew of security improvements.

It would be interesting to see the 2015 section on this (especially
considering the mobile v desktop feature divide).

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sargun
I sometimes wonder if NSA / CIA respond to FOIA requests with documents
produced explicitly to answer them. Is there anything that would prevent NSA
from giving out a 'fake' document or field guide if the FOIA request was non-
specific enough?

~~~
darpa_escapee
Reading the document gives me the impression that someone saw the request and
went, "Let's have fun with this one, guys."

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mtgx
I'm curious why NSA's AppLocker paper has been put behind a DoD membership
site when it was previously public. It it part of the same movement that
prompted the FBI to remove/hide its public guidelines for using strong
encryption?

Ironically, it even gives a certificate error now:

[https://www.iad.gov/iad/library/ia-guidance/tech-
briefs/appl...](https://www.iad.gov/iad/library/ia-guidance/tech-
briefs/application-whitelisting-using-microsoft-applocker.cfm)

~~~
frankydp
You need the DoD Root CA to be trusted for most of these sites to not pop on
the alert, and it does not ship with most OSs if any.

~~~
opticalflow
What could possibly go wrong with installing DOD's Root CA? Uhmmmmmmm

~~~
khm
Very little, since it's primarily for internal DoD use. It was never meant to
be a part of the commercial 'web of trust' nonsense, and exists so that DoD
doesn't have to trust idiots like Comodo.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Exactly. It's also a logical extension of their COMSEC doctrine which led to
things like NSA's EKMS:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EKMS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EKMS)

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Xophmeister
OT, but this article consistently crashes my phone's browser before it's done
loading. Admittedly, it's an older phone, but to take it out completely is
rare... I wonder what the page is doing that it takes exception to?

~~~
Perceval
Embedding a 651 page PDF in an iFrame?

~~~
Xophmeister
That'll probably do it...or this unnecessary magnification mouseover thing.

~~~
marssaxman
That confusing zoom bubble slowed my browsing experience to a crawl, so I
didn't get past the first couple of pages. Really annoying.

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edge17
speaking of internet memory... in case anyone was confused, this is from 2013
- [https://www.wired.com/2013/05/nsa-manual-on-hacking-
internet...](https://www.wired.com/2013/05/nsa-manual-on-hacking-internet/)

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untilHellbanned
So the NSA is basically a bunch of scientologists. So I guess Tom Cruise's
Mission Impossible is IRL???

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meeper16
The NSA will not allow something to be unclassified that is valuable. The
purpose of declassifying this document is likely connected to deception.

~~~
tjohns
Look at the original publication's header and footer. "Unclassified / For
Official Use Only".

It was never classified to begin with.

