11 ms·

FOIA request for NROL-39 surveillance satellite logo

270 points by danso 7y ago

PostOnce 7y ago
It may be sinister, but its a damn fine design (interesting, and intimidating in a thriller movie kind of way), isn't it? Beats the crap out of boring bureaucracy. Wonder what other cool logos / unit patches / etc I am not aware of.
- danso 7y ago
  If not for the typeface, I'd think it was from the 60s, inspired by the Bond films' SPECTRE, and with a motto reminiscent of American peak postwar supremacy ("Nothing is Beyond Our Reach"). I had honestly forgotten it was actually a "relic" just a few years old. And how it was hilariously tweeted out by the Director of National Intelligence just months after the Snowden reveal: https://twitter.com/ODNIgov/status/408712553179533312 https://twitter.com/ODNIgov/status/408712553179533312
- serf 7y ago
  there are some books out there detailing mission patches from history, if you haven't checked them out I would suggest it. Here's one for space flight missions [0], but the military books are much more interesting imo. Also, if you're just into patch/military design, check out the art books for the Ace Combat, Armored Core, and Metal Gear franchise video games. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Space-Flight-Mission-Handbook/dp/0981783856 https://www.amazon.com/Human-Space-Flight-Mission-Handbook/d...
- magashna 7y ago
  All the DEA vanity patches are pretty good. Their SpecOps unit especially. I believe it has a reaper with a quote "god giveth, we take away"
- MS90 7y ago
  Nuke commands have had some good ones throughout the years. Some funny, but mostly just extremely eerie. Death wears bunny slippers: https://media.wired.com/photos/5932c01d95879f6d0c009e10/master/pass/patch_bunny_slippers.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5932c01d95879f6d0c009e10/mast... Politically incorrect: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bLwAAOSwaEhZHz9u/s-l300.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bLwAAOSwaEhZHz9u/s-l300.jpg Satisfaction guaranteed: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiB52Y-HTES5GCiydIdD5tssV7hFdlT2lT9WRYOAca_24H-Xrx-g https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiB52Y... Central heating: https://www.airforcecollectables.com/images/USAF%20Patch%20SAC%20337%20Bomb%20Squadron%20B%201B%20WPCH%20Warsaw%20Pact%20Central%20Heating%20Nuclear%20Dyess%20AFB%20PI.jpg https://www.airforcecollectables.com/images/USAF%20Patch%20S...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    Don’t forget Dominos! https://www.designobserver.com/Images/Vanderbilt.Delta2.jpg https://www.designobserver.com/Images/Vanderbilt.Delta2.jpg
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Reminds me of a joke we used to tell as kids. "How long does it take for western technology to reach the east? About 20 minutes from launch."
  - dmix 7y ago
    Some of those are great, especially the Warsaw Pact Central Heating one. It's always a bit reassuring to know that dark humor is allowed to exist somewhere within these faceless organizations. They're still allowed to be human. Being a secret agency and protected from the Twitter brigades always helps!
    - PavlovsCat 7y ago
      > They're still allowed to be human. Are they, and are they, by extension, allowed to see "the enemy" as humans, too, or are these stickers part of the rituals of compensation? > [Hobbes] foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat. -- Hannah Arendt In light of that, "tough and mischievous", variations of which 99% of these patches seem to be, doesn't have quite the luster. On the extreme end we have stuff like calling children "fun-sized terrorists", which is clearly not dark humor that expresses humanity, but cartoonish dehumanization. > protected from the Twitter brigades Covering one's ears further removes any semblance of luster.
- bewaretheirs 7y ago
  International Space Station Orbital Outhouse Team: http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000603.html http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000603.html
- xxpor 7y ago
  There's the (infamous?) Cocaine Intelligence Unit patch: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Z-MAAOSwYd1dBYBV/s-l300.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Z-MAAOSwYd1dBYBV/s-l300.jpg
- gadders 7y ago
  I read that the Los Angeles Homicide Department has mugs with the slogan "Our day begins when your day ends."
  - ealfert 7y ago
    Escambia Sheriff's Office Homicide Unit has a nice looking challenge coin with phrase, "We check in when they check out"... https://www.reddit.com/r/ChallengeCoins/comments/dcrgxb/escambia_county/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChallengeCoins/comments/dcrgxb/esca...
- rollulus 7y ago
  Trevor Paglen has a section on this subject in his talk “ Seeing The Secret State: Six Landscapes” [1], it starts at around 28m. He details the symbolism and clues those logos provide. Highly recommended. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF4vQA7eWgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF4vQA7eWgE
  - tonyarkles 7y ago
    I watched that talk when it was first published. So so so well done!
  - wlkr 7y ago
    Trevor Paglen [0] has produced some amazing works and many of my all time favourite photographs. I agree with you but also highly recommend those unaware of him look into his other publications and exhibitions. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Paglen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Paglen
    - nyolfen 7y ago
      > many of my all time favourite photographs i'm particularly partial to this one: http://www.paglen.com/img/87web.jpg http://www.paglen.com/img/87web.jpg i emailed him to ask about buying a print but never heard back
      - ShamelessC 7y ago
        What's being photographed in this one?
        nyolfen 7y ago
        > This photograph depicts a classified “listening station” deep in the forests of West Virginia. The station is located at the center of the “National Radio Quiet Zone,” a region of approximately 34,000 square kilometres in West Virginia and parts of Maryland. Within the Quiet Zone, radio transmissions are severely restricted: omnidirectional and high-powered transmissions (such as wireless internet devices and FM radio stations) are not permitted. > The listening station, which forms part of the global ECHELON system, was designed in part to take advantage of a phenomenon called “moonbounce.” Moonbounce involves capturing communications and telemetry signals from around the world as they escape into space, hit the moon, and are reflected back towards Earth. > The photograph is a long exposure under the full moon light.
- et-al 7y ago
  The TIGER/Line Census data logo is rad in a wolf-howling-at-moon sort of way: https://twitter.com/michalmigurski/status/1156996116618964992 https://twitter.com/michalmigurski/status/115699611661896499...
- MS90 7y ago
  I found another winner, this might be the best one yet. Guess USAFE ain't the best post. https://assets.rbl.ms/17219578/origin.jpg https://assets.rbl.ms/17219578/origin.jpg
- molmalo 7y ago
  If you hate bureaucracy and boring logos, this one from NROL-10 might be of your liking: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/NROL-10_Mission_Patch.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/NROL-10_...
not_a_cop75 7y ago
Can we get one of the alien logos next?
throwa8Hk30J 7y ago
Wow nice one. What a logo. I am stopping by to mention Trevor Paglen's work who helps uncover and popularize some of this junk. You can watch his full presentation "Seeing The Secret State: Six Landscapes"[0] for background on this unclassified unit patch as well as surprising photos and TLEs and much, much more. What a time we live in! 0: https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312282300_-_seeing_the_secret_state_six_landscapes_-_trevor_paglen https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312282...
dpflan 7y ago
Is there a site with all of the available logos? Surely, someone is aggregating these. Appreciate the already linked logos!
- danso 7y ago
  There appears to be a handful of NROL logos (and related documentation) FOIAed on Muckrock: https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=nrol https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=nrol edit: Check out the wikipedia list of NROL launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches
  - theandrewbailey 7y ago
    A handful of those look like they're asking for memes.
  - dpflan 7y ago
    Awesome, thank you!
ohlookabird 7y ago
Krakens on globes. I still find the similarity to the propaganda drawing from a 1938 Stürmer (Nazi propaganda publication) unsettling: see e.g. "World domination" section at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard. Sure, it's been used before as well, but it's what I feel reminded of. In many different classes in (German) school we talked quite a lot about Nazi Germany and propaganda, where we also talked about this image and all the messages it transport. A similar logo was also used in the ACTA protests 2010 and found itself criticized for its similarity, e.g. https://taz.de/!5101105/ https://taz.de/!5101105/. Apart from that, thanks for this FOIA request! It's great that the original vector graphics are now available.
- Aengeuad 7y ago
  It should be noted that there's an extensive history[0] of octopi being used in propaganda posters dating back to 1877, depicting countries such as: Russia/USSR, England/Britain, Prussia/Germany, Japan, America (by both the Nazis and various communists), not to mention more abstract things like imperialism, landlordism, oil companies, company directors, etc. The Nazis didn't even coin the depiction of Jews as octopi, as there's a late 19th century example depicting the Rothschild family as such[1]. Hell, the same year as the crude and anti-semitic Nazi example you have Americans publishing books calling Hitler an octopus in both title and artwork.[2] It's understandable that a German class on Nazi propaganda would focus on the anti-semitic element, and I sympathise with those that are going to have a stronger emotional reaction to such images, but it's important to remember that it's minority of anti-semitic examples compared to numerous examples without such connotations. Perhaps especially so when it's an org depicting itself as the octopus. [0] https://hyperallergic.com/375900/the-map-octopus-a-propaganda-motif-of-spreading-evil/ https://hyperallergic.com/375900/the-map-octopus-a-propagand... [1] https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-political-cartoons/ https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-politica... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/120380035@N05/13567332414 https://www.flickr.com/photos/120380035@N05/13567332414
  - ohlookabird 7y ago
    Thanks for links, there were quite a few images I didn't know. I was certainly aware of uses before the Nazis, but what I tried to say was this cartoon in particular has a similar composition and overall layout. Which is probably the main reason I felt reminded of this particular image.
deep-root 7y ago
From a previous FOIA request[1] explaining the logo: "The secret origin of the patch is initially from [redacted] where the problem during the test stage in the thermal vacuum was traced to a large piece of cabling called an octopus harness. The running joke for the crew was that the octopus harness had taken over the world." [1] http://www.paglen.com/download/octopus.pdf http://www.paglen.com/download/octopus.pdf
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  Apparently some NRO folks got smacked down on another mission when they tried to use a quote from the Ricky Bobbie movie as the slogan "If you ain't first, you're last" https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/records-concerning-the-nrol-76-logo-37622/#file-154942 https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/rec...
  - lovehashbrowns 7y ago
    Ha, yup you're right! They even tried to preemptively get around that by putting it in Latin, but that failed. Quote: I have the solution: "si non primus es novissimi". It is Latin and roughly translates to "If you ain't first, you're last" according to Google Translator. Someone can check this translation, but it should solve the copyright issue since Ricky Bobby doesn't speak latin. It will also be more mysterious for the average, non-latin literate observer. This Latin approach has worked before and allowed one of my previous organizations to have the slogan "Doing God's work with other people's money" fly right through the approval process.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > It is Latin and roughly translates to "If you ain't first, you're last" according to Google Translator. Google translate is not up to the task of translating more than an isolated word without serious errors. I can't actually check your translation, but I can point out some issues: - The verb, es, and the word "first", primus, are both singular. They match! And they're supposed to. But novissimi is plural. In the sentence as given, novissimi plays no role, much like the "cabbage" in the sentence "this sentence contains cabbage six words". - Novissimi means, literally, "newest". (Heck, it doesn't just mean "newest", the two words are etymologically identical.) It does metaphorically refer to the rear of something, since the back of the army is where the least experienced (newest) troops get placed. A better word for "last" would probably be postremus, meaning literally "last" and metaphorically "worst". - There's only one verb. (Compare "if you're not first, you're last".) That isn't the problem in Latin that it would be in English, but I flag it because the final two issues require careful thinking about what verb to use where... - This is a conditional statement using a present indicative verb. The strong implication is present that, as described, you really aren't first. If the statement was meant to be hypothetical or counterfactual, you'd probably use subjunctive mood. - I cannot guarantee that the concept "to be first" is best expressed by combining the verb "to be" with the adjective "first", as you've done here. It's quite possible that there's a verb that describes winning a race or a competition or whatever, and that verb would be a more idiomatic way of expressing this meaning. I have no knowledge of whether that's actually true, but it's the kind of thing that comes up a lot when you're trying to translate between languages. (This sort of thing is why it's much safer to translate things into your native language than out of your native language, even if you have near-perfect command of the other language.) English is very free with "be + adjective" constructions; many languages are more prone to specialized verbs. (Compare the Latin verb rubere, "to be red". Expressing the concept as ruber esse, "to be" + "red (adj.)" is an error.)
toomuchtodo 7y ago
Shoutout to Muckrock for powering that FOIA request!
boardwaalk 7y ago
I can't be the only one who cringed at the "release the swag" comment. You won't catch me dead wearing/carrying something with something spy agency-related on it.
- danso 7y ago
  The parodies are pretty funny: https://twitter.com/sli/status/1181736342063108096 https://twitter.com/sli/status/1181736342063108096
- xvector 7y ago
  The logo is just cool. While I probably wouldn't seek it out, I wouldn't mind having this stitched on my bag.
lxe 7y ago
It baffles me that in order to request a file from some database you need to write a letter to a person who then responds back after a month. Did you end up incurring fees of $48/h for searching and per-page fees as well? I thought that a major benefit of the internet is that we don’t have to do this anymore.
- coolspot 7y ago
  Someone with clearance still have to review what can and what can not be released. Probably goes through couple approvals and checks too.
- danso 7y ago
  The Internet reduces the cost of access distribution, but not the work of locating information and meeting bureaucratic regulations for its publication. Even for institutions in which data preservation and access is fundamental to the bottom line, this is a hard problem. Think of the many game companies who have had to remake classics without access to the original source code and/or assets, such Icewind Dale II [0] and FF7 [1]. The good news is that repeated public records requests can eventually push an agency to come up with a streamlined process that prioritizes making records available by default. Or at least, a bulk dump, in the case of the FBI and celebrity death files [2] [0] https://kotaku.com/nobody-can-find-the-source-code-for-icewind-dale-ii-1796724450 https://kotaku.com/nobody-can-find-the-source-code-for-icewi... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ysjeu/iama_guy_who_has_been_reverse_engineering_final/c5yftp2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ysjeu/iama_guy_who_ha... [2] https://vault.fbi.gov/popular-culture https://vault.fbi.gov/popular-culture
- kube-system 7y ago
  If you can write a program that can automate this, then you're a better programmer than most of us. https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-freedom-information-act-5-usc-sect-552-amended-public-law-no-104-231-110-stat https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-freedom-informa...
  - nyolfen 7y ago
    the request end is automated at least: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/
dole 7y ago
Batman (1966), Joker, Penguin and Catwoman were part of the "United Underworld"... always wanted to get this logo [1] on a t-shirt but never got it cleaned up enough to scale. [1] https://i.imgur.com/KP6Gf7e.png https://i.imgur.com/KP6Gf7e.png
pizza 7y ago
I don't quite have the time to find them right now, but there was a series of quite hilarious internal emails that were sort of exasperated about how there should never be a repeat of the octopus logo from now on
- danso 7y ago
  Here's a writeup of the 15 pages of internal documents/emails about the logo that released upon a FOIA request https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jan/19/octopus-NRO/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jan/19/octopus-N... https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1210022/responsive-documents.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1210022/responsiv...
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  You may be referring to the document linked by 'Rebelgecko here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217671. On page 17, I found the following quote from a chain of e-mails: "[redacted] said after the octopus logo, the White House threatened to require presidential approval if the NRO approved any more menacing logos."
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    It was only "A little sinister!!" Clearly a major affront to lefties.
whalesalad 7y ago
My dad worked at the Skunk Works for 20 years, and Northrop Grumman for almost as long. He has a billion of these mission patches in boxes and/or framed in his home office. I love them. Wish there was a big online repo of them to browse.
- et-al 7y ago
  Sounds like you could start one!
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    many of the patches themselves will be classified, his dad could get into trouble if they were documented.
- sib 7y ago
  Sounds like you could seed the repo!
- algaeontoast 7y ago
  About a year ago there was always this one guy at the MIT swap fest who had loads of memorabilia like you've mentioned. He had patriot missile mugs, miniatures of satellite projects from Raytheon etc. He was so cool to talk to, although I no longer live in Boston.
  - whalesalad 7y ago
    That is killer. I grew up around so much of that cool stuff you talk about – especially the coffee mugs. So many mugs I wish hadn’t hit the floor or lost their logo.
    - algaeontoast 7y ago
      A friend of mine from high school had a parent who worked on the F117A project and maybe the coolest mug I've ever seen. It was a mug that had an F117 fighter that would disappear when the mug got hot enough, with the engineering team skunkworks patch on the other side - man was it cool.
weej 7y ago
"The enemy has nowhere to hide" Love the logo, but damn if that isn't ominous and intimidating.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sdinsn 7y ago
Note that this is nothing new. The logo was already public.
- hughes 7y ago
  The point is that a vector format / high resolution version was never public. The best we had until recently was a photograph of the physical embroidered patch.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Was the vector version public?
  - brokensegue 7y ago
    no
noodlesUK 7y ago
These logos are awesome! I’ve seen lots of military and IC logos, and they all have relatively similar art styles. Who actually draws these things? Are these by ordinary members of the community who work on the project, or is there an art department that works on these?
algaeontoast 7y ago
Damn, I'm totally having this logo professionally printed and framed.
knolax 7y ago
Reminds me of the book "I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me". It's all about various patches from secret projects.
userbinator 7y ago
Interesting that the PDF was created 2019-01-03 10:34:05 and modified 2019-10-04 10:35:22, assuming the metadata is in any way accurate, considering that NROL-39 was launched in 2013.

270 points by danso 7y ago

It may be sinister, but its a damn fine design (interesting, and intimidating in a thriller movie kind of way), isn't it? Beats the crap out of boring bureaucracy. Wonder what other cool logos / unit patches / etc I am not aware of.

danso 7y ago
If not for the typeface, I'd think it was from the 60s, inspired by the Bond films' SPECTRE, and with a motto reminiscent of American peak postwar supremacy ("Nothing is Beyond Our Reach"). I had honestly forgotten it was actually a "relic" just a few years old. And how it was hilariously tweeted out by the Director of National Intelligence just months after the Snowden reveal: https://twitter.com/ODNIgov/status/408712553179533312 https://twitter.com/ODNIgov/status/408712553179533312
serf 7y ago
there are some books out there detailing mission patches from history, if you haven't checked them out I would suggest it. Here's one for space flight missions [0], but the military books are much more interesting imo. Also, if you're just into patch/military design, check out the art books for the Ace Combat, Armored Core, and Metal Gear franchise video games. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Space-Flight-Mission-Handbook/dp/0981783856 https://www.amazon.com/Human-Space-Flight-Mission-Handbook/d...
magashna 7y ago
All the DEA vanity patches are pretty good. Their SpecOps unit especially. I believe it has a reaper with a quote "god giveth, we take away"
MS90 7y ago
Nuke commands have had some good ones throughout the years. Some funny, but mostly just extremely eerie. Death wears bunny slippers: https://media.wired.com/photos/5932c01d95879f6d0c009e10/master/pass/patch_bunny_slippers.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5932c01d95879f6d0c009e10/mast... Politically incorrect: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bLwAAOSwaEhZHz9u/s-l300.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/bLwAAOSwaEhZHz9u/s-l300.jpg Satisfaction guaranteed: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiB52Y-HTES5GCiydIdD5tssV7hFdlT2lT9WRYOAca_24H-Xrx-g https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiB52Y... Central heating: https://www.airforcecollectables.com/images/USAF%20Patch%20SAC%20337%20Bomb%20Squadron%20B%201B%20WPCH%20Warsaw%20Pact%20Central%20Heating%20Nuclear%20Dyess%20AFB%20PI.jpg https://www.airforcecollectables.com/images/USAF%20Patch%20S...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  Don’t forget Dominos! https://www.designobserver.com/Images/Vanderbilt.Delta2.jpg https://www.designobserver.com/Images/Vanderbilt.Delta2.jpg
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Reminds me of a joke we used to tell as kids. "How long does it take for western technology to reach the east? About 20 minutes from launch."
- dmix 7y ago
  Some of those are great, especially the Warsaw Pact Central Heating one. It's always a bit reassuring to know that dark humor is allowed to exist somewhere within these faceless organizations. They're still allowed to be human. Being a secret agency and protected from the Twitter brigades always helps!
  - PavlovsCat 7y ago
    > They're still allowed to be human. Are they, and are they, by extension, allowed to see "the enemy" as humans, too, or are these stickers part of the rituals of compensation? > [Hobbes] foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat. -- Hannah Arendt In light of that, "tough and mischievous", variations of which 99% of these patches seem to be, doesn't have quite the luster. On the extreme end we have stuff like calling children "fun-sized terrorists", which is clearly not dark humor that expresses humanity, but cartoonish dehumanization. > protected from the Twitter brigades Covering one's ears further removes any semblance of luster.
bewaretheirs 7y ago
International Space Station Orbital Outhouse Team: http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000603.html http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/000603.html
xxpor 7y ago
There's the (infamous?) Cocaine Intelligence Unit patch: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Z-MAAOSwYd1dBYBV/s-l300.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Z-MAAOSwYd1dBYBV/s-l300.jpg
gadders 7y ago
I read that the Los Angeles Homicide Department has mugs with the slogan "Our day begins when your day ends."
- ealfert 7y ago
  Escambia Sheriff's Office Homicide Unit has a nice looking challenge coin with phrase, "We check in when they check out"... https://www.reddit.com/r/ChallengeCoins/comments/dcrgxb/escambia_county/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ChallengeCoins/comments/dcrgxb/esca...
rollulus 7y ago
Trevor Paglen has a section on this subject in his talk “ Seeing The Secret State: Six Landscapes” [1], it starts at around 28m. He details the symbolism and clues those logos provide. Highly recommended. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF4vQA7eWgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF4vQA7eWgE
- tonyarkles 7y ago
  I watched that talk when it was first published. So so so well done!
- wlkr 7y ago
  Trevor Paglen [0] has produced some amazing works and many of my all time favourite photographs. I agree with you but also highly recommend those unaware of him look into his other publications and exhibitions. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Paglen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Paglen
  - nyolfen 7y ago
    > many of my all time favourite photographs i'm particularly partial to this one: http://www.paglen.com/img/87web.jpg http://www.paglen.com/img/87web.jpg i emailed him to ask about buying a print but never heard back
    - ShamelessC 7y ago
      What's being photographed in this one?
      - nyolfen 7y ago
        > This photograph depicts a classified “listening station” deep in the forests of West Virginia. The station is located at the center of the “National Radio Quiet Zone,” a region of approximately 34,000 square kilometres in West Virginia and parts of Maryland. Within the Quiet Zone, radio transmissions are severely restricted: omnidirectional and high-powered transmissions (such as wireless internet devices and FM radio stations) are not permitted. > The listening station, which forms part of the global ECHELON system, was designed in part to take advantage of a phenomenon called “moonbounce.” Moonbounce involves capturing communications and telemetry signals from around the world as they escape into space, hit the moon, and are reflected back towards Earth. > The photograph is a long exposure under the full moon light.
et-al 7y ago
The TIGER/Line Census data logo is rad in a wolf-howling-at-moon sort of way: https://twitter.com/michalmigurski/status/1156996116618964992 https://twitter.com/michalmigurski/status/115699611661896499...
MS90 7y ago
I found another winner, this might be the best one yet. Guess USAFE ain't the best post. https://assets.rbl.ms/17219578/origin.jpg https://assets.rbl.ms/17219578/origin.jpg
molmalo 7y ago
If you hate bureaucracy and boring logos, this one from NROL-10 might be of your liking: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/NROL-10_Mission_Patch.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/NROL-10_...

not_a_cop75 7y ago

Can we get one of the alien logos next?

throwa8Hk30J 7y ago

Wow nice one. What a logo. I am stopping by to mention Trevor Paglen's work who helps uncover and popularize some of this junk. You can watch his full presentation "Seeing The Secret State: Six Landscapes"[0] for background on this unclassified unit patch as well as surprising photos and TLEs and much, much more. What a time we live in! 0: https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312282300_-_seeing_the_secret_state_six_landscapes_-_trevor_paglen https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312282...

dpflan 7y ago

Is there a site with all of the available logos? Surely, someone is aggregating these. Appreciate the already linked logos!

danso 7y ago
There appears to be a handful of NROL logos (and related documentation) FOIAed on Muckrock: https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=nrol https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=nrol edit: Check out the wikipedia list of NROL launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NRO_launches
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  A handful of those look like they're asking for memes.
- dpflan 7y ago
  Awesome, thank you!

ohlookabird 7y ago

Krakens on globes. I still find the similarity to the propaganda drawing from a 1938 Stürmer (Nazi propaganda publication) unsettling: see e.g. "World domination" section at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard. Sure, it's been used before as well, but it's what I feel reminded of. In many different classes in (German) school we talked quite a lot about Nazi Germany and propaganda, where we also talked about this image and all the messages it transport. A similar logo was also used in the ACTA protests 2010 and found itself criticized for its similarity, e.g. https://taz.de/!5101105/ https://taz.de/!5101105/. Apart from that, thanks for this FOIA request! It's great that the original vector graphics are now available.

Aengeuad 7y ago
It should be noted that there's an extensive history[0] of octopi being used in propaganda posters dating back to 1877, depicting countries such as: Russia/USSR, England/Britain, Prussia/Germany, Japan, America (by both the Nazis and various communists), not to mention more abstract things like imperialism, landlordism, oil companies, company directors, etc. The Nazis didn't even coin the depiction of Jews as octopi, as there's a late 19th century example depicting the Rothschild family as such[1]. Hell, the same year as the crude and anti-semitic Nazi example you have Americans publishing books calling Hitler an octopus in both title and artwork.[2] It's understandable that a German class on Nazi propaganda would focus on the anti-semitic element, and I sympathise with those that are going to have a stronger emotional reaction to such images, but it's important to remember that it's minority of anti-semitic examples compared to numerous examples without such connotations. Perhaps especially so when it's an org depicting itself as the octopus. [0] https://hyperallergic.com/375900/the-map-octopus-a-propaganda-motif-of-spreading-evil/ https://hyperallergic.com/375900/the-map-octopus-a-propagand... [1] https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-political-cartoons/ https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-politica... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/120380035@N05/13567332414 https://www.flickr.com/photos/120380035@N05/13567332414
- ohlookabird 7y ago
  Thanks for links, there were quite a few images I didn't know. I was certainly aware of uses before the Nazis, but what I tried to say was this cartoon in particular has a similar composition and overall layout. Which is probably the main reason I felt reminded of this particular image.

deep-root 7y ago

From a previous FOIA request[1] explaining the logo: "The secret origin of the patch is initially from [redacted] where the problem during the test stage in the thermal vacuum was traced to a large piece of cabling called an octopus harness. The running joke for the crew was that the octopus harness had taken over the world." [1] http://www.paglen.com/download/octopus.pdf http://www.paglen.com/download/octopus.pdf

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Rebelgecko 7y ago
Apparently some NRO folks got smacked down on another mission when they tried to use a quote from the Ricky Bobbie movie as the slogan "If you ain't first, you're last" https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/records-concerning-the-nrol-76-logo-37622/#file-154942 https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/rec...
- lovehashbrowns 7y ago
  Ha, yup you're right! They even tried to preemptively get around that by putting it in Latin, but that failed. Quote: I have the solution: "si non primus es novissimi". It is Latin and roughly translates to "If you ain't first, you're last" according to Google Translator. Someone can check this translation, but it should solve the copyright issue since Ricky Bobby doesn't speak latin. It will also be more mysterious for the average, non-latin literate observer. This Latin approach has worked before and allowed one of my previous organizations to have the slogan "Doing God's work with other people's money" fly right through the approval process.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > It is Latin and roughly translates to "If you ain't first, you're last" according to Google Translator. Google translate is not up to the task of translating more than an isolated word without serious errors. I can't actually check your translation, but I can point out some issues: - The verb, es, and the word "first", primus, are both singular. They match! And they're supposed to. But novissimi is plural. In the sentence as given, novissimi plays no role, much like the "cabbage" in the sentence "this sentence contains cabbage six words". - Novissimi means, literally, "newest". (Heck, it doesn't just mean "newest", the two words are etymologically identical.) It does metaphorically refer to the rear of something, since the back of the army is where the least experienced (newest) troops get placed. A better word for "last" would probably be postremus, meaning literally "last" and metaphorically "worst". - There's only one verb. (Compare "if you're not first, you're last".) That isn't the problem in Latin that it would be in English, but I flag it because the final two issues require careful thinking about what verb to use where... - This is a conditional statement using a present indicative verb. The strong implication is present that, as described, you really aren't first. If the statement was meant to be hypothetical or counterfactual, you'd probably use subjunctive mood. - I cannot guarantee that the concept "to be first" is best expressed by combining the verb "to be" with the adjective "first", as you've done here. It's quite possible that there's a verb that describes winning a race or a competition or whatever, and that verb would be a more idiomatic way of expressing this meaning. I have no knowledge of whether that's actually true, but it's the kind of thing that comes up a lot when you're trying to translate between languages. (This sort of thing is why it's much safer to translate things into your native language than out of your native language, even if you have near-perfect command of the other language.) English is very free with "be + adjective" constructions; many languages are more prone to specialized verbs. (Compare the Latin verb rubere, "to be red". Expressing the concept as ruber esse, "to be" + "red (adj.)" is an error.)

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Shoutout to Muckrock for powering that FOIA request!

boardwaalk 7y ago

I can't be the only one who cringed at the "release the swag" comment. You won't catch me dead wearing/carrying something with something spy agency-related on it.

danso 7y ago
The parodies are pretty funny: https://twitter.com/sli/status/1181736342063108096 https://twitter.com/sli/status/1181736342063108096
xvector 7y ago
The logo is just cool. While I probably wouldn't seek it out, I wouldn't mind having this stitched on my bag.

lxe 7y ago

It baffles me that in order to request a file from some database you need to write a letter to a person who then responds back after a month. Did you end up incurring fees of $48/h for searching and per-page fees as well? I thought that a major benefit of the internet is that we don’t have to do this anymore.

coolspot 7y ago
Someone with clearance still have to review what can and what can not be released. Probably goes through couple approvals and checks too.
danso 7y ago
The Internet reduces the cost of access distribution, but not the work of locating information and meeting bureaucratic regulations for its publication. Even for institutions in which data preservation and access is fundamental to the bottom line, this is a hard problem. Think of the many game companies who have had to remake classics without access to the original source code and/or assets, such Icewind Dale II [0] and FF7 [1]. The good news is that repeated public records requests can eventually push an agency to come up with a streamlined process that prioritizes making records available by default. Or at least, a bulk dump, in the case of the FBI and celebrity death files [2] [0] https://kotaku.com/nobody-can-find-the-source-code-for-icewind-dale-ii-1796724450 https://kotaku.com/nobody-can-find-the-source-code-for-icewi... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ysjeu/iama_guy_who_has_been_reverse_engineering_final/c5yftp2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ysjeu/iama_guy_who_ha... [2] https://vault.fbi.gov/popular-culture https://vault.fbi.gov/popular-culture
kube-system 7y ago
If you can write a program that can automate this, then you're a better programmer than most of us. https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-freedom-information-act-5-usc-sect-552-amended-public-law-no-104-231-110-stat https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-update-freedom-informa...
- nyolfen 7y ago
  the request end is automated at least: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/create/

dole 7y ago

Batman (1966), Joker, Penguin and Catwoman were part of the "United Underworld"... always wanted to get this logo [1] on a t-shirt but never got it cleaned up enough to scale. [1] https://i.imgur.com/KP6Gf7e.png https://i.imgur.com/KP6Gf7e.png

pizza 7y ago

I don't quite have the time to find them right now, but there was a series of quite hilarious internal emails that were sort of exasperated about how there should never be a repeat of the octopus logo from now on

danso 7y ago
Here's a writeup of the 15 pages of internal documents/emails about the logo that released upon a FOIA request https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jan/19/octopus-NRO/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/jan/19/octopus-N... https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1210022/responsive-documents.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1210022/responsiv...
TeMPOraL 7y ago
You may be referring to the document linked by 'Rebelgecko here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217671. On page 17, I found the following quote from a chain of e-mails: "[redacted] said after the octopus logo, the White House threatened to require presidential approval if the NRO approved any more menacing logos."
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  It was only "A little sinister!!" Clearly a major affront to lefties.

whalesalad 7y ago

My dad worked at the Skunk Works for 20 years, and Northrop Grumman for almost as long. He has a billion of these mission patches in boxes and/or framed in his home office. I love them. Wish there was a big online repo of them to browse.

et-al 7y ago
Sounds like you could start one!
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  many of the patches themselves will be classified, his dad could get into trouble if they were documented.
sib 7y ago
Sounds like you could seed the repo!
algaeontoast 7y ago
About a year ago there was always this one guy at the MIT swap fest who had loads of memorabilia like you've mentioned. He had patriot missile mugs, miniatures of satellite projects from Raytheon etc. He was so cool to talk to, although I no longer live in Boston.
- whalesalad 7y ago
  That is killer. I grew up around so much of that cool stuff you talk about – especially the coffee mugs. So many mugs I wish hadn’t hit the floor or lost their logo.
  - algaeontoast 7y ago
    A friend of mine from high school had a parent who worked on the F117A project and maybe the coolest mug I've ever seen. It was a mug that had an F117 fighter that would disappear when the mug got hot enough, with the engineering team skunkworks patch on the other side - man was it cool.

weej 7y ago

"The enemy has nowhere to hide" Love the logo, but damn if that isn't ominous and intimidating.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sdinsn 7y ago

Note that this is nothing new. The logo was already public.

hughes 7y ago
The point is that a vector format / high resolution version was never public. The best we had until recently was a photograph of the physical embroidered patch.
saagarjha 7y ago
Was the vector version public?
- brokensegue 7y ago
  no

noodlesUK 7y ago

These logos are awesome! I’ve seen lots of military and IC logos, and they all have relatively similar art styles. Who actually draws these things? Are these by ordinary members of the community who work on the project, or is there an art department that works on these?

algaeontoast 7y ago

Damn, I'm totally having this logo professionally printed and framed.

knolax 7y ago

Reminds me of the book "I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me". It's all about various patches from secret projects.

userbinator 7y ago

Interesting that the PDF was created 2019-01-03 10:34:05 and modified 2019-10-04 10:35:22, assuming the metadata is in any way accurate, considering that NROL-39 was launched in 2013.