42 ms·

Excerpt from CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944)

387 points by bobbiechen 5y ago

otterley 5y ago
This also reads like how to run a modern cable news network.
najqh 5y ago
Funny that this is posted under cacert.org, an organisation whose big accomplishments during its long lifetime were... getting hacked.
- linsomniac 5y ago
  I also was wondering why this was posted under CACert, particularly a section called "CACert/Board". I never really payed much attention to the operation of CACert, but when it first came out I had high hopes for it to become something like what LetsEncrypt has become. I was a "SuperSigner" back in the day. But in the end, I never really found a practical use for it. Now I'm wondering if there was internal resistance that caused things to fall apart.
hpoe 5y ago
So I've seen this a couple of times and to me it make sense, but it also seems such a perfect indictment of organizational culture that I could see it being fabricated for laughs. Can anyone vouch for the authenticity of this?
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  I don't know the etymology of the use of the word dope but used in this document it either makes a strong case for its authenticity (or esoteric familiarity with language of the era by the hoaxer) or is a red flag. > (7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope. That caught my eye anyway.
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    Appropriate for the time period
    - UncleSlacky 5y ago
      And even today: https://boards.straightdope.com https://boards.straightdope.com
- VictorPath 5y ago
  The Church Committee hearings (particularly some of the "family jewels" stuff) and Iran-Contra hearings pertaining to Nicaragua and Contras establishes to some extent which sabotage manuals are real and who wrote them.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage/ https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage... authenticates part of this. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find the full version hosted on their official page somewhere.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > So I've seen this a couple of times and to me it make sense, but it also seems such a perfect indictment of organizational culture that I could see it being fabricated for laughs. The similarity to actually observed behavior isn't a coincidence. You can walk out to the factory floor with a sledgehammer and start smashing things right there in front of everyone. You might even cause quite a bit of damage before someone stops you. But then you're getting arrested. You can cause just as much damage by wasting everybody's time with organizational politics and "safety first" hand wringing, but then what are they going to say? You're too diligent? So then you get to stay and do it all again tomorrow. Imagine a manager firing someone for being too concerned about safety.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    If you'll notice, most of them are about following authority, not maintaining safety. Imagine firing someone for being too subordinate.
  - dqpb 5y ago
    > You can cause just as much damage by wasting everybody's time with organizational politics and "safety first" hand wringing, but then what are they going to say? They’ll probably say you’re promoted!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SquibblesRedux 5y ago
This one appears more complete: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/library/SimpleSabotageFieldManualOSS1944.pdf http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/library/SimpleSabotageFiel... This reads like "The Anarchist's Guide to Bringing Down FAANG." (MAANG?)
- debbiedowner 5y ago
  It's MAMAA now. G->A a while ago and Netflix was superceded by Microsoft.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  It is both hilarious and sad: like something from the film Brazil but also like normal bureaucracy in Corporate America of today.
- jareklupinski 5y ago
  > (3) Using a very rapid stroke will wear out a file before its time. So will dragging a file in slow strokes under heavy pressure. Exert pressure on the backward stroke as well as the forward stroke. i'm learning more about proper technique than sabotage from this
  - rgblambda 5y ago
    Being shown what NOT to do is often as or even more useful than being shown the correct usage.
- black_puppydog 5y ago
  MANGA!!!
imwillofficial 5y ago
OSS is not the CIA. Pleas correct the headline.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  but most people have no idea what OSS is. the CIA is the natural successor of OSS.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    You got trapped, he used the manual to make you waste your time on irrelevant stuff, and mine now :D
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      I had read parts of the manual years ago, and I concede quickly enough got bored. All we need to sabotage a system is a little bit of imagination coupled with paranoia to sustain damage long term.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > but most people have no idea what OSS is. the CIA is the natural successor of OSS. That still doesn't make the headline correct, though. CIA simply didn't exist in WW2.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    Now now, this should go through the proper channels...
hirako2000 5y ago
I thought for a bit that the tactics were increasingly applied by many workers. sadly enough they aren't applying planned coordinated actions, they just are so fed up with this so well rigged system they've decided that, perhaps unconsciously, sabotaging all they can is the best pleasure they can hope for.
- _jal 5y ago
  > sadly enough they aren't applying planned coordinated actions If you have an organization, it can be attacked, both legally and extralegally. Cf. the history of labor organizing in the US. And without it, distributed, uncoordinated action is less likely to lead to positive-sum outcomes, but is also a far harder-to-suppress tax on the corporate order.
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    Not sure whether that is a good thing, nor that it is a non organised but conscious effort to sabotage systems. I think many workers have figured out there isn't much that can be done to improve their conditions, that they have meaningless impacts, and that they don't value their employment all that much anymore, that doing the minimum and even enjoying sabotaging what they can is the last measures they can afford to take, providing each individual the pleasure that nobody is profiting from them any longer. Note: I think it's a world-wide phenomenon, not localised to the US where clearly, the workers have changed their relationships with productivity and contributions to making the system prevail.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
In what context was this to be used?
- hpoe 5y ago
  World war 2
  - mukundesh 5y ago
    Timeless
- ahoka 5y ago
  For sabotaging war efforts in countries annexed by Nazi Germany. I guess.
motohagiography 5y ago
Maybe the post is a "Parable of Lightening / Kolmolgorov Complicty" trap, but I would like to say what I think this is being used as source material for, and I won't directly because there isn't an easy way to make a comment on it without being antagonistic, but it's important to recognize that there exists a manual of these organized tactics, produced by an organization that employed Herbert Marcuse, whose work is taught in every humanities undergrad in the western world, where their graduates largely go on to work in organizations appendant to the public sector.
- cdiamand 5y ago
  Interesting, didn't know of that connection between OSS and Marcuse. I can see why one would err.. tiptoe around this.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  The Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS employed more than a thousand social scientists (including Marcuse) as information analysts, people who came out of academia for a while to aid the war effort vs. the Nazis. Many later went back to academia. Implying without further evidence that therefore academic social scientists are secret saboteurs, part of a spy agency conspiracy, is defamatory nonsense. Whatever anyone thinks about Marcuse per se, this kind of cheap anti-intellectualism is deplorable.
  - indigo945 5y ago
    It's not anti-intellectualism, it's rampant, straight-faced, rotten anti-semitism. Marcuse was Jewish, and the idea here is that (((they))), who already run the secret deep state, have taken over the universities, erstwhile organizations of pure, rational, white science (as evidenced by logical colonial era head measurements), and turned them into vile spaces intent on destroying the white race. Nazi dogwhistle bullshit.
    - pxc 5y ago
      [flagged]
dundarious 5y ago
A notable excerpt that I often see in quotation: (11) General Interference with Organizations and Production (a) Organizations and Conferences (1) Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  This resonates surprisingly well with the “Fuck nuance” paper in sociology[1], even if I can’t exactly pin down why. [1]: https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf
  - tonypace 5y ago
    You could readily add, "We need a more nuanced discussion of the situation," as another sabotage tactic.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  This document makes plain that America's largest corporations and government have been thoroughly infiltrated by enemy saboteurs. What are we going to do about it?
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
This playbook is being turned back on the US currently. The GOP being the antagonizers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ohdannyboy 5y ago
This reminds me of the South Park where the kids had to become skilled at baseball in order to lose the game and go home sooner. The instructions are basically to be an incompetent manger at middle levels, inefficient bureaucrat high levels and a Karen at every committee. But instead of just being that archetype, you're doing it carefully and methodically as a sabotuer.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mukundesh 5y ago
My Favourite "Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions"
- durnygbur 5y ago
  ^ "My favourite"
  - stevehawk 5y ago
    ^ "favorite"
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - a9h74j 5y ago
      Calling in the microagression response team. Challenging someone's spelling is "Where are you from" with extra steps.
      - doctor_eval 5y ago
        I think they were “Haggle[ing] over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions”
        a9h74j 5y ago
        Respect the diversity of tactics!
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        The microaggression response team is not the proper channel here.
        fit2rule 5y ago
        dang it!
dang 5y ago
Past threads: Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 - Feb 2021 (1 comment) CIA's Declassified 1941 Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 - May 2020 (1 comment) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 - Feb 2020 (89 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 - Aug 2017 (32 comments) The CIA’s 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 - Aug 2016 (64 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 - Nov 2015 (68 comments) How to make sure nothing gets done at work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 - Oct 2015 (3 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 - Nov 2012 (67 comments) From CIA: Timeless Tips for 'Simple Sabotage' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 - July 2012 (3 comments) WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 - Oct 2009 (6 comments) OSS (pre-CIA) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 - Sept 2009 (29 comments)
ravenstine 5y ago
My favorite variation of this is the "Freedom Fighters Manual" that was supposedly used by the CIA to subvert the communist regime in Nicaragua back in the 80's, as it has some funny illustrations presented like a comic book. https://archive.org/details/freedomfightersm00unit/page/n3/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/freedomfightersm00unit/page/n3/m...
hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
Would like to see field pages from GLADIO, would be really interesting, although I don't suspect it's going to be too different from this.
riazrizvi 5y ago
This pairs well with the late David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.
ripvanwinkle 5y ago
That honestly reads like the playbook that many mid level managers at some of the largest companies operate out of
- qaq 5y ago
  100%
- it_does_follow 5y ago
  So much so that I can't help but wonder if this is a bit of an inside joke. Having at one time worked for the Federal Government I know me and my fellow employees created surprisingly similar documents (though nothing as formal) chronically the absurdity of our daily life. This type of "sabotage" reminds of the Onion's FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States[0]. For most large organizations these techniques are already widely practiced. 0. https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-back-and-enjoy-c-1819576375 https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-...
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    I’m of the same mind, it reads as hilarious straight faced irony, of the ways beuacracies sabotage themselves
  - csydas 5y ago
    While I think the article is submitted with that kind of irony, in fact that the CIA* just studied what stymied or frustrated any common hierarchy/organization and formalized it into a process. I resonate with it because I can name persons who, intentionally or not, do these exact actions within our org; I can even name a few I know do it intentionally as they said as such. Their goal isn't to get fired or to cause "real" trouble, but instead to cause frustration without getting in trouble. There are similar guides, or were anyways, on how to effectively troll/create chaos online; it's not that the authors of the articles are geniuses that created this stuff in a vacuum, they just had a need for such a specific outcome and turns out humans have been doing this ever since we started making hierarchies. * (or any other intelligence organization across the globe really) FWIW, the counter to this though is to just ignore such "saboteurs" as much as you can. Most of the time their ability to frustrate relies on consistently being in places where they can frustrate or by participating with persons who are drawn into such distractions. If you cannot avoid working with them, the same tactics that are disruptive in this manual (documentation, etc), can be used against the saboteur also. Establish documentation procedures that even if only you are using it, you can define time sinks and inefficiencies. Bend the rules a little and continue projects without the problematic person, finding a replacement that does help, and when you report on the project, document the saboteur not as a problem, but instead that your chosen replacement was an improvement on them. These workplace saboteurs thrive on creating confusion, chaos, and disruption, and working in channels that aren't easily observable, and most importantly, by exploiting our tendencies towards good faith interpretations in all things (which is what we're taught is correct and polite). Businesses live by hard numbers and profit. It's a sometimes tense experience, but discipline and resistance to getting drawn into the saboteurs chaos can and eventually will get the desired results. If the business truly doesn't respond or the saboteur has such sway/pull that their lack of output/efficiency doesn't prompt some action from the business, then truly the business is not one you want to be in. Quite a few workplace saboteurs have been removed from my workplace doing this (either by threat of firing that resulted in resignation or outright firing). The end result of a few weeks of just practicing brevity in meetings, taking the time to make a chain of documentation for interactions with such persons, and avoiding getting wrapped up into "games" helped a ton. Follow-up emails from conversations the saboteur wants to keep "just in chat" or "just on a quick call" are extremely useful, just a quick high-level summary and suggestion for next steps and a request to update the thread showed a reluctance of these persons to participate (add in little messages like "hey I pinged you in our chat also and didn't get the response either" to just cover your tracks)
fouric 5y ago
Huh, most of these patterns appear regularly in US federal government workplaces...
- CyanBird 5y ago
  Most of these patterns appear everywhere, that's the point, to exacerbate the bad patterns within already existing structures and to do so with plausible deniablility in order to cause them to lose momentum
tommek4077 5y ago
Maybe all the CoC gladiators, trying to kill off FOSS are paid saboteurs?
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  Well they do seem to be paid to contribute from corporations rather than hobby developers.
icambron 5y ago
I have a hard time believing that this isn't at least in part a joke. It's just too on-the-nose. Either that or I have some very sharp questions for some former coworkers.
- mcguire 5y ago
  It doesn't seem to be a joke. https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070 https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070
redleggedfrog 5y ago
My CEO must be using this.
mayosmith 5y ago
CIA was established in 1947. https://www.cia.gov/about/ https://www.cia.gov/about/
- itsangaris 5y ago
  OSS is the precursor to the CIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services
- CyanBird 5y ago
  Yes, this is an OSS document, it says so in the title
  - rvnx 5y ago
    I see "Excerpt from CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual"
dqpb 5y ago
Wait… is this satire?
- tyingq 5y ago
  Seems not. https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070 https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070 has a pdf link to the original. Also, Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page-images/26184-images.pdf https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page-images/26184-imag...
dpeck 5y ago
You would be hard pressed to find a difference between the approaches here and the ones in SAFe.
narrator 5y ago
D) Spend as much time as possible alleging and arguing about Code of Conduct violations committed by the most productive members of the organization. Hire permanent staff to disrupt meetings and other work with these allegations. Accuse those who refuse to enthusiastically support these accusations.
epr 5y ago
Chatting with my gf, we came up with a new section (mostly her): === General Inquiries === - Answer a question other than the one being asked. Feign misunderstanding. - Give incomplete answers. Do anything you can to almost but not completely answer the inquiry . - Delay answering as long as possible. - Answer with a question. - Request more information than required to answer an inquiry. - Attempt redirection to other people or resources. - Involve as many people as possible - Rebuke the inquirer when they follow up on a previous unanswered inquiry within an arbitrary time window (days, not hours). - When asked multiple questions, answer only only of them, ignoring all others. Wait to be prompted to answer each question individually. - When asked multiple questions, answer the least important or time sensitive question first. - Ignore all information provided besides the single question being answered. - Prefer slower or more onerous communication methods 1. snail mail 2. email 3. text messaging 4. audio call 5. video call 6. in-person meeting - Mix multiple communication methods - If contacted using a lower ranking method, upgrade.
- saltyfamiliar 5y ago
  Yikes. I know people that behave very much like this naturally.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    That’s the point
  - vidarh 5y ago
    In particular, it took me a long time to a realise that for a lot of people communications is parsed by treating a series of requests or pieces of information as a FIFO. If you're lucky, it's fairly deep, but for some people it can only hold 1 or 2 entries at the time. But when it's an e-mail or other interaction that they understand as "conversational", these people tend to not start acting on the output until the end. So ask for 3 things, and chances are only the last one will still be in the queue by the time they've read your whole message. The rest will have just popped out of their mind and no longer exist in their world until they're prompted to re-read your message. For people who act like that, seemingly the only way around it short of drip-feeding them questions one at a time that I've found is to present them with a document attachment and only one request: "Please follow the procedure in the attached document." And make them sign off. And provide a checklist if they're particularly difficult. You basically need to make it clear that the list is not conversation. You can find people who are pathologically unable to process a list of instructions in an e-mail who are at the same time completely OCD about processing lists of instructions in a document, because they context-switch completely. Of course in this context of "sabotage" this can be exploited to: Mercilessly attach all information in a bunch of separate documents, and add checklists and signoffs to everything. Especially to unimportant stuff.
fnord77 5y ago
x) complain about cat breed discrimination
hourislate 5y ago
I would like to add the following to this manual. https://solaire.substack.com/p/software-engineers-simple-sabotage https://solaire.substack.com/p/software-engineers-simple-sab...
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
This is how our government workers work all the time! Sadly, most of them are not even paid by some foreign superpower.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Previous discussions: 5 years ago (64 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 6 years ago (68 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 2 years ago (89 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 9 years ago (68 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 4 years ago (32 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 12 years ago (29 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443
akyu 5y ago
>(8) If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on. This is from the extended version. Feels really strangely relevant these days...
mcguire 5y ago
Is this a sabotage manual or a course on management from a business school?
soheil 5y ago
That was from 80 years ago, but it is the state of many engineers employed at Silicon Valley companies. I wonder what techniques CIA uses today that will be the norm in 2100.
yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
For a moment there, I thought I was reading a document entitled Agile in Practice.
dmix 5y ago
Now watch the proceedings of "The US Socialist Convention" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX9FgvXZXZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX9FgvXZXZ8 I'm not it's its CIA sabotage. Mot to mention the longer full stream was immediately taken down by the organizers out for fear fear of mean words on the internet being said about them. But the ideology inherently pushes towards so many of these listed (self-)sabotage tactics it almost doesn't even need it.
pksebben 5y ago
reading through this, and my tinfoil hat tells me this would make a more effective psyop than a manual. you create something like this, "lose" a copy where enemy decision makers can get a hold of it and bam, now the other guys are eating enormous resources on a slew of red-herring mole hunts.
- pontifier 5y ago
  I'm thinking about doing it out in the open and gifting a copy to each person in the local government with a note saying "These are the tactics that are being used to kill this city."
jamesmishra 5y ago
Technically the Simple Sabotage Field Manual is from OSS--the CIA's predecessor. The Manual is one of my favorite pieces of historical literature, but I think that people become too cynical about large organizations after they read the manual. It is important to understand how coordination can slow down or fail, but becoming cynical only makes the problem worse.
quickthrower2 5y ago
* Advocate strongly for microservices * And redux / sagas * Rewrite in rust * 100% test coverage or reject PR * The most elaborate git workflow you can find * Bonuses based on completed story points * OKRs
justicezyx 5y ago
These are excellent indicators of team negator type of employees. I'll be using this to find them and fire those depending how bad the committed these activities...
darepublic 5y ago
This is why I'm completely disenchanted with tech companies. I've seen billion dollar companies fumble basic shit too many times due to infighting and too many cooks etc. Managers who prefer to destroy any good thing that's going on if it can't be observed by them and watermarked as their intiative. This in turn has made me less hopeful about government and human civilization in general. The progress we've made has been the work of a few, not the many
walrus01 5y ago
(6) A clean factory is not susceptible to fire, but a dirty one is. Workers Should be careless with refuse and janitors should be inefficient in cleaning. If enough dirt and trash can be accumulated an otherwise fireproof building will become inflammable. you could apply this principle to information security/network security practices as well... just neglect to patch things, use out of date methods, leave cruft and half-finished projects laying around, etc.
meatsauce 5y ago
Reminds me of my last job.
jonplackett 5y ago
Boris Johnson has been reading this too closely. That Peppa Pig Speech is starting to make more sense.
wayanon 5y ago
Is this a satire on business today?
vtripolitakis 5y ago
Looks like Greek public sector to me.
mrlonglong 5y ago
Perhaps we should translate this into Mandarin and Korean to aid the democratisation process in China and North Korea ...
taurusnoises 5y ago
Aka "How to be a White Male in Society". (as someone who is one, I can attest this was my socialization)
rahimiali 5y ago
how would an invading force defend itself against this form of domestic sabotage? is the only defense to make incompetence tantamount to treason and prosecute it as a crime?

387 points by bobbiechen 5y ago

This also reads like how to run a modern cable news network.

Funny that this is posted under cacert.org, an organisation whose big accomplishments during its long lifetime were... getting hacked.

linsomniac 5y ago
I also was wondering why this was posted under CACert, particularly a section called "CACert/Board". I never really payed much attention to the operation of CACert, but when it first came out I had high hopes for it to become something like what LetsEncrypt has become. I was a "SuperSigner" back in the day. But in the end, I never really found a practical use for it. Now I'm wondering if there was internal resistance that caused things to fall apart.

hpoe 5y ago

So I've seen this a couple of times and to me it make sense, but it also seems such a perfect indictment of organizational culture that I could see it being fabricated for laughs. Can anyone vouch for the authenticity of this?

JKCalhoun 5y ago
I don't know the etymology of the use of the word dope but used in this document it either makes a strong case for its authenticity (or esoteric familiarity with language of the era by the hoaxer) or is a red flag. > (7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope. That caught my eye anyway.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  Appropriate for the time period
  - UncleSlacky 5y ago
    And even today: https://boards.straightdope.com https://boards.straightdope.com
VictorPath 5y ago
The Church Committee hearings (particularly some of the "family jewels" stuff) and Iran-Contra hearings pertaining to Nicaragua and Contras establishes to some extent which sabotage manuals are real and who wrote them.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage/ https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage... authenticates part of this. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find the full version hosted on their official page somewhere.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> So I've seen this a couple of times and to me it make sense, but it also seems such a perfect indictment of organizational culture that I could see it being fabricated for laughs. The similarity to actually observed behavior isn't a coincidence. You can walk out to the factory floor with a sledgehammer and start smashing things right there in front of everyone. You might even cause quite a bit of damage before someone stops you. But then you're getting arrested. You can cause just as much damage by wasting everybody's time with organizational politics and "safety first" hand wringing, but then what are they going to say? You're too diligent? So then you get to stay and do it all again tomorrow. Imagine a manager firing someone for being too concerned about safety.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  If you'll notice, most of them are about following authority, not maintaining safety. Imagine firing someone for being too subordinate.
- dqpb 5y ago
  > You can cause just as much damage by wasting everybody's time with organizational politics and "safety first" hand wringing, but then what are they going to say? They’ll probably say you’re promoted!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

SquibblesRedux 5y ago

This one appears more complete: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/library/SimpleSabotageFieldManualOSS1944.pdf http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/library/SimpleSabotageFiel... This reads like "The Anarchist's Guide to Bringing Down FAANG." (MAANG?)

debbiedowner 5y ago
It's MAMAA now. G->A a while ago and Netflix was superceded by Microsoft.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
It is both hilarious and sad: like something from the film Brazil but also like normal bureaucracy in Corporate America of today.
jareklupinski 5y ago
> (3) Using a very rapid stroke will wear out a file before its time. So will dragging a file in slow strokes under heavy pressure. Exert pressure on the backward stroke as well as the forward stroke. i'm learning more about proper technique than sabotage from this
- rgblambda 5y ago
  Being shown what NOT to do is often as or even more useful than being shown the correct usage.
black_puppydog 5y ago
MANGA!!!

imwillofficial 5y ago

OSS is not the CIA. Pleas correct the headline.

hirako2000 5y ago
but most people have no idea what OSS is. the CIA is the natural successor of OSS.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  You got trapped, he used the manual to make you waste your time on irrelevant stuff, and mine now :D
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    I had read parts of the manual years ago, and I concede quickly enough got bored. All we need to sabotage a system is a little bit of imagination coupled with paranoia to sustain damage long term.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jhgb 5y ago
  > but most people have no idea what OSS is. the CIA is the natural successor of OSS. That still doesn't make the headline correct, though. CIA simply didn't exist in WW2.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Now now, this should go through the proper channels...

hirako2000 5y ago

I thought for a bit that the tactics were increasingly applied by many workers. sadly enough they aren't applying planned coordinated actions, they just are so fed up with this so well rigged system they've decided that, perhaps unconsciously, sabotaging all they can is the best pleasure they can hope for.

_jal 5y ago
> sadly enough they aren't applying planned coordinated actions If you have an organization, it can be attacked, both legally and extralegally. Cf. the history of labor organizing in the US. And without it, distributed, uncoordinated action is less likely to lead to positive-sum outcomes, but is also a far harder-to-suppress tax on the corporate order.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Not sure whether that is a good thing, nor that it is a non organised but conscious effort to sabotage systems. I think many workers have figured out there isn't much that can be done to improve their conditions, that they have meaningless impacts, and that they don't value their employment all that much anymore, that doing the minimum and even enjoying sabotaging what they can is the last measures they can afford to take, providing each individual the pleasure that nobody is profiting from them any longer. Note: I think it's a world-wide phenomenon, not localised to the US where clearly, the workers have changed their relationships with productivity and contributions to making the system prevail.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

In what context was this to be used?

hpoe 5y ago
World war 2
- mukundesh 5y ago
  Timeless
ahoka 5y ago
For sabotaging war efforts in countries annexed by Nazi Germany. I guess.

motohagiography 5y ago

Maybe the post is a "Parable of Lightening / Kolmolgorov Complicty" trap, but I would like to say what I think this is being used as source material for, and I won't directly because there isn't an easy way to make a comment on it without being antagonistic, but it's important to recognize that there exists a manual of these organized tactics, produced by an organization that employed Herbert Marcuse, whose work is taught in every humanities undergrad in the western world, where their graduates largely go on to work in organizations appendant to the public sector.

cdiamand 5y ago
Interesting, didn't know of that connection between OSS and Marcuse. I can see why one would err.. tiptoe around this.
jacobolus 5y ago
The Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS employed more than a thousand social scientists (including Marcuse) as information analysts, people who came out of academia for a while to aid the war effort vs. the Nazis. Many later went back to academia. Implying without further evidence that therefore academic social scientists are secret saboteurs, part of a spy agency conspiracy, is defamatory nonsense. Whatever anyone thinks about Marcuse per se, this kind of cheap anti-intellectualism is deplorable.
- indigo945 5y ago
  It's not anti-intellectualism, it's rampant, straight-faced, rotten anti-semitism. Marcuse was Jewish, and the idea here is that (((they))), who already run the secret deep state, have taken over the universities, erstwhile organizations of pure, rational, white science (as evidenced by logical colonial era head measurements), and turned them into vile spaces intent on destroying the white race. Nazi dogwhistle bullshit.
  - pxc 5y ago
    [flagged]

dundarious 5y ago

A notable excerpt that I often see in quotation: (11) General Interference with Organizations and Production (a) Organizations and Conferences (1) Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

mananaysiempre 5y ago
This resonates surprisingly well with the “Fuck nuance” paper in sociology[1], even if I can’t exactly pin down why. [1]: https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf
- tonypace 5y ago
  You could readily add, "We need a more nuanced discussion of the situation," as another sabotage tactic.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
This document makes plain that America's largest corporations and government have been thoroughly infiltrated by enemy saboteurs. What are we going to do about it?
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

This playbook is being turned back on the US currently. The GOP being the antagonizers.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ohdannyboy 5y ago

This reminds me of the South Park where the kids had to become skilled at baseball in order to lose the game and go home sooner. The instructions are basically to be an incompetent manger at middle levels, inefficient bureaucrat high levels and a Karen at every committee. But instead of just being that archetype, you're doing it carefully and methodically as a sabotuer.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mukundesh 5y ago

My Favourite "Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions"

durnygbur 5y ago
^ "My favourite"
- stevehawk 5y ago
  ^ "favorite"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    Calling in the microagression response team. Challenging someone's spelling is "Where are you from" with extra steps.
    - doctor_eval 5y ago
      I think they were “Haggle[ing] over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions”
      - a9h74j 5y ago
        Respect the diversity of tactics!
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      The microaggression response team is not the proper channel here.
      - fit2rule 5y ago
        dang it!

dang 5y ago

Past threads: Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 - Feb 2021 (1 comment) CIA's Declassified 1941 Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 - May 2020 (1 comment) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 - Feb 2020 (89 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 - Aug 2017 (32 comments) The CIA’s 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 - Aug 2016 (64 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 - Nov 2015 (68 comments) How to make sure nothing gets done at work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 - Oct 2015 (3 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 - Nov 2012 (67 comments) From CIA: Timeless Tips for 'Simple Sabotage' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 - July 2012 (3 comments) WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 - Oct 2009 (6 comments) OSS (pre-CIA) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 - Sept 2009 (29 comments)

ravenstine 5y ago

My favorite variation of this is the "Freedom Fighters Manual" that was supposedly used by the CIA to subvert the communist regime in Nicaragua back in the 80's, as it has some funny illustrations presented like a comic book. https://archive.org/details/freedomfightersm00unit/page/n3/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/freedomfightersm00unit/page/n3/m...

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago

Would like to see field pages from GLADIO, would be really interesting, although I don't suspect it's going to be too different from this.

riazrizvi 5y ago

This pairs well with the late David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.

ripvanwinkle 5y ago

That honestly reads like the playbook that many mid level managers at some of the largest companies operate out of

qaq 5y ago
100%
it_does_follow 5y ago
So much so that I can't help but wonder if this is a bit of an inside joke. Having at one time worked for the Federal Government I know me and my fellow employees created surprisingly similar documents (though nothing as formal) chronically the absurdity of our daily life. This type of "sabotage" reminds of the Onion's FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States[0]. For most large organizations these techniques are already widely practiced. 0. https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-back-and-enjoy-c-1819576375 https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-...
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  I’m of the same mind, it reads as hilarious straight faced irony, of the ways beuacracies sabotage themselves
- csydas 5y ago
  While I think the article is submitted with that kind of irony, in fact that the CIA* just studied what stymied or frustrated any common hierarchy/organization and formalized it into a process. I resonate with it because I can name persons who, intentionally or not, do these exact actions within our org; I can even name a few I know do it intentionally as they said as such. Their goal isn't to get fired or to cause "real" trouble, but instead to cause frustration without getting in trouble. There are similar guides, or were anyways, on how to effectively troll/create chaos online; it's not that the authors of the articles are geniuses that created this stuff in a vacuum, they just had a need for such a specific outcome and turns out humans have been doing this ever since we started making hierarchies. * (or any other intelligence organization across the globe really) FWIW, the counter to this though is to just ignore such "saboteurs" as much as you can. Most of the time their ability to frustrate relies on consistently being in places where they can frustrate or by participating with persons who are drawn into such distractions. If you cannot avoid working with them, the same tactics that are disruptive in this manual (documentation, etc), can be used against the saboteur also. Establish documentation procedures that even if only you are using it, you can define time sinks and inefficiencies. Bend the rules a little and continue projects without the problematic person, finding a replacement that does help, and when you report on the project, document the saboteur not as a problem, but instead that your chosen replacement was an improvement on them. These workplace saboteurs thrive on creating confusion, chaos, and disruption, and working in channels that aren't easily observable, and most importantly, by exploiting our tendencies towards good faith interpretations in all things (which is what we're taught is correct and polite). Businesses live by hard numbers and profit. It's a sometimes tense experience, but discipline and resistance to getting drawn into the saboteurs chaos can and eventually will get the desired results. If the business truly doesn't respond or the saboteur has such sway/pull that their lack of output/efficiency doesn't prompt some action from the business, then truly the business is not one you want to be in. Quite a few workplace saboteurs have been removed from my workplace doing this (either by threat of firing that resulted in resignation or outright firing). The end result of a few weeks of just practicing brevity in meetings, taking the time to make a chain of documentation for interactions with such persons, and avoiding getting wrapped up into "games" helped a ton. Follow-up emails from conversations the saboteur wants to keep "just in chat" or "just on a quick call" are extremely useful, just a quick high-level summary and suggestion for next steps and a request to update the thread showed a reluctance of these persons to participate (add in little messages like "hey I pinged you in our chat also and didn't get the response either" to just cover your tracks)

fouric 5y ago

Huh, most of these patterns appear regularly in US federal government workplaces...

CyanBird 5y ago
Most of these patterns appear everywhere, that's the point, to exacerbate the bad patterns within already existing structures and to do so with plausible deniablility in order to cause them to lose momentum

tommek4077 5y ago

Maybe all the CoC gladiators, trying to kill off FOSS are paid saboteurs?

thinkingemote 5y ago
Well they do seem to be paid to contribute from corporations rather than hobby developers.

icambron 5y ago

I have a hard time believing that this isn't at least in part a joke. It's just too on-the-nose. Either that or I have some very sharp questions for some former coworkers.

mcguire 5y ago
It doesn't seem to be a joke. https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070 https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070

redleggedfrog 5y ago

My CEO must be using this.

mayosmith 5y ago

CIA was established in 1947. https://www.cia.gov/about/ https://www.cia.gov/about/

itsangaris 5y ago
OSS is the precursor to the CIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services
CyanBird 5y ago
Yes, this is an OSS document, it says so in the title
- rvnx 5y ago
  I see "Excerpt from CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual"

dqpb 5y ago

Wait… is this satire?

tyingq 5y ago
Seems not. https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070 https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=750070 has a pdf link to the original. Also, Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page-images/26184-images.pdf https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page-images/26184-imag...

dpeck 5y ago

You would be hard pressed to find a difference between the approaches here and the ones in SAFe.

narrator 5y ago

D) Spend as much time as possible alleging and arguing about Code of Conduct violations committed by the most productive members of the organization. Hire permanent staff to disrupt meetings and other work with these allegations. Accuse those who refuse to enthusiastically support these accusations.

epr 5y ago

Chatting with my gf, we came up with a new section (mostly her): === General Inquiries === - Answer a question other than the one being asked. Feign misunderstanding. - Give incomplete answers. Do anything you can to almost but not completely answer the inquiry . - Delay answering as long as possible. - Answer with a question. - Request more information than required to answer an inquiry. - Attempt redirection to other people or resources. - Involve as many people as possible - Rebuke the inquirer when they follow up on a previous unanswered inquiry within an arbitrary time window (days, not hours). - When asked multiple questions, answer only only of them, ignoring all others. Wait to be prompted to answer each question individually. - When asked multiple questions, answer the least important or time sensitive question first. - Ignore all information provided besides the single question being answered. - Prefer slower or more onerous communication methods 1. snail mail 2. email 3. text messaging 4. audio call 5. video call 6. in-person meeting - Mix multiple communication methods - If contacted using a lower ranking method, upgrade.

saltyfamiliar 5y ago
Yikes. I know people that behave very much like this naturally.
- midasuni 5y ago
  That’s the point
- vidarh 5y ago
  In particular, it took me a long time to a realise that for a lot of people communications is parsed by treating a series of requests or pieces of information as a FIFO. If you're lucky, it's fairly deep, but for some people it can only hold 1 or 2 entries at the time. But when it's an e-mail or other interaction that they understand as "conversational", these people tend to not start acting on the output until the end. So ask for 3 things, and chances are only the last one will still be in the queue by the time they've read your whole message. The rest will have just popped out of their mind and no longer exist in their world until they're prompted to re-read your message. For people who act like that, seemingly the only way around it short of drip-feeding them questions one at a time that I've found is to present them with a document attachment and only one request: "Please follow the procedure in the attached document." And make them sign off. And provide a checklist if they're particularly difficult. You basically need to make it clear that the list is not conversation. You can find people who are pathologically unable to process a list of instructions in an e-mail who are at the same time completely OCD about processing lists of instructions in a document, because they context-switch completely. Of course in this context of "sabotage" this can be exploited to: Mercilessly attach all information in a bunch of separate documents, and add checklists and signoffs to everything. Especially to unimportant stuff.

fnord77 5y ago

x) complain about cat breed discrimination

hourislate 5y ago

I would like to add the following to this manual. https://solaire.substack.com/p/software-engineers-simple-sabotage https://solaire.substack.com/p/software-engineers-simple-sab...

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

This is how our government workers work all the time! Sadly, most of them are not even paid by some foreign superpower.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Previous discussions: 5 years ago (64 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 6 years ago (68 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 2 years ago (89 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 9 years ago (68 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 4 years ago (32 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 12 years ago (29 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443

akyu 5y ago

>(8) If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on. This is from the extended version. Feels really strangely relevant these days...

mcguire 5y ago

Is this a sabotage manual or a course on management from a business school?

soheil 5y ago

That was from 80 years ago, but it is the state of many engineers employed at Silicon Valley companies. I wonder what techniques CIA uses today that will be the norm in 2100.

yakshaving_jgt 5y ago

For a moment there, I thought I was reading a document entitled Agile in Practice.

dmix 5y ago

Now watch the proceedings of "The US Socialist Convention" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX9FgvXZXZ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX9FgvXZXZ8 I'm not it's its CIA sabotage. Mot to mention the longer full stream was immediately taken down by the organizers out for fear fear of mean words on the internet being said about them. But the ideology inherently pushes towards so many of these listed (self-)sabotage tactics it almost doesn't even need it.

pksebben 5y ago

reading through this, and my tinfoil hat tells me this would make a more effective psyop than a manual. you create something like this, "lose" a copy where enemy decision makers can get a hold of it and bam, now the other guys are eating enormous resources on a slew of red-herring mole hunts.

pontifier 5y ago
I'm thinking about doing it out in the open and gifting a copy to each person in the local government with a note saying "These are the tactics that are being used to kill this city."

jamesmishra 5y ago

Technically the Simple Sabotage Field Manual is from OSS--the CIA's predecessor. The Manual is one of my favorite pieces of historical literature, but I think that people become too cynical about large organizations after they read the manual. It is important to understand how coordination can slow down or fail, but becoming cynical only makes the problem worse.

quickthrower2 5y ago

* Advocate strongly for microservices * And redux / sagas * Rewrite in rust * 100% test coverage or reject PR * The most elaborate git workflow you can find * Bonuses based on completed story points * OKRs

justicezyx 5y ago

These are excellent indicators of team negator type of employees. I'll be using this to find them and fire those depending how bad the committed these activities...

darepublic 5y ago

This is why I'm completely disenchanted with tech companies. I've seen billion dollar companies fumble basic shit too many times due to infighting and too many cooks etc. Managers who prefer to destroy any good thing that's going on if it can't be observed by them and watermarked as their intiative. This in turn has made me less hopeful about government and human civilization in general. The progress we've made has been the work of a few, not the many

walrus01 5y ago

(6) A clean factory is not susceptible to fire, but a dirty one is. Workers Should be careless with refuse and janitors should be inefficient in cleaning. If enough dirt and trash can be accumulated an otherwise fireproof building will become inflammable. you could apply this principle to information security/network security practices as well... just neglect to patch things, use out of date methods, leave cruft and half-finished projects laying around, etc.

meatsauce 5y ago

Reminds me of my last job.

jonplackett 5y ago

Boris Johnson has been reading this too closely. That Peppa Pig Speech is starting to make more sense.

wayanon 5y ago

Is this a satire on business today?

vtripolitakis 5y ago

Looks like Greek public sector to me.

mrlonglong 5y ago

Perhaps we should translate this into Mandarin and Korean to aid the democratisation process in China and North Korea ...

taurusnoises 5y ago

Aka "How to be a White Male in Society". (as someone who is one, I can attest this was my socialization)

rahimiali 5y ago

how would an invading force defend itself against this form of domestic sabotage? is the only defense to make incompetence tantamount to treason and prosecute it as a crime?