7 ms·
Dear NSA, let me take care of your slides.
Dear NSA, you can do whatever with my data. But not with my eyes. Those slides are hideous.
So here's a quick revamp of your #PRISM slides.
- toyg 13y agoNice deck, BUT this is Hacker News, so here's the customary negative feedback: - the "what's the plan" slide is bad: it doesn't convey the original sense that other providers will join soon or have already joined. the tagline makes it look like it's a future plan, when it's actually describing the past. - that "$20m" slide makes it look like it's a lot of money. The original clearly wanted to contextualise it and make it look cheap. ("just 20m for all these providers!") - seriously? I got more data-per-square-inch from the original presentation. - thin fonts are overdone and hard to read. - VCs don't care about presentations anymore, I got in YC20xx by <clever social engineering episode>.
- Ntrails 13y agoI also object to any slides that cannot be at least readable printed in black and white. Consider the ink costs - do you think the NSA is made of money?!?
- robbiep 13y agoI thought most slides these days print to more 'normal colours'? My university always has slides with dark bgs, images and crazy coloured texts but the PDF slides available to accompany them are always only just the text + any images if they have copyright, and print very well in b&w, if people still feel the need to do that
- munger 13y agoThe need to print in B&W is more about b&w laser vs color ink jets at the consumer level. Quality and TOC is so much better on a B&W laser than paying so much for color ink tanks if you do mostly info doc print outs.
- squidi 13y ago+ I like the way each slide it headed with a question. I find that helpful in doing presentations - On slide 13 I got a bit lost as the green circle for US & Canada stands out a lot so I read it before the text. Maybe the green circle could include the text? Great marking!
- Angostura 13y agoIn addition, while using the actual company logos in the presentation may spoil the aethetic, it conveys the information much much quicker.
- jeremyjh 13y agoFor a government program like this, $20M looks like nothing no matter what the context is.
- foxhill 13y agodespite the severity of implications of PRISM, being able to laugh about it is important. slides were designed excellently, i definitely did not giggle at all..
- nicpottier 13y agoBrilliant marketing. Bravo.
- EmilandDC 13y agoThx !
- acoyfellow 13y agoOne of the most clever ways I've ever seen to sell yourself.. On par with the Oreo ad during the superbowl I think. You nailed the timing of the issue, and I hope you get some awesome jobs from this. The hair still rose on the back of my neck, and it made it seem even more manipulative. A+ design/presentation skills.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- alieas 13y agoThe fact that the slides were so disgusting is just another reason to make me think this "story" was "broke" by design. Controlled opposition.
- genwin 13y agoSeems it was EmilandDC's idea all along.
- swalsh 13y agoIn all honesty, 20M seems like a bargain for that much value.
- lessnonymous 13y agoNice move Mr Presentation Designer.
- ShirsenduK 13y agoFlat UI. Was this iOS 7 inspired? :P
- Ricapar 13y agoSheesh. "Flat UI" now goes along with iOS 7? It's been around much longer than yesterday. iOS 7 is late to the party.
- Samuel_Michon 13y agoIt was a joke. Also, iOS 7 doesn’t have a flat UI; it’s full of gradients, layers, and translucency.
- josefresco 13y agoImagine the uproar if the NSI hired a graphic designer of sorts to make their slides more attractive. I can see the moaning now "They spent HOW much of my tax money making those slides pretty?!?" I expect the NSA's slide to be crappy, because you know, they're spies and stuff not graphic UX experts.
- danso 13y agoIt's not about "attractive" slides, it's about slides that are to the point and don't obfuscate information (unintentionally). Being an analyst and being able to understand the processing of data into visual display is not an orthogonal skill set. Often, PowerPoint slides are ugly and worthless because whoever designed them thought "Oh shit, I don't understand how to best convey this...time for some clip art" and/or "Faster slide animations!" Obligatory link to Tufte's criticism of NASA and Powerpoint: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...
- blantonl 13y agoKeep in mind that those slides were almost certainly developed by a contractor. Who was paid 150K/year. Who was one of thousands of other similar contractors. With little to no real world experience.
- bazillion 13y agoThe average pay of contractors is between 70k-100k. The only ones making more than that are typically program managers for large contracts or other administrative folk who work on winning contracts for their company. Contractors are typically not busy making powerpoints, but busy actually working on what they're hired to do since they have to do their hours. The busy work is left to the military folk and interns as stated in the other comment.
- blantonl 13y agoGovernment contractors with active security clearances command far more than 70k-100K - an active TS/SCI clearance can take over a year to process - and the number of hurdles to clear is daunting for the average person. An enlisted E-7 just coming out of the military with an active clearance and some technology experience is going to bank with the contractors out there and probably do very little real actual hard work. That security clearance really is the willy wonka golden ticket...
- kevinbluer 13y agoGenius :)
- Systemic33 13y agoYou should just get in contact with every governmental agency in the world, the amount of bad designed layouts is over 9000.
- toyg 13y agoNo, the amount of designed layouts is zero. The amount of hacked-together presentations is over 9000. In fact, I don't understand why Powerpoint-Design-As-A-Service isn't a thing yet.
- samspenc 13y agoFor the same reason Web-Design-As-A-Service isn't a thing yet. I deal with non-techie friends who have trouble even with Wix and Weebly on a daily basis.
- James_Duval 13y agoIt is - that's what the OP offers! Or have I misunderstood you?
- suppressingfire 13y agoHah. I like how the author pluralized "targets'" while keeping all the other facts intact.
- logn 13y agoBrilliant! I think, as the public, we should all re-implement an open, ethical, and fun version of this surveillance infrastructure open to the Internet as a whole. Facebook nearly implemented that goal. But we can do better.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sethbannon 13y agoI've been so infuriated with this story that I didn't think someone could make me laugh about PRISM, but this did it.
- ExcitedByNoise 13y agoHaving been in many DoD related PowerPoints, this is par for the course. Bravo though, made me laugh.
- joeblau 13y agoSame. It's funny because after looking at the original slides, I immediately thought... "yeah these are legit"
- drchiu 13y agoNice slides, but I couldn't but laugh at the idea that the next time there's a leak at the NSA it would turn out to be the guy who was in charge of making the slides.
- kalms 13y agoThis is really great! Fast thinking there.
- jacquesm 13y agoThe NSA uploading their slides to slideshare would save everybody a lot of bother, I think that's the most brilliant bit in this excellent PR move. No more need to leak anything.
- az 13y ago'We are a one-man agency...' contradictory?
- marcgg 13y agoI think that's the point ^^
- senthilnayagam 13y agoalong with 20 Million you could have put combined worth of these companies is over 200 billion dollars, 0.0001%
- andyhmltn 13y agoThis seems to be an advertising ploy for a slide design service. However, I looked at their website and their stuff is amazing
- milhous 13y ago"target(s)" should be replaced with "your fellow American citizens and potential foreign persons of interests" because we're all guilty until proven innocent.
- slig 13y agoDirect link to OP's website http://emiland.me/ http://emiland.me/
- crocowhile 13y agoSnowden was not in the acknowledgements.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- genwin 13y agoOn 1) a slide is missing, that says the providers are bending over backwards with fiber optic links to gov't-only server farms, free of charge.
- ck2 13y agoBTW have those slides been authenticated somehow?
- chmars 13y agoWhy are there only four PRISM slides in the presentation? According to media reports, the total number of slides is much larger …
- Fishkins 13y agoRight, there are 25 total (I think), but only 4 have been disclosed to the general public.
- downandout 13y agoHave you considered creating something that would help tie the content to the person viewing the slides? Might be really useful for any security sensitive organization. For example, if the color scheme on certain graphics was programmatically modified slightly for each person who viewed the content, then the next leaker could be immediately identified (if they don't decide to voluntarily publish their name). Something like this would survive screenshots/resizing/etc. You could also enable them to put tags where the software can fill in identifying info in the content. For example a link in the slides might be modified to include a number identifying the viewer, and if that link pops up anywhere, it's off to Gitmo. Can't believe NSA doesn't already do this stuff.
- waffle_ss 13y agoApparently I'm grumpy beyond my years but I find these lighthearted jabs at the NSA counter-productive as they just trivialize what happened. I'd much rather see creations that will help bring about change, like shining a spotlight on the representatives that support these programs. For instance Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, who said "the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future."
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- verelo 13y agoI completely agree and actually would argue that it further pushes the point of why we should be concerned: They cant even make good slides, how can anyone be sure they're keeping the data they collect (legally or not - irrelevant for this point) safe? I suppose you could also say they spend their time keeping the data safe and not producing quality slides, but i would consider it to be more of an insight into the quality of their overall architecture.
- jsmcgd 13y agoI disagree. Satire is a very effective form of political argument. There are probably many people in the politically apathetic masses who will have not followed recent developments. Unlike the regular media, gimmicks like this can effectively penetrate their consciousness.
- stevelaz 13y agoI would disagree with what you consider to be an insight. There are plenty of great architectures that don't have well designed slide shows to go with them. Come now, look at some of the old school web sites that hard core *nix hackers kept. An example would be the old Linux kernel website was a single text page. Sure, they've upgraded it in this past year, but it was a simple ugly site many years before that. If your argument about slide show vs arch is true, then Linux would have failed long ago.
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- dustingetz 13y agoi worked Lockheed Martin R&D for a couple years and slides like this are par. they are written by the principal investigator for an audience who doesn't give a shit about glitz and glam. these aren't marketing slides.
- glesica 13y agoIf they just put all their slides on Slideshare I would certainly never see them...
- ivv 13y agoFeedback from the client: Thanks for sending this over, it looks great. Could you just add a few tweaks? - Add the seal - We need the "top secret" stamp on each slide - We think the grey is too bland. Could you make it pop more? - Did you get the PRISM logo from us? I am attaching the Word doc in case you missed it - I am not sure you left enough room for the bullets -- will they go on separate slides? We need to see those. [edited for line breaks]
- muyuu 13y agoSeems like Microsoft was ahead of the game compared to Facebook and Google. Who'd have thought.
- simonster 13y agoThese slides are certainly prettier and less crowded than the NSA slides, but they are, if anything, less readable. Unless the slides are intentionally informed by the principle that hard to read text is easier to remember (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?pagewan...), I think these slides are a classic case of form over function. • The main font is too thin. • The first few slides are white text on a neutral gray background, which is inexcusably low contrast. Ditto for the green text on the blue background on the following slides, and the gray axis labels on the blue background, which I can barely read even on my computer screen. The white text on blue background is good. • The text in the graph on the "How can we monitor everything?" slides is too small to be readable from the back row (but this was also a problem in the originals).
- ErwannRobin 13y agovery clever ^^ I hope this will bring you good business!
- twic 13y agoNext, i want to see a Prezi version.
- coherentpony 13y agoBrilliant. Would you like to write some slides for me?
- QuantumGuy 13y agoAnybody know what software is used to make those slides?