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A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

cia.gov

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Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#41

Post by dredmorbius »

gogogendogo wrote: post #16

Personally I prefer the bureaucratic sabotage manual the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) published during WWII, to advise Nazi-occupied workers on how to slow business to a crawl. Which, funny enough, sometimes reads like a description of bad management practices in general! https://www.hsdl.org/c/abstract/?docid=750070

An HN favourite, with 35 submissions.

Amongst the top discussions:

- 7 years ago 64 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448090>

- 3 years ago 89 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041>

- 11 years ago 68 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363>

- 6 years ago 32 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771>

- 1 year ago 55 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676964>

- 8 years ago 68 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881>

- 14 years ago 29 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443>

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#42

Post by dredmorbius »

Animats wrote: post #32
pinkcan wrote: post #3

I understand this document is from 2009, not secret, and probably contains information known elsewhere. Still, what is the intent of the CIA in publishing this on the open web? I assume they would be able to distribute this to US nationals even in other orgs through internal networks.

Have you seen the CIA World Facebook?[1] That goes much further. [1] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/

NB: Fact book, not Facebook.

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#43

Post by runjake »

kjellsbells wrote: post #37
polytely wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruitment, they need to be cool to attract the people they want as employees

Its always struck me as a little odd that their recruitment (at least, their public recruitment) is focused on young people, new grads, etc. I wonder why they dont publicly try to recruit people who have been in industries or domains for years, eg pick up people working at Qualcomm who already have good reason to be traveling across the world and meeting people.

Public recruitment typically happens at university, which is dominated by young people.

Older people who show up at the university job fair or get “encouraged” by faculty with connections get recruited just the same.

In fact, they’re not recruiting 20 year olds, they’re more likely to recruit people in their late 20s or even 30s who have some real life experience and travel under their belts.

Caveat: apparently service in the Peace Corps and certain other NGOs will disqualify you for Officer duty. At least that’s the claim, backed up by several ex-officers.

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#44

Post by specproc »

kjellsbells wrote: post #37
polytely wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruitment, they need to be cool to attract the people they want as employees

Its always struck me as a little odd that their recruitment (at least, their public recruitment) is focused on young people, new grads, etc. I wonder why they dont publicly try to recruit people who have been in industries or domains for years, eg pick up people working at Qualcomm who already have good reason to be traveling across the world and meeting people.

They might do for specific jobs, but you want them nice and fresh for a career path. Too much time out in the world fosters the sort of independent thinking that's a liability in that line of work.

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#46

Post by mike_d »

dmbche wrote: post #29
mike_d wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think this, but it is still highly effective. Say you want your adversaries to use pencils instead of pens to write their secret notes. You publish information on the risks of pens and how they leak information on an obscure corner of the internet and seed it to a small forum or two. That gets picked up by a government worker in Germany and they put it into their recommendations. That document then gets stolen…

While I see what you mean, I can't think of any example right away that are touted by people like Snowden - I see there were many honeypots on crypto, TOR and "encrypted" phones, but other than maybe VPNs I wouldn't know what was shared this way.

> I can't think of any example right away that are touted by people like Snowden

Then it worked perfectly.

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#47

Post by euroderf »

einpoklum wrote: post #27

I would think that when people in the CIA manage to understand international developments well enough, they typically become highly critical of US policies and then leave...

I would like to see a CIA counterpart to "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler of the USMC.

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#48

Post by dmbche »

mike_d wrote: post #46
dmbche wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I see what you mean, I can't think of any example right away that are touted by people like Snowden - I see there were many honeypots on crypto, TOR and "encrypted" phones, but other than maybe VPNs I wouldn't know what was shared this way.

> I can't think of any example right away that are touted by people like Snowden Then it worked perfectly.

In the sense of - are you talking about something or is it all just vague impressions?

Re: A Tradecraft Primer (2009)

#49

Post by einpoklum »

euroderf wrote: post #47
einpoklum wrote: post #27

I would think that when people in the CIA manage to understand international developments well enough, they typically become highly critical of US policies and then leave...

I would like to see a CIA counterpart to "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler of the USMC.

Well, "International espionage, sabotage and regime destabilization is a racket" is not much of a revelation really...
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