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Simple sabotage for software (2023)

erikbern.com

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Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#61

Post by c0balt »

jwilk wrote: post #51
throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but i have to flag your comment. 1) dang has to decide whether this is too snarky or not. 2) Please stay on topic, its about CIA or not. 3) Its hardly " frequently bringing up irrelevant issues". Have i missed something?

You missed https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : > If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

Flagging should be accompanied by a reply to the original post. Otherwise this bypasses the official channel and the op won't be able to receive proper feedback. Such issues should also be referred to the moderation committee and the awareness team. /s

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#62

Post by llm_trw »

oopsallmagic wrote: post #50
throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but i have to flag your comment. 1) dang has to decide whether this is too snarky or not. 2) Please stay on topic, its about CIA or not. 3) Its hardly " frequently bringing up irrelevant issues". Have i missed something?

A sense of humor?

I'm pretty sure the post you're replying to is a joke.

We need to form a sub comittie to figure out if it is.

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#63

Post by majewsky »

_djo_ wrote: post #44
krisoft wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen a compelling reason to believe that the original CIA suggestions actually worked. Let’s set asside the fact that the document wasn’t written by the CIA. The purported goal of this document was to provide practicaly applicable advice to the regular citizen who found themselves under enemy occupation. Most concretely to be given to the French people who did not like the German occupation. You are talk…

> Let’s set asside the fact that the document wasn’t written by the CIA. What do you mean? The CIA has publicly stated that the document was written by the OSS, its wartime predecessor. [0] [0] https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage...

So we are all in agreement. :)

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#64

Post by krisoft »

_djo_ wrote: post #44
krisoft wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen a compelling reason to believe that the original CIA suggestions actually worked. Let’s set asside the fact that the document wasn’t written by the CIA. The purported goal of this document was to provide practicaly applicable advice to the regular citizen who found themselves under enemy occupation. Most concretely to be given to the French people who did not like the German occupation. You are talk…

> Let’s set asside the fact that the document wasn’t written by the CIA. What do you mean? The CIA has publicly stated that the document was written by the OSS, its wartime predecessor. [0] [0] https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage...

That is what I mean exactly. Your second sentence answers your question. My dad is not me. The OSS is not the CIA. It is a predecessor of it.

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#65

Post by krisoft »

hinkley wrote: post #27
krisoft wrote: post #7

> CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. Not quite right. The Office of Strategic Services did that. The CIA was created only in 1947 several years after the end of the second World War in 1945.

The head of the OSS also founded the CIA, so is it really that big of a stretch?

> is it really that big of a stretch?

I don’t know what is a big or a small stretch. I just know it is just not true. If you studied the history of the second World War, or the history of the CIA, or the history of the Cold War then that sentence sticks out like a sore thumb. It makes as much sense as describing how many Gatling guns Hannibal mounted per elephant.

I guess in a certain post-truth sense it is a smaller stretch of the truth to say that the CIA published it, than to say that the KGB did it. And in turn attributing it to the KGB would be a smaller stretch of the truth, than attributing it to the elves of Middle Earth. But what is common between all those three is that they haven’t authored this document, because it was the OSS who did it. (As the document itself conveniently, and very prominently states.)

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#66

Post by walterbell »

krisoft wrote: post #64
_djo_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let’s set asside the fact that the document wasn’t written by the CIA. What do you mean? The CIA has publicly stated that the document was written by the OSS, its wartime predecessor. [0] [0] https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-art-of-simple-sabotage...

That is what I mean exactly. Your second sentence answers your question. My dad is not me. The OSS is not the CIA. It is a predecessor of it.

https://warontherocks.com/2015/09/how-the-oss-shaped-the-cia...

  Wild Bill Donovan’s admirers and critics still argue over his legacy, but on one point they agree: His World War II Office of Strategic Service (OSS) became the Petri dish for the spies who later ran the CIA as well as the special operators who conduct some of the most daring raids the world has ever seen.

   Four CIA directors — Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby and William Casey — learned the craft of clandestine warfare as operatives for Donovan’s OSS. Indeed, the daring, the risk-taking, the unconventional thinking, and the élan and esprit de corps of the OSS permeated the new agency.

   So would the OSS’s failings: the delusions that covert operations, like magic bullets, could produce spectacular results, or that legal or ethical corners could be cut for a higher cause.

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#67

Post by walterbell »

hobs wrote: post #39
andrei_says_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing what? Getting paid by a competitor to destroy his current company?

No, being incompetent to the point where if you squinted he might as well be.

If those were public companies, one could backtest put option signals timed by his career moves.

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#68

Post by walterbell »

patrakov wrote: post #29

The manual misses the most important step: getting rid of people who have even the slightest idea of how the product as a whole should work and/or a coherent vision of a better future. The word "vision" is not even present in the text. Visioners are the ones who can sabotage the saboteurs.

A good subject for organizational theory case studies would be the relative cultural immunity of companies with a well-articulated founding vision document, charter of principles, or other operational guidance for employees.

Re: Simple sabotage for software (2023)

#69

Post by [deleted] »

ohyes wrote: post #17
desio wrote: post #11

Clever framing of the authors own biases. I'd argue that for at least some of these, the opposite behaviour would be the true sabotage.

Let’s make a committee to discuss! we need all the key players involved, so let’s invite all of dev and QA, ~60 people for an hour long discussion?

[deleted]
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