| ▲ | Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf](cia.gov) |
| 132 points by praptak 8 hours ago | 54 comments |
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| ▲ | HotGarbage 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| A version for modern times: https://specificsuggestions.com/ |
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| ▲ | tunapizza 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's wild how many of these so-called sabotage techniques happen daily in the workspace without even realizing it. I can’t tell if this website is being serious or just having a laugh. I don't know whether I find it funny or sad. | | |
| ▲ | michaelt 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Is this a deep philosophical reflection on the nature of work and organisational behaviour? Or does it simply reflect the fact a good sabotage technique is something you can get away with - and therefore it has to be something that happens daily in the workplace? | | | |
| ▲ | ocdtrekkie 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That is, in fact, the point. You don't want to get caught/fired for sabotaging your company. The site suggests introducing additional perfectly explainable events which happen all the time, and are hard to assign blame to direct incompetence, but slow progress and cost money. |
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| ▲ | embedding-shape 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Crap, that "escape method" of "we'll redirect you away if you click too much" made it really hard to read the text. | | |
| ▲ | Throwthrowbob 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It may just be me or my internet, but I tried this specifically to see the effect and it was a very slow escape (seemed delayed starting to load, and then loading the escape page). | | |
| ▲ | SamBam 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I came to say the same thing: I love the idea of the quick escape, but some of the sites take way too long to load. They should prioritize sites with the fastest loading (smallest footprint) over some of the jokey-er websites like "43 Gifts for Every Type of Boss." |
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| ▲ | yowayb 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I worked at a now-defunct defense contractor with the typical inefficiencies of hyper-secrecy and government waste. A friend once asked, "aren't you conflicted that you're helping kill people?" At the time, that question put serious doubt in my head. But years after, I realized all the inefficiency slows the machine down. Combine this with negative public opinion, and you've got the perfect machine for creating work that results in busy-ness and reduces actual battlefield harm. The stories from this place are fun. |
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| ▲ | roadbuster 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Forget to provide paper in toilets The world's greatest spy agency at work. |
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| ▲ | 0xTJ 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Be careful when you get down to "(11) General Interference with Organizations and Production", you might start thinking that your coworkers are CIA saboteurs. |
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| ▲ | sunrunner 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’ve long suspected that my company’s previous Head of Architecture was a double agent, actually working for a competitor. I’ve never seen anyone create so much process that likely looks good to the board while slowing every single person down, yet never actively preventing anyone from doing anything. I mean, it’s either that or they were just incompetent, and honestly the double-agent theory is more fun. Although, Hanlon’s Razor and all... | | |
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| ▲ | danielvaughn 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There's a bunch of really interesting declassified documents if you want to go down a historical rabbit hole. A long time ago I remember reading top secret messages that were sent back and forth between Kennedy and his military strategists in the days leading up to the Bay of Pigs. Feels like reading history from the source. |
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| ▲ | Liquix 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The remote viewing declassified documents available at the CIA reading room are mind blowing IMO. Keyword to search: "GRILL FLAME" |
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| ▲ | Papazsazsa 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My buddy is republishing this manual here if you want a nice copy: https://www.alephic.com/sabotage |
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| ▲ | trolleski 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| https://archive.org/details/simple-sabotage-field-menu |
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| ▲ | ntcho 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think this should be on HN hall of fame: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=sabotage+manual |
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| ▲ | diyseguy 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I feel like so many people I've worked with have read this and use it like a guide. I now sort of wonder if they were plants put there by competitors... |
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| ▲ | bluedino 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The "Managers and Supervisors" section is like a reverse Joel test for many jobs. |
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| ▲ | drkravitz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Obligatory music video that should be playing during this topic: https://youtu.be/z5rRZdiu1UE R.I.P. MCA |
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| ▲ | rolph 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| i believe the ACB devoted a chapter to similar topics. the cat has been out of the bag for some time, regarding what amounts to guerilla or grayman tactics. |
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| ▲ | FergusArgyll 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Use the information as you see fit. |
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| ▲ | mmaunder 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s as if our country has trained millions of our citizens in the art of harming others and destroying their communities and societies. And then gamified it for our kids and created entertainment that glorifies and celebrates it. We’re so fucked. |
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| ▲ | dang 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Related. Others? Bureaucrat Mode - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41745750 - Oct 2024 (49 comments) Simple sabotage for software (2023) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40695839 - June 2024 (75 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual – How to Destroy Your Organizations - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36831946 - July 2023 (95 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448090 - April 2023 (129 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1945) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32356038 - Aug 2022 (3 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States Office of Strategic Services - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676964 - June 2022 (55 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31070624 - April 2022 (8 comments) Excerpt from CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 - Dec 2021 (209 comments) 1944 OSS Manual on How to Sabotage Productivity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28507930 - Sept 2021 (5 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual - 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 - May 2020 (1 comment) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 - Feb 2020 (89 comments) Spotting Field Sabotage in Meetings (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16045073 - Jan 2018 (36 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf] - 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 - Aug 2016 (64 comments) Updating classic workplace sabotage techniques - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702267 - May 2016 (280 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 - Nov 2015 (68 comments) Declassified CIA documents detail how to sabotage employers, annoy bosses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10490804 - Nov 2015 (21 comments) How to make sure nothing gets done at work - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 - Oct 2015 (3 comments) Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) - 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 - July 2012 (3 comments) How We Beat the Nazis with Bureaucracy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398103 - June 2010 (22 comments) WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf] - 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 - Sept 2009 (29 comments) (Reposts are fine after a year or so; links to past threads are just to satisfy extra-curious readers) |
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| ▲ | sneak 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A reminder: ICE is on a hiring spree with little/no background checking. |
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| ▲ | johnea 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Sure, just go fetch the sabotage manual from cia.gov! That absolutely will never ever get your IP on a watch list or anything 8-/ |
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| ▲ | cardamomo 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | We should create a committee to see if this actually has an effect. A minimum of 24 members should be sufficient. After we have a quorum, we can independently test your hypothesis and report back to the committee. Once we reach consensus, let's report back to this thread. | | |
| ▲ | NitpickLawyer 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah! It's great that you've already set up the committee. Before we do any hypothesis testing, I would like us to discuss the resource consumption of a) this committee's gatherings (especially when we have a quorum) resource allocations as related to miscellaneous consumables (e.g. paper and pencils) and b) the overall energy usage of all our members (especially when using such tools as VPNs and dual monitors) when remote gathering and c) the proper removal and safe disposal of the plastic water bottles (including but not limited to their caps) after an in person meeting Barring these estimations and their precise tracing throughout the lifetime of one of our meetings, I'm afraid I'll insist on postponing any such meetings, until we'll have the possibility of performing such estimations, or a higher power decides to maybe wave some (if not all) of the above. In which case we should then proceed to propose alternative avenues towards the facilitation of such re-estimating, or re-analysis as needed. | | |
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| ▲ | baldgeek 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That won't get you put on a watchlist. You have to a little more than access it. I bet that millions before this post was even created have accessed that document. | | |
| ▲ | GolfPopper 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm more concerned with the wisdom of downloading a document in a format known to be exploitable hosted by an intelligence agency of a government known for a recent uptick in aggressive domestic policing? |
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| ▲ | tgsovlerkhgsel 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Spy agencies are presumably pretty good at learning which signal is signal and which is noise. Given how commonly this is referenced in corporate presentations to point out that the antipatterns from the sabotage manual are how many companies run nowadays, it's either going to be a meaninglessly big watchlist or no watchlist. | |
| ▲ | bmacho 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Get it from archive? https://web.archive.org/web/2026if_/https://www.cia.gov/stat... | |
| ▲ | regentbowerbird 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | True. Let's post the URL to a popular website to add noise to the data. | |
| ▲ | shawn_w 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For bonus watchlist points grab a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook at the same time. | |
| ▲ | jjkaczor 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If you are that concerned, it's available from Anna's Archive and/or other shadow libraries. This thing has been floating around for decades... Heck - you can buy a physical copy from Amazon... | |
| ▲ | windowpains 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can’t they just watch everyone? I mean too much data is only a problem until you have AI. | | |
| ▲ | margalabargala 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's true. "Getting you on a list" is the outdated consequence, "having a flag set in your file" is the new way. | | |
| ▲ | windowpains 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Someone here probably works for Alex Karp and can give us the low down. I’d imagine it’s a virtual clone of some sort which can be put into simulated environments and observed. | |
| ▲ | fenwick67 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | another day another field effecting the "deviant" weight in the FBI's model |
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| ▲ | sneak 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Every IP is being watched. | |
| ▲ | impossiblefork 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The CIA are probably for the most part reasonable people, or if they aren't, hopefully not that kind of crazy. They probably want people to look at their history stuff. Think "look, our predecessor organizations helped defeat the Nazis/Imperial Japan and did reasonable stuff". I'm not sure whether this text is propaganda to get people to work more effectively or an actual sabotage manual, but whatever it is, that's still the signal, I think. At best keeping this on your website is like trying to say "Our stuff taught people to resist Nazis and similarly bad people", at worst it's like trying to say "look, here's a really entertaining way to trick people into being productive". | | |
| ▲ | downrightmike 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Where;s the Iran > Contra > Inner-City crack epidemic book? Maybe we can borrow the sackler's copy? |
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| ▲ | jansan 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think I have downloaded it about ten times in the last fifteen years. Noone came knocking so far. | |
| ▲ | FuriouslyAdrift 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Nah... it just adds another tag to your id in Gotham |
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