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?
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.
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...
The world's greatest spy agency at work.
the cat has been out of the bag for some time, regarding what amounts to guerilla or grayman tactics.
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)
That absolutely will never ever get your IP on a watch list or anything 8-/
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.
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.
Heck - you can buy a physical copy from Amazon...
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".
Maybe we can borrow the sackler's copy?