The Whole Spy’s Guide to the Internet
The Whole Spy’s Guide to the Internet
Muckrock requested, via a Freedom of Information act request, a copy of a book called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research, the author of which is, um, Name Redacted — because the book, at 600+ pages, was written for the use of the United States National Security Agency. Muckrock is kind of down on this guide, which came out in 2007. They write:
You don’t have to go very far before this takes a hard turn into “Dungeons and Dragons campaign/Classics major’s undergraduate thesis” territory. The preface employs a comical number of metaphors to describe what the internet is and isn’t — sometimes two a paragraph. But don’t take our word for it!
They quote some of the stuff from the preface, which is admittedly a little heavy on the Borges, but we were all a little heavy on the Borges back then.
Like a lot of people I’m always game to laugh at the NSA. But while the preface is a little much in spots, once you get past the preface you’ll find a book that’s…well, I didn’t read the whole thing. But this book appears to be excellent: A reasoned, thoughtful overview of the Web as an entire system, written for intelligent people who had a need of expertise and mastery over the medium. The book throughout emphasizes security and privacy, and it’s as complete as possible. It tells you how to secure your Wi-Fi, and what things to uncheck in your Internet Explorer. It helps you with complex research problems. It’s granular, and dry, and exhaustive—and thus incredibly helpful.
There’s even a section called “HTML & Email: Two Things That Do Not Belong Together,” which, yes! You tell ’em, anonymous NSA author. And then it explains why putting those two things together is an abomination.
This is a really, really good book about the Web. I wish I had a copy of the 2016 version; if it kept on its editorial trajectory, the current version must be unbelievably complex—and correspondingly useful. Plus I bet the NSA has some sweeeeeet web-searching tools of their very own. I’d love to look under the hood.
It’s an ironic shame that this helpful, taxpayer-funded guide to browsing sanely and securely has been sequestered away inside an out-of-control organization addicted to spying. And that it took a FOIA request to get it.
But I don’t agree that this book is crazy. This book is awesome. Everyone in America should receive an updated copy, the better that they can protect themselves from the NSA. Whoever wrote this, working away at their government job—Mr. or Ms. Redacted, I salute you. If you’re ever in NYC let me buy you a coffee at a secure location.