# Unintentionally hilarious dictionary of intelligence terms **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 27, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179 "2012-02-27T20:11:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/1 "2012-02-27T20:11:15Z")
As many of you know, the corporate intelligence firm, Strategic Forecasting, Inc., AKA “[Stratfor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor)”, irritated the hackers of Anonymous somehow. [Those hackers managed to penetrate Stratfor’s computer network](http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/250749/wikileaks_releases_stratfor_emails_possibly_from_december_hack.html), and post a lot of the contents to wikileaks, causing no end of embarrassment. One of the things they posted was an ostensibly[in-house glossary of intelligence terms](http://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/The_Stratfor_Glossary_of_Useful_Baffling_and_Strange_Intelligence_Terms.pdf). (.Pdf warning). I have been chuckling at many of the terms throughout the day, e.g: > [@](#): > > **Clancy** : Somebody who has read a lot of Tom Clancy novels and thinks he knows the Craft. Total moron. Really dangerous if he is the Customer. Never let a Briefer be a Clancy. and > [@](#): > > **ATF** : Alcohol Tobacco and Fire Arms. Rednecks with a license to kill. Never, ever, ever ask for their help on anything. Yes, the list is probably apocryphal/stems from the imagination of a witty Anonymous member. (I mean wouldn’t ATF have been amended to BATFE by now?) IMHO, it’s still funny though. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/2 "2012-02-28T01:25:33Z")
I don’t know, it reads like a genuine, intentionally hilarious leaked document to me. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/3 "2012-02-28T02:40:31Z")
Reads like something one of the Cool Kids made up to see how many Clancies he can get to wander around spouting it in order to sound cool. See [Skippy’s List](http://skippyslist.com/list/) for the military version. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/4 "2012-02-28T17:39:44Z")
There is nothing remotely unintentional about the humor in that document. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/5 "2012-02-28T19:02:13Z")
"Black Boxed - Any part of the operation that has an outcome that you can’t examine. You’re handed a report that says the Russians have invented time travel. You ask where this came from. You’re told that the source is out of your reach but you are to treat the report as gospel. You’ve just been black boxed. Your door keeper tells you to keep a careful eye on Madagascar. You ask why. You’re told that you have no need to know. You’ve been black boxed. Later, when it turns out that the Russians don’t have time travel or that nothing is happening in Madagascar, you will be blamed for squandering resources. That’s called being screwed." ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/6 "2012-02-28T19:15:35Z")
"Source-doubled: A source you think is working for you that is really working for someone else. Source-tripled: A source who you know is working for you even though the other side thinks they’ve doubled him. Source-quadrupled: A source who you think is working for you who is actually working for the other side, even though you knew he was working for the other side… Too fucked up to think about. Shoot the bastard and start over again." ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-hilarious-dictionary-of-intelligence-terms/614179/7 "2012-02-28T19:18:09Z")
**Ogre** , I was thinking “unintentional” as relating to the manner it was released. And then garbled the cause and effect. I need to remember that the “Preview” button is there for a reason… The thing reads like someone trying to write a spy novel, and stockpiling pithy quotes and observations to add punch to the scenes where the old timer is briefing the new guy, and trying to impress upon him what a hard-boiled badass the old timer is. In short, I think **ExTank** hit it on the head. Alternately, the author drunkenly tried to mash up Bierce’s [Devil’s Dictionary](http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/) with the military history of [James Dunnigan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dunnigan). IMHO, the syntax in large parts of the document is really similar to examples of the latter’s work, like [How to Make War](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006009012X) and [Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War](http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Vietnam-War/dp/031225282X). Not saying at all that Dunnigan wrote any of this, but I think the author of this had a familiarity with Dunnigan’s work.