alt.hn

1/19/2026 at 8:51:00 PM

Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf]

 https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf

by praptak

1/19/2026 at 10:50:40 PM

A version for modern times: https://specificsuggestions.com/

by HotGarbage

1/19/2026 at 11:01:24 PM

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.

by tunapizza

1/19/2026 at 11:29:11 PM

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?

by michaelt

1/19/2026 at 11:32:13 PM

Why not both?

by toomuchtodo

1/19/2026 at 11:57:31 PM

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.

by ocdtrekkie

1/20/2026 at 4:33:21 AM

I guess it's nice to know getting logged out of my accounts in 5 minutes is just an act of sabotage. Strangely, I'm more okay with that.

by fooqux

1/19/2026 at 11:11:17 PM

Crap, that "escape method" of "we'll redirect you away if you click too much" made it really hard to read the text.

by embedding-shape

1/20/2026 at 1:38:26 AM

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).

by Throwthrowbob

1/20/2026 at 3:55:13 AM

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."

by SamBam

1/20/2026 at 11:53:22 AM

I think it should blank the DOM, then redirect. Then the speed doesn't really matter.

by hananova

1/20/2026 at 1:04:15 AM

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.

by yowayb

1/20/2026 at 2:05:37 AM

I think Raytheon scored #1 on the Dilbert Index, at one time...

by ChrisMarshallNY

1/20/2026 at 3:51:24 PM

I frankly can't see how someone can look around at the world in 2026 and come to the conclusion that "military" == "automatically bad." There are bad actors in this world who would be more than happy to kill you and take your stuff because they feel like it, and these days some of them run countries.

by psunavy03

1/21/2026 at 1:12:41 AM

Yes, but some of them run countries where we live in (and therefore working for military contractors in this country is literally helping kill people to take their stuff). This includes US where tech is so heavily concentrated.

by int_19h

1/19/2026 at 9:41:45 PM

> Forget to provide paper in toilets

The world's greatest spy agency at work.

by roadbuster

1/19/2026 at 10:10:27 PM

This document predates the CIA.

by int0x29

1/20/2026 at 2:39:16 PM

A (minor) plot point in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash as well.

by dredmorbius

1/20/2026 at 4:23:36 AM

Replace paper towels with hand dryers!

by axus

1/19/2026 at 10:00:12 PM

But think of the cumulative hours wasted trying to find some!

Another thought: if bathrooms ran out of soap, how many extra illnesses would you get?

by nxobject

1/19/2026 at 10:18:19 PM

I'm afraid there's enough people that don't wash their hands for this to make a difference :/

by Cthulhu_

1/19/2026 at 10:10:30 PM

Be careful when you get down to "(11) General Interference with Organizations and Production", you might start thinking that your coworkers are CIA saboteurs.

by 0xTJ

1/20/2026 at 1:14:18 AM

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...

by sunrunner

1/19/2026 at 9:43:24 PM

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.

by danielvaughn

1/19/2026 at 9:50:54 PM

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...

by diyseguy

1/20/2026 at 9:46:35 AM

I once sent this as a reference to a government agency I was consulting, to illustrate to them, how they operated.

by eerikkivistik

1/19/2026 at 9:36:26 PM

> Use the information as you see fit.

by FergusArgyll

1/19/2026 at 9:50:38 PM

The "Managers and Supervisors" section is like a reverse Joel test for many jobs.

by bluedino

1/19/2026 at 9:51:40 PM

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.

by rolph

1/19/2026 at 9:59:37 PM

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)

by dang

1/20/2026 at 3:00:07 AM

Obligatory music video that should be playing during this topic:

https://youtu.be/z5rRZdiu1UE

R.I.P. MCA

by drkravitz

1/19/2026 at 9:47:50 PM

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.

by mmaunder

1/19/2026 at 10:32:47 PM

"as if"

by gverrilla

1/20/2026 at 1:09:12 AM

A reminder: ICE is on a hiring spree with little/no background checking.

by sneak

1/19/2026 at 9:59:35 PM

[dead]

by junglistguy

1/19/2026 at 9:32:32 PM

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-/

by johnea

1/19/2026 at 9:37:35 PM

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.

by cardamomo

1/19/2026 at 9:46:26 PM

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.

by NitpickLawyer

1/19/2026 at 9:58:24 PM

zOMG dying laughing here

by russfink

1/19/2026 at 11:46:24 PM

Regular HN discussion about wind vs nuclear.

by actionfromafar

1/19/2026 at 9:49:43 PM

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.

by baldgeek

1/19/2026 at 10:53:20 PM

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?

by GolfPopper

1/19/2026 at 10:00:58 PM

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.

by tgsovlerkhgsel

1/19/2026 at 9:59:19 PM

True. Let's post the URL to a popular website to add noise to the data.

by regentbowerbird

1/19/2026 at 9:42:49 PM

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...

by jjkaczor

1/19/2026 at 9:51:35 PM

I think I have downloaded it about ten times in the last fifteen years. Noone came knocking so far.

by jansan

1/20/2026 at 12:45:06 AM

For bonus watchlist points grab a copy of The Anarchists Cookbook at the same time.

by shawn_w

1/20/2026 at 1:14:25 AM

Every IP is being watched.

by sneak

1/19/2026 at 9:53:00 PM

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".

by impossiblefork

1/20/2026 at 1:41:34 PM

"The CIA are probably for the most part reasonable people"

What CIA are you talking about? Maybe we have diferent definitions of reasonable, but the CIA I know of are absolutely fucking wicked, morally bankrupt snakes.

by DontchaKnowit

1/20/2026 at 2:34:33 AM

Where;s the Iran > Contra > Inner-City crack epidemic book?

Maybe we can borrow the sackler's copy?

by downrightmike

1/19/2026 at 9:50:18 PM

Nah... it just adds another tag to your id in Gotham

by FuriouslyAdrift

1/19/2026 at 9:36:56 PM

Can’t they just watch everyone? I mean too much data is only a problem until you have AI.

by windowpains

1/19/2026 at 9:43:22 PM

It's true. "Getting you on a list" is the outdated consequence, "having a flag set in your file" is the new way.

by margalabargala

1/19/2026 at 9:53:04 PM

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.

by windowpains

1/19/2026 at 9:49:13 PM

another day another field effecting the "deviant" weight in the FBI's model

by fenwick67