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Comment by bigmonads | Hacker News Reader

This person is either lying or delusional, or got pranked really hard. The "details" provided, while they make great story, simply don't cohere with how the NSA operate.

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I mean, Bethesda is like 20-miles away from where the NSA operates. So straight up, the location is immediately wrong.

A funny thing about people who live in Maryland: the NSA has a big sign that says "NSA" on the highway. We all know where it exists, and there are funny local stories about ignorant criminals taking the wrong road and ending up in the NSA checkpoint. Its a famous local landmark.

http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ph-ac-cn-carjacking-suspe...

People tell me that you can even drive up and go to a public gift-shop they have out front, by the National Cryptologic Museum (which is run by the NSA). Its literally a public place and they let anyone in to see some cool stuff. https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/museum/

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The thing is: the guy seems to have been called by Naval Support Activity, Bethesda.

https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/ndw/installations/nsa_beth...

This is a "different" NSA, and not "THE NSA" that people talk about.

Whether or not its actually part of protocol: I dunno. But maybe "Naval Support Activity" dudes like to pretend they are "the NSA" as a prank. Or maybe they really are part of national security (I mean, the US Navy is still... technically national security, right?)

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In short: my expectation.

1. Naval Support Activity called this guy up to ask for a favor. They misrepresent themselves (but without lying: they are the "NSA" after all) to kinda encourage this guy to do something for them.

2. They feel bad about pranking the dude. So they drive to the Cryptographic Museum and buy him the first "real NSA"-branded gear that they find. Then they ship it to him.

He says they sent him a blue NSA mug afterwards and "I’ve had that top secret coffee cup for 18 years now. It’s the same one pictured at the top of this article.". The picture of a blue mug on the post says National Security Agency. Hard to imagine one agency pretending to be another like that. Not sure what to make of it.

Those mugs are probably sold at the NSA Gift Shop in the Museum. Its probably the real deal, but anybody can buy them.

If these pranksters were really in Bethesda, it wouldn't take much longer than 40 minutes or so to drive over to "real NSA", buy the mug, and then come back to their office.

The Naval Support base in Bethesda was just the "entry point" to the chain of calls - note he was asked to then ask for a sequence of additional people/lines to get to his eventual contact. Probably those reroutes were to separate facilities, eventually landing at "Dave" with the National Security Agency.

Read the article carefully.

> Dave told me he was with the NSA in Bethesda — the National Security Agency.

So did DAVE say he was with "National Security Agency", or did Dave only say "I'm with the NSA in Bethesda", and then the author misinterpreted the claim?

I 100% believe the mysterious man said "I'm Dave from the NSA in Bethesda". But what I DON'T believe, is that Dave is with the National Security Agency.

I believe "Dave" is from the Naval Support Activity in Bethesda. EDIT: Although the article seems to say that they were really interested in breaking his encryption. Which seems like a "real NSA" thing to do.

EDIT2: Regardless, it was an entertaining read.

Yes. In 2015, two drugged-out tranny hookers in a stolen SUV went down the employee entrance road. They tried to crash through the gate. They didn't get very far.[1][2]

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/feds-say-nsa-gate... [2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/injured-nsa-headquarters-fort-mead...

Tranny is considered an extremely derogatory way of describing a person. I would use transsexual or a crossdresser, although the article you linked didn't specify the reason for cross dressing so it might be just been a disguise rather than a lifestyle choice.

I can't imagine what in the world the Naval Support Activity would need the code for that application for. They're literally nothing more than a facilities command.

It is odd that the writer refers to them specifically, they have no connection with the actual NSA of which I'm aware.

> I can't imagine what in the world the Naval Support Activity would need the code for that application for. They're literally nothing more than a facilities command.

This wouldn't be the first time I heard of a US Military dude prank-call someone.

yeah, but the story doesn't add up for just a prank call.

Hmmm... tracking down the dude as he flew across the country seems outside the scope of a prankster.

Well, now I'm neutral on the subject. There's details that make me disbelieve the story. But tracking down the author and finding the right phone number to call him seems like a feat that would require decent resources.

Basically: that's a level of effort that goes well above and beyond a typical prank call.

Agree -- there are too many dissonant pieces to this story. I guess it could be true, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

> I mean, Bethesda is like 20-miles away from where the NSA operates

The NSA exists beyond Ft Meade

I encourage people to go to the crypto museum if they're in the area! It's really neat with all sorts of old cipher texts, old super computers (original Cray etc), and they have an Enigma machine that you can play with. The tour guides are knowledgeable and it's a worthwhile time.

I noticed one internally inconsistent detail, although possibly he just mis-remembered. They called him "after midnight" in Connecticut. He called them back, which took less than 10 minutes. After some discussion he calls his employee in Oregon - "by then it was after 4AM on the west coast." Midnight in Connecticut is 9PM on the West Coast, so unless the conversation went on for 7 hours before he called Ron, he's wrong about one or the other of the times.

18 years is a long time ago, and memories fade and get corrupted even after a short period of time, much less that long (its on reason we have statutes of limitations on most crimes).

You're absolutely right...I forgot the time diff as I wrote the story and some is just plain fuzzy after all this time. I spent hours on the phone with them that night and I was giving them guidance by memory since I was so familiar with the code. Somewhere in the course of that they ventured to ask for he source.

I think we can rule out prank, because of the way that the caller had him get back in touch, starting with 411.

Unless the pranker had complete control of his phone and could route dialed numbers to anywhere.

Yes, I wonder about that, too. NSA hasn't been that mysterious about contacting them in decades. Their people have business cards. There was a time when you did something for them and got paid with a check from a furniture store in Maryland. But that was back when the USSR was still a thing. They have a web site now. You can call NSA's main number.[2] The "chain of calls" thing sounds totally fake.

The coffee cup is from the NSA gift shop at the National Cryptologic Museum.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-gift-shop-2016-5#right-a... [2] https://www.nsa.gov/about/contact-us/

Care to explain? When the NSA calls me how will I know if it's really them? Do you have anything to share?

Hang up and wait for a court order.

https://www.amazon.com/11-ounce-NSA-NATIONAL-Multi-color/dp/...

In case you need to ever thank anyone for helping you.

Then why don't you share with us what is wrong about it? It seems a fairly legit way to prove identity (I was thinking about it and the easiest would be to suggest the wrong number as directory services, hoping the person doesn't use DS and doesn't know the number that well, or is to sleepy to notice). Some parts are a little overdone, like, "Was Dave even his real name?" (of course not), but I don't know any better so instead of just making a short remark, why don't you share your wisdom?

As others have noted, NSA isn't in Bethesda, and those mugs, along with keychains and tshirts, are available in the gift shop. Also, there's a 0% chance that the NSA would call him up afterwords to let him know that everything worked.

I'm sorry, but my post said things worked out - not that they cracked the code. I was clear they wouldn't tell me anything. I had always assumed the mug was from the gift shop. It would be hard to think otherwise.

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