The Null Device

Loose Talk Is Noose Talk

Loose Talk Is Noose Talk: A look at the NSA's retro-styled information-security posters. Very retro, and not too unlike Soviet Socialist Realism.

Tangent #1: Does anybody remember the old Microsoft Word for Windows installer, from the days when it came on floppies and ran on Windows 3.1? It had the usual set of images shown whilst installing, but to save space, they were all vector images, of neat arrays of documents, office computers and such. It struck me how they looked like the late-capitalist equivalent of Soviet propaganda posters.

Tangent #2: Does anybody know where I could find images of the propaganda posters from Terry Gilliam's Brazil?

There are 3 comments on "Loose Talk Is Noose Talk":

Posted by: Toby http://www.adbusters.org/ Thu Jun 6 14:29:27 2002

The NSA posters are scary on so many levels, apart from the obvious stylistic references... The glorification of military roles is quite obvious; perhaps this dubious concept that the US military is composed of noble, handsome functionaries is supposed to distract us from the overwhelming evidence that they are dispatched at the bidding of greedy, murderous, lying overlords?

Re: Brazil - I have the DVD, does that help? I remember the poster spoofs quite well!

"And what do you want for Christmas?" "Ooh! My very own credit card!"

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Thu Jun 6 15:07:14 2002

I have the DVD as well (the Criterion Collection one). Alas, the posters there are a bit too low-res to be worth printing out and sticking on my office wall...

Posted by: mitch http:// Fri Jun 7 05:53:35 2002

I'm told that the NSA gift shop sells NSA-themed tie-dyed T-shirts.