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Role Playing (Games) Security Games

Leaked Classified Documents Also Include Roleplaying Game Character Stats (vice.com) 59

Posted by BeauHD from the mysteries-remain dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Over the past month, classified Pentagon documents have circulated on 4chan, Telegram, and various Discord servers. The documents contain daily intelligence briefings, sensitive information about Ukrainian military positions, and a handwritten character sheet for a table-top roleplaying game. No one knows who leaked the Pentagon documents or how. They appeared online as photographs of printed pages, implying someone printed them out and removed them from a secure location, similar to how NSA translator Reality Winner leaked documents. The earliest documents Motherboard has seen are dated February 23, though the New York Times and Bellingcat reported that some are dated as early as January. According to Bellingcat, the earliest known instances of the leaks appearing online can be traced back to a Discord server.

At some point, a Discord user uploaded a zip file of 32 images from the leak onto a Minecraft Discord server. Included in this pack alongside highly sensitive, Top Secret and other classified documents about the Pentagon's strategy and assessment of the war in Ukraine, was a handwritten piece of paper that appeared to be a character sheet for a roleplaying game. It's written on a standard piece of notebook paper, three holes punched out on the side, blue lines crisscrossing the page. The character's name is Doctor "Izmer Trotzky," his character class is "Professor Scientist." They've got a strength of 5, a charisma of 4, and 19 rubles to their name. Doctor Trotzky has 10 points in first aid and occult skills, and 24 in spot hidden. He's carrying a magnifying glass, a fountain pen, a sword cane, and a deringer. [...]

But what game is it from? Motherboard reached out to game designer Jacqueline Bryk to find out. Bryk is an award-winning designer of roleplaying games who has worked on Kult: Divinity Lost, Changeling: the Lost, Fading Suns: Pax Alexius, and Vampire: the Masquerade. "I strongly suspect this is Call Of Cthulhu," Bryk said when first looking at the sheet. Call of Cthulhu (COC) is an RPG based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft where players attempt to stave off madness while investigating eldritch horrors. "This is a pretty classic Professor build. The sword cane really clinches it for me. I notice he's currently carrying a derringer and a dagger but took no points in firearms or fighting. I'm not sure which edition this is but it seems like the most he could do with his weapons is throw them." "After some research, Bryk concluded that the game is a homebrewed combination of COC and the Fallout tabletop game based on the popular video game franchise," adds Motherboard. "My best guest here is Fallout: Cthulhu the Homebrew," Bryk said, giving the home designed game a name.
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Leaked Classified Documents Also Include Roleplaying Game Character Stats More

Leaked Classified Documents Also Include Roleplaying Game Character Stats

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  • Who needs experts?

  • Does the leak include past politicians? (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @07:45PM (#63442690)

    I'd like to know if Al Gore really is a tenth-level Vice President.

  • How many SAN points?? (Score:3)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @08:23PM (#63442766)

    You can't have a real Cthulhu game without SAN points!

    "You 3 day attack plan to take over Kiev utterly failed due to shit logistics, bad planning, poor training, no coordination and general incompetence. It take you 3 weeks to unwind the mess. You leave behind 25% of your vehicles. And you gain 4 SAN points".

  • Obviously a coded message (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @08:32PM (#63442792) Homepage

    No one smuggles out TS documents and randomly includes jack shit.

    This is some sort of hidden message, identifier, or back-channel information being sent out to... someone. Quite easily a verification or authentication message.

    • Or a warning that the Project Paperclip OSS programs are still using the Jack Parsons' extra-curricular activiies - Stargate Program etc. - at the behest of the Neocons. The old man with the deadly cane is obvious. The Derringer seems like a small risk but it's deadly.

  • If I was leaking a big pile of classified documents, I would "accidentally" include something like this too. Or a fake fantasy football league table, or hell, just dig a few random cash register receipts out a public trash can and include those.

    Surely the feds must be wise to this sort of thing by now.

  • The cyrillic handwriting in the upper-left seems noteworthy. Most of us couldn't easily do that.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ugen ( 93902 )

      Clearly not written by a native Russian speaker (character shape, (mis)spelling of the name).

      • Yeah, that was written by an American.
        There's no "tz" when pronouncing Trotsky. Except in German, but then 'y' at the end would be an 'i'.
        Germanic languages don't have a consonant for that affricate.

        Some intern somewhere is shitting his bowels out at the moment.

  • Current situation in Ukraine (Score:3)

    by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @08:47PM (#63442816) Homepage Journal

    This video [youtube.com] gives the best overview of what's happening in Ukraine right now. It's also fascinating in its own right, I recommend it. I even found the parts about Shreveport Louisiana interesting.

    From that video and other sources:

    1. .) Ukraine is in the middle of spring thaw, everything's mud, no one can move, nothing is happening.
    2. .) Ukraine is planning a spring offensive that should have started now but the weather's been weird so it's delayed.
    3. .) Ukraine is about to receive 60,000 soldiers trained up to Western standards, with a as much high-tech weaponry we can give them.
    4. .) Russia is completing it's 2nd mobilization and is expected to field 500,000 to 600,000 soldiers to the spring offensive
    5. .) Salt water in the (busted) Nord Stream pipeline corroded the pipes, the pipeline can't be repaired, it's not coming back
    6. .) Europe has had freakishly warm weather (40 F degrees warmer than normal), so people haven't frozen to death
    7. .) Germany has lost its main energy source *AND* chemical feedstock to its petrochemical operations (with the loss of NordStream).
    8. .) Due to loss of Nat gas and its petrochemical industry, Germany will cease to be a country in 2 years.
    9. .) Ukrainians control the sluice gates to all the irrigation in Crimea, and can trigger a 2 million mass starvation event.

    Ukrinform [ukrinform.net] is one-sided but apparently accurate, reports just shy of 180,000 Russians killed in the war so far, and between 500 and 1000 each day currently.

    Ukraine has been well fortified in Bakhmut, the Russians need Bakhmut as a first step to taking the rest of that area, and Bakhmut held no particular strategic importance to Ukraine, so the Ukrainians simply held the ground and made the Russian advance as expensive as possible. Reports of Bakhmut falling (on the right) are overblown, it was good strategy and cost the Russians a lot of lives.

    GCHQ estimates that the Ukrainian-to-Russian kill ratio is 1-to-6 or maybe 1-to-7. If the 60K new soldiers keep this ratio they'll *still* lose to the 600K new Russians coming in from the 2nd mobilization. Whether the Ukranians can bring the kill ratio up high enough to stop a tsunami of soldiers is in doubt.

    On a personal note:

    Ukraine can cause the mass starvation of 2 million Russians in Crimea, which will put enormous pressure on their side of the conflict.

    I'm in favor of Ukraine winning, but less in favor of causing 2 million deaths by starvation. I am filled with moral uncertainty about this.

    Anyone care to comment?

    • "I'm in favor of Ukraine winning, but less in favor of causing 2 million deaths by starvation. I am filled with moral uncertainty about this."

      Zelenskyy is already pushing his de-Russification plan and is even running out the Russian Orthodox Church. If he chooses to starve out 2 million Russians then he will really will earn the title of Nazi.

      If Ukraine wins there will be an ethnic cleansing bloodbath. It the Russians start rolling west then Hungary rolls east to protect the ethnic Hungarians next to their

      • You misspelled Stalin (Score:4, Informative)

        by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Tuesday April 11, 2023 @10:12PM (#63442958) Homepage Journal

        If [Zelenskii] chooses to starve out 2 million Russians then he will really will earn the title of Nazi.

        I believe you misspelled "Stalin". Stalin and Communism was known for starving people out, not the Nazis.

        Also, your comment about the Russian Orthodox Church is misled propaganda from the US (likely right wing) media, which I found out only by going to local (and non-US) news reporting on the subject. Rather than point out the actual situation, I'll simply ask that you read up on both sides of that story, try to get explanations from as local as possible, and decide for yourself.

        If Ukraine wins there will be NO ethnic cleansings and NO bloodbaths.

        For one, that's a Soviet/Russian thing and not a Ukranian thing. For another, Ukraine will only win with the enormous help from many western countries, and a) we will not be happy if they try and will strongly dissuade them, and b) they will be highly grateful and willing to appease us in order to keep our friendship.

        Note that if they win the war they will still need our help rebuilding, and we have a history of putting economic sanctions on countries that do ethnic cleansing.

        You can try to predict the future all you want, but bloodbaths and cleansings simply don't make sense.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        Zelenskyy is already pushing his de-Russification plan

        It's not his plan.

        Ukraine was divided into a western and eastern part long before this war, with the western part leaning more towards Europe and the eastern part more towards Russia. In economics, language, culture, family ties, you name it.

        Whenever a pro-one-side government was in charge in Kiev, the other side was pressured. Several pro-european presidents before Zelensky suppressed russian language and culture within Ukraine, especially the eastern parts. Which is one of the main reasons behind the 2014

        • !Kof! Bullshit! !Kof!

          Main reason for "these two regions declaring independence" is Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, annexation of Crimea and creation of Novorossiya [wikipedia.org] - by Putain's Little Green Men. [wikipedia.org]
          Incidentally, all that happened once that Putain's pocket criminal, Viktor Yanukovych, fled Ukraine leaving behind his gold-encrusted toilet [youtu.be] - and ran to daddy Putain. [wikipedia.org]

          Also, as Zelenskyy is only 6th (sixth) President of Ukraine, I am sure you will have no problem finding all of the those terrible cases of "pro-e

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Tom ( 822 )

            !Kof! Bullshit! !Kof!

            Says who?
            I actually know Ukrainians and speak to them. After doing that a bit, whenever I meet a new person from there now, my first question is which part they're from. Without exception, they all instantly understand and are happy to answer.

            Yes, it may well be that Russia annexing Crimea was a driver for the independence supporters to actually make their move. They might not have done so without. But look up any pre-war information about Ukraine and you'll find this split between the western and eastern p

    • Salt water would have limited impact to repairability of the pipeline-- it could impact everything at a deeper depth than the explosions, but is unlikely to impact things more than 5m above that elevation due to trapped gas. Also, the Baltic isn't really that high of a salinity (1-1.5) in the first place and low temperature slows corrosion.

      The loss of petrochemicals from Nord Stream has caused a lot of manufacturers of plastics and chemicals to move equipment from Germany... but this will not do anything t

      • The ratio of Ukrainian to Russian deaths is likely much lower-- maybe 2 or 3 at worst. The cannon fodder from Wagner is an exception, but not representative of the overall numbers.

        Any chance you can cite some references here?

        I mean, you're just saying "no it isn't" to everything I posted, without reference or analysis or rationale.

        Who estimates those death rates? It's certainly not the average or typical estimates, and at least GCHQ (my reference) has some esteem to lose if they get it wrong.

        Your answer isn't insightful, it's the argument clinic.

        • NYT did an analysis a week or two ago, can't be bothered to look up the details, but you are welcome to. In the early days it is possible it was a ratio of 7:1, but if it was consistently there Ukraine would have turned a corner. Using Wagner prisoner meat grinder as an example, it sounded like the Ukrainians killed 4 of them, but lost 1 of their own (at least) in return fire from trained Russian soldiers. Wagner only got ~50k convicts, so it is hard to understand how that could have been a sustained Rus

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tom ( 822 )

          and at least GCHQ (my reference) has some esteem to lose if they get it wrong.

          GCHQ is far from being a neutral observer.

          Most of what we read in western news etc is taken from Ukraine sources - who have an interest to lie. Most of what Russian etc. news write is taken straight from the Russian government - which has an interest to lie.

          From time to time, someone slips up or someone whos allegiances are less clear says something. During the winter several politicians made estimates around 100,000 casualties on both sides. But again, nobody knows if that was an intentional leak or not.

          Ma

    • Due to loss of Nat gas and its petrochemical industry, Germany will cease to be a country in 2 years.

      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm unfortunately unable to watch the full video - is there a short summary of how the speaker claims this will unfold?

      It seems plausible that Germany will undergo some level of economic contraction due to the disruption to industry, and Germans are certainly feeling the pinch of rising energy costs that has similarly affected the rest of Europe. Given the past decades of being so averse to deficit spending, they should have a significant amount of ro

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm unfortunately unable to watch the full video - is there a short summary of how the speaker claims this will unfold?

        Divine intervention, most likely.

        After 16 years of Merkel and a politics based almost entirely on the phrase "without alternative", interest in politics is at an all-time low in Germany. Nobody really cares. The clowns that currently hold offices there are a pretty good outward sign.

        Germany isn't going anywhere. It still existed after WW1 and WW2. There is no neighbour who would gobble it up or whom regions of it would join. There could be an economic crisis, mass unemployment, etc. but "cease to be a count

    • I'm in favor of Ukraine winning, but less in favor of causing 2 million deaths by starvation. I am filled with moral uncertainty about this.

      It's war. It's all about moral uncertainty. All Putin has to do to keep his people fed is withdraw. Cut that shit off, and let Putin decide.

  • Sure! I'm a level 10 vice president.

  • I'm imagining a scenario where someone at the meeting accidentally picks up the wrong pile of papers to put in their briefcase.and bring it home. Their kid finds it, and decides to post it, not realizing just how serious it is. "cool, top secret"! Having a handwriting sample with the images makes it likely they will catch whoever did it.

  • Putin is in reality a bard.

  • Is this your homework Larry? Is this your homework?

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