[HN Gopher] Titanpointe: The NSA's spy hub in New York, hidden i...
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Titanpointe: The NSA's spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight
(2016)
Author : KoftaBob
Score : 85 points
Date : 2021-12-21 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theintercept.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theintercept.com)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Off topic but...
|
| If I ran an NSA secret spy hub, it wouldn't be called
| Titanpointe. It would be called something less ridiculous and
| more mundane like "John's Computer Services". I'd be embarrassed
| when a name like that kept appearing on documents or for brought
| up in meetings.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Remember the "Nothing is Beyond Our Reach" mission patch?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-247
|
| I sense the people running these things don't care as much as
| they used to about blending in.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| So what if the name leaks and some hapless computer-unsavvy
| person happens to call John's Computer Services to help him get
| rid of the 32 rows of IE toolbars on his Pentium IV-based PC
| running Windows Vista?
|
| At least Titanpointe sounds like a government codename and
| something vaguely menacing that you shouldn't really mess with.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I just assume every MMR in every data center/building is an NSA
| hub.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The NSA is actually it's own layer in the OSI model. They won't
| teach you about this in school, though, but there are even more
| than 7 layers.... /s
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Describing it as "hidden" is a bit sensational. I don't think I
| can walk past it in a group without someone throwing out this
| factoid. It's also unapologetic about what it is--no fake windows
| or any of that garbage.
| low_key wrote:
| If you zoom into it on Google maps, it's labeled as "NSA
| Building".
| labster wrote:
| There's a great piece of _Ghostbusters_ fanfic about this
| building: _NYNEX, Embedded Angel of New York City_
|
| https://www.bldgblog.com/2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new...
| victorbstan wrote:
| The Oldest House
| dang wrote:
| Discussed (a bit) at the time:
|
| _The NSA's Spy Hub in New York, Hidden in Plain Sight_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12970683 - Nov 2016 (3
| comments)
| [deleted]
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Anyone who has played Control will have a bit of deja-vu.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The architecture in that game is really beautiful, though I
| admit the brutalist look isn't for everyone. Neither was the
| gunplay or story, in my opinion, but I did have a load of fun
| exploring the moody, minimalist interiors of the game. It
| reminded me of the stark, arena-styled level design of old-
| school shooters like Half Life and Quake with much more modern
| lighting and linear storytelling.
|
| Quite a bit of fun! Getting it to run on my aged GTX 1050Ti, on
| the other hand...
| airstrike wrote:
| I'm more appalled by the need to lousily tape this 72pt Calibri
| label on what is indubitably an intercom at the entrance of an
| "intelligence" agency:
|
| https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/11/st...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| It's also an AT&T building.
|
| It's possible that under it is a Ma Bell logo or something
| ancient from the long, crazy corporate history of American
| telecoms.
| adolph wrote:
| _33 Thomas Street (formerly the AT &T Long Lines Building) is a
| 550-foot-tall (170 m) windowless skyscraper in Tribeca, Lower
| Manhattan, New York City. It stands on the east side of Church
| Street, between Thomas Street and Worth Street. The building is
| an example of the Brutalist architectural style. It is a
| telephone exchange or wire center building which contained three
| major 4ESS switches used for interexchange (long distance)
| telephony, as well as a number of other switches used for
| competitive local exchange carrier services. However, it is not
| used for incumbent local exchange carrier services, and is not a
| central office. The CLLI code for this facility is NYCMNYBW. The
| building has also been described as the likely location of a
| National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance hub codenamed
| TITANPOINTE._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_Thomas_Street
| yodon wrote:
| A fifty story windowless concrete building that's genuinely
| attractive. Not at all what I expected to discover on the
| Wikipedia page.
| ginko wrote:
| How is it attractive? It looks extremely oppressive.
|
| I remember coming by that building while walking through
| Manhattan by chance and thinking this must be some government
| surveillance center or something.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >How is it attractive? It looks extremely oppressive.
|
| not really mutually exclusive. More positive description
| would be that it looks imposing. Also it's in a sense
| aesthetically honest because it reflects what it does
| openly, which is rare for surveillance infrastructure and
| even kind of ironic
|
| I find the opposite to be unattractive, which is this sort
| of Silicon Valley HQ childish design where surveillance and
| power is hidden behind rainbow colored ping pong tables and
| so on
| boomskats wrote:
| Attractiveness is entirely subjective by definition.
|
| I personally find it a very attractive building. Much like
| the Barbican Estate or the National Theatre in London.
| Lammy wrote:
| I can totally understand why one would dislike it, but
| personally I'm a huge huge fan. My favorite features:
|
| - the lack of glass gives the granite facade lots of space
| to shine.
|
| - the off-center elevator shafts on the building's two long
| sides prevents the entire building from being disorienting
| at street-level: https://i.imgur.com/DQdWQ36.jpg
|
| - the round-rect vent windows contrast with the sharp lines
| of the granite they're cut from, echoing an overall theme
| of natural skin versus high-tech innards just like the
| granite itself versus all the telecom gear inside:
| https://i.imgur.com/BQmYnuw.jpg
|
| - the re-use of the roundrect windows to hide the former
| Long Lines microwave horn antennas on the roof of the
| building, coupled with a Disneyland-style perspective trick
| where the microwave windows are double the height of the
| vent windows so they look identically-square when you're on
| the street looking up: https://i.imgur.com/6TYn6Ug.jpg
|
| Absolutely gorgeous building, probably my favorite in the
| entire city <3
| AlanYx wrote:
| The roundrects give the design a deep kind of uncanny
| valley effect for me. They suggest some kind of human
| characteristic, either a hooded face or an orifice of
| some type, depending on the angle that you look at the
| building. From street level (e.g., your first
| photograph), it's like a series of six hooded figures,
| with another six hooded figures towering over those
| figures or standing on their backs.
| Lammy wrote:
| > it's like a series of six hooded figures, with another
| six hooded figures towering over those figures
|
| Yeah I can see it, especially with the "33" street
| address. Druids love that shit, like 555 Cal:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_California_Street
| quantum_state wrote:
| Indeed it looks very oppressive, reminding people of the
| Big Brother and other similar regimes in history ...
| goodpoint wrote:
| It looks oppressive and dystopian to the point of surreal.
| dexzod wrote:
| They could have put some fake windows to make it look normal.
| They do this with data center buildings in my city.
| kingcharles wrote:
| A jail I was held in has tinted glass windows all the way
| around it to make it look like a modern office building,
| but behind the glass... 99% wall.
| [deleted]
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This was built during modernism, when architects developed
| an allergic reaction to what they considered excessive
| frivolity in ornamentation.
|
| They did this to the Verizon tower in Lower Manhattan, and
| arguably I think it looks worse than the old design.
| https://www.6sqft.com/skyline-blights-ugly-verizon-
| building-...
| fnord77 wrote:
| when I lived in NYC in the 90s there were rumors I heard from
| telecom guys that the NSA was in that building.
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(page generated 2021-12-21 23:00 UTC)