The CIA Meets MIT

A few weeks after the office opened, a young man walked in, dressed in a nice business suit and carrying a violin case, and asked to speak with Mr. Andersen. "He's not here right now," said the secretary. "That's OK. I'll wait," said the young man, and sat down. "He may not be back for some time," protested the secretary. "That's OK. I'll wait," replied the young man, and sat tapping his fingers against the violin case. "He might not even be back in the office today, he's very busy," the secretary attempted. "That's OK. I'll take my chances." And so the poor secretary sat there wondering what to do with her visitor. After half an hour had passed (with no sign of Mr. Andersen, of course) the young man got up and explained that he did know what they actually did at the Andersen Music Company, and that this had been a hack, and left.

A few weeks later, a student dressed as a construction worker visited the office with a set of blueprints of the building. He claimed to be a contractor, and explained that a structural weakness had been discovered in this particular building. "Nothing to worry about, of course, but to be on the safe side, you shouldn't put anything heavy right here." Several hackers had been going over the plans to the building, you see, and had figured out where the safe was probably located. Sure enough, the next day, a truck from the Acme Safe-Moving Company was parked outside.

A pair of students figured out which restrooms the CIA agents used, and staked one out one day. As soon as they saw a pair of government-agent-style black shoes come in and sit down, they started discussing the progress of one student's "thesis": reconstructing shredded documents. "So, how's the work coming?" "Well, it's coming along, but so far I can only reconstruct documents that have been shredded once. If it's been double-shredded, it doesn't work." And they left the bathroom, chatting. A few days later, careful investigation of the garbage bags from that office revealed that the CIA had suddenly felt it necessary to send all of their documents through the shredder several times before discarding.

Another morning, a sign appeared outside the elevators in the building, on the floor shared by the "Music Company" and the AI Lab:
Intelligence
Artificial ->
<-Central

The last straw, however, was the giant banner that appeared outside the (impossible to open) windows of the floor above the CIA office. It read "CIA Here" in three-foot-high red letters, with arrows pointing down. The next week, they packed up and left. The CIA hasn't tried establishing an office near MIT since.

I heard the same story about the Charles I Anderson music company, and I think I even know who improvised that name when he forgot the facts behind the story. Nevertheless, one of the members of the Tech Square research community at the time asserts the CIA office was listed in the directory as "R K Starling Associates," which is at least slightly less obvious:

Before the CIA office on the third floor had its typewriters stolen one night, the MAC building was open all the time, like a university buliding. In the evening, newsboys (Cambridge urchins) used to run through the halls at Tech Square shouting "Ecket" — selling the Boston Evening Record. The building directory listed the CIA office as "R K Starling Associates." After the theft, there was a security guard in the lobby and you had to sign in and out.

http://www.multicians.org/tech-square.html

Oh — and the banner's letters are blue.