Earlier today, the CIA released almost 470,000 files recovered from Osama Bin Laden’s compound. It’s not the first release of files, and previously released documents confirmed that Bin Laden’s Abbottabad bunker was strangely nerdy.
Today’s release reaffirmed that, but it also added another revelation to the pile: the al-Qa‘ida hard drives had a surprisingly tasteful mix of video games.
According to the release on the CIA website, more than 18,000 documents, 79,000 sounds and images, and over 10,000 video files were released today.
Most of it is what you’d expect: propaganda, training manuals, guides on doctrine, and discussion around the terrorist group itself. But there was also a lot of files that had nothing to do with fire and brimstone, like Pixar films, BBC documentaries.
And video games.
So, I was going through the CIA’s massive Osama Bin Laden file index and pic.twitter.com/OYHrieuMQY
— Liam Robertson (@Doctor_Cupcakes) November 1, 2017
— Liam Robertson (@Doctor_Cupcakes) November 1, 2017
The CIA confirmed that it couldn’t release all the files. Unsurprisingly, terrorists had a bunch of porn on their hard drives. But there was also a chunk of copyrighted material, including Final Fantasy 7:
With today’s release, the information remaining in the Abbottabad collection that has not been released publicly includes materials that are sensitive such that their release would directly damage efforts to keep the nation secure; materials protected by copyright; pornography; malware; and blank, corrupted and duplicate files. For example, some of the material being withheld from public release are the following copyrighted videos:
Antz
Batman Gotham Knight
BBC Great Wildlife Moments
Biography – Osama bin Laden
Cars
Chicken Little
CNN Presents: World’s Most Wanted
Final Fantasy VII
Heroes of Tomorrow
Home on the Range
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
In the Footsteps of bin Laden – CNN
National Geographic: Kung Fu Killers
National Geographic: Inside the Green Berets
National Geographic: Predators at War
National Geographic: World’s Worst Venom
Peru Civilization
Resident Evil
Storm Rider – Clash of the Evils
The Kremlin from Inside
The Story of India
The Three Musketeers
Where in the World is Osama bin Laden
The CIA has taken the files down at the time of writing, due to a technical issue of some sort. But users on Twitter were able to dig through the list of files on the Abbottabad hard drives, and they came up with some gems:
Oh my god I’m going to spend all day looking at these bin Laden files pic.twitter.com/Qt6uz2A98K
— Aric Toler (@AricToler) November 1, 2017
CIA – “Ok team, search Osama Bin Laden’s files for important information”
“…. my god sir, he’s worse than we thought.” pic.twitter.com/58iaoHUiAq— Killysunt (@killysunt) November 1, 2017
The ABC has reported that files for One Piece – Gear Spirit, Naruto Saikyou Ninja Daikesshuu 3 and Battles of Prince of Persia were found as well.
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