Head to the URL and you may be somewhat surprised to find yourself on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) homepage. But check it out on the Wayback Machine in December 2010, which is when it first appeared, and you'll find what looks to be .
There's a kid with a lightsaber at the top, the tagline "beyond the unknown" as well as "May the Force be with you", links to various other Star Wars resources, and for some reason Master Yoda is recommending Star Wars Battlefront [[link]] 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, Lego Star Wars 2, and Star Wars the Clone Wars: [[link]] Republic Heroes. "Like these games, you will" runs the text alongside.
The role of the websites was first brought to prominence by a , which detailed the "catastrophic" compromise of the CIA's internet communications network. A quote from that article:
"According to the former intelligence official, once the Iranian double agent showed Iranian intelligence the website used to communicate with his or her CIA handlers, they began to scour the internet for websites with similar digital signifiers or components—eventually hitting on the right string of advanced search terms to locate other secret CIA websites. From there, Iranian intelligence tracked who was visiting these sites, and from where, and began to unravel the wider CIA network."
This was what would ultimately lead to the deaths of CIA sources, primarily in China in 2011 and 2012. This investigation was followed-up by a Reuters report in 2022, , which went into further detail on how individual CIA agents were exposed by the Iranians, and included the incredible revelation that the IP addresses for the CIA's sites were sequential, meaning that once one was identified it was easy to find others that likely belonged to the same network.
Reuters identified two of the sites and described seven more examples, which was the starting point for Santilli's research. Using data like the IP addresses and domains, Santilli has identified several hundred domains that he believes were part of the CIA's network.
"We're now about 15 years past when these websites were being actively used, yet new information continues to drip out year after year," cybersecurity researcher Zach Edwards told 404 Media. "The simplest way to put it—yes, the CIA absolutely had a Star Wars fan website with a secretly embedded communication system—and while I can’t account for everything included in the research from [Santilli], his findings seem very sound
"This whole episode is a reminder that developers make mistakes, and sometimes it takes years for someone to find those mistakes. But this is also not just your average 'developer mistake' type of scenario."
Santilli says it's good "to have more content for people to look at, much like a museum. It's just cool to be able to go to the Wayback Machine and be able to see a relic spy gadget 'live' in all its glory."
Gamers do love a good conspiracy theory, but there appears little doubt that back in 2010 the CIA was operating and maintaining a network that included many gaming and nerd culture sites. It's undeniably weird to think about a cartoon Yoda being used in espionage, or some CIA spook using a front to say they "know games and gamers", and even more unsettling that these were some small part of an intelligence failure that undoubtedly led to dozens of deaths.