Buried among the thousands of covert CIA documents released by WikiLeaks is a list of Japanese emojis used without any explanation by spy agency snoops, begging the question: Is this a secret code?
Many of the symbols in the ‘Japanese Style faces’ document show popular emoticons created from keyboard strokes including the infamous ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (shrug). There are hundreds to trawl through, the majority are without reason but a few come with text.
Σ (ﾟДﾟ;）is ‘surprised’, while щ（ﾟДﾟщ）translates as ‘dear god why?’ ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ is ‘baby seal’ and ╯‵Д′)╯彡┻━┻ is ‘angry guy flipping a table’
Some of the other more interesting symbols include:
'̿'\̵͇̿̿\=(•̪●)=/̵͇̿̿/'̿̿ ̿
щ(ಠ益ಠщ)
٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶
ಠ︵ಠ凸
ლ,ᔑ•ﺪ͟͠•ᔐ.ლ
┌∩┐(◕_◕)┌∩┐
<【☯】‿【☯】>
READ MORE: Apple, Samsung, Microsoft: WikiLeaks blows lid on scale of CIA’s hacking arsenal
Some of the CIA’s favorite memes revolve, unsurprisingly, around cybersecurity and surveillance, as the agency had a little fun at the expense of those whose privacy they were invading.
WikiLeaks claims that the agency celebrated what it saw as “the financial largesse of Obama towards them” with a ‘Make it rain’ gif.