Advances Sciences Division, or ASD is the NSA's broad spectrum reasearch division. The division is devided into 50 deparments, each seperate from the other. To protect the secrecy of the various projects being researched by the group the projects are simply refered to by the department number they fall under. The actuial projects a department handle can change over time as one line of research is completed or a project is completed. This makes it difficult for threat intelligence analysts to gather accurate and meaningful information on exactly what a department might be working on.