Cylinder: Forgive me if I did not understand correctly, does this imply that there are Security Classifications that are themselves classified?

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

No, according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classif..._United_States)

"If there were some secret Executive Order that created a still higher level, there could be questions of adequate legal notice if someone mishandling that information were to be prosecuted."

After perusing the Wikipedia article you mentioned, I must then presume that what Cylinder made reference to was the already mentioned concept of Categories or Caveats as Obviousman mentioned.

I am still having a hard time grasping this, probably because I have not given it enough effort in understanding it (rather embarassing since I had to write an information classification security policy for my company )

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Unless they have changed it, the US sanitizes sources. My info is from when I was Army Intell (sigint analyst if anyone is curious). We were specifically forbidden to inform anyone of how we got our info, even if the sigint collectors were the only intel source for whatever unit we were supporting. It was rather annoying sometimes.

Its also interesting how close to the line of legality most of this discussion is for those of us who have had or currently have clearances. If I remember correctly, classification techniques and procedures are classified, as are compartment names. I find it kinda funny to see a compartment name used in a book or on TV, and to realize that pointing out to my friends that that is the right name would be breaking the law.

I may be speaking for him, but yes. In fact, all compartments and most qualifiers are classified to one degree or another.

In the CARDINAL example above, the very existance of CARDINAL as a compartment may be Secret or TS, prolly TS with maybe a compartment since it was a very senitive source.

I had to have clearance at one point too, and I wasn't military. I worked at Boeing in the Military Modifications Division though. That is the same area that does any modification/maintainence to the the Air Force 1 fleet. We also worked on various aircraft including the airborne laser, the 767 AWACS prototype, and the engine retrofit for the KC135's (from jet to turbofan). I have no idea anymore what my clearance level was (pretty low, i'm sure) but I still get to brag

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Not necessarily. There's a popular notion, however, that there may exist a security classification whose very existence is, itself, secret. Even knowing what that classification is called would require you to have said clearance.

This was used to amusing ends in the novel Specters of the Dawn by S. Andrew Swann. After contacting an AI, the protagonist convinces it that she has "Tippy-Top Secret" access. When the AI states that it is unaware of such a classification, she simply tells it that knowledge of that classification is a secret which requires TTS clearance in the first place. At which point the (somewhat confused) AI adds that to its list of security levels and grants her full access.

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Mark Twain

Avatar courtesy of Bunny.

Which exemplifies why there cannot be such a higher clearance... Noone outside the small need-to-know group would be able to enforce it

Beyond Top Secret there's compartmentalization. Compartmenting can actually be used across the spectrum from Confidential on up to Top Secret. You'll sometimes see this written as TS/SCI or S/SCI, the SCI being special compartmented information. It just means that the specific information isn't there to be read by anyone with the general clearance, but they also need clearance for those compartments to be in the loop.

Compartments are generally designated by a pair of code words. An example, Tacit Blue, which was a precursor to the F-117 project. Code words are generally randomly generated and may or may not reflect anything to do with the actual project. Not only do you need the general clearance level, but you need to have the appropriate code word access to gain information specific to any given project. Some larger projects or operations may have a number of compartments which exist at varying levels of classification which can keep even two people working under the same project utterly unaware that they're co-workers in it. Even if you have the general clearance, if you don't know the compartments, you don't get access. And yes, sometimes, those compartments are sometimes even more secret than the project itself.

The effect is that even with only four levels of actual classification, Unclassified, Confidential, Secret and Top Secret, you can have a myriad of ways to preserve the necessary information from unwanted disclosure.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Which covers everything in the published rules & regs. I think it is well established that there is a great deal of “black” money which funds projects most people never hear of. All you have to do is look at the Greenbrier to see what the government can do in secret right out in the open. Imagine what a dedicated group of individuals with access to enough black money could do if they wanted to be really covert within the USA.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Aptly put.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Perfectly reasonable. In fact, depending upon the circumstances, that might be the only way it could work. General knowledge of the existence of the classification might compromise its security.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

That assumes that the members of such an elite group would be playing by the “published” rules. The mere existence of the group would indicate they are not bound by the ordinary rules. Imagine a group like Section One. We already know that there are people that dedicated in our society. We already know that there are people who are that ruthless too. And we know that huge amounts of black money are siphoned off each year without apparent accountability.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Yeah, ok...if you say so... That kind of thinking rates right up there with Naval personnel technically forbidden from confirming the existence of nuclear reactors on the nuclear submarines they drive.

At some point, the level of rectal retentiveness required to make a secret that secret makes said secret pointless.

If anything, compartments accomplish the same level of functionality with a lot less wasted tinfoil.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Well if it's of any value, after all this I think I finally understood the idea behind the US Military security classification, it looks like they designed it for cases where they had LOTS of secrets to keep and all of varying degrees. Since having a zillion primary clasifications would not scale. In hindsight it makes sense.No wonder it made no sense to me, since like I mentioned before, when I wrote up the information security clasification policy it was for a much simpler case (like keeping the credit card numbers of our post-paid customers safe )

(wow I just burned three neurons with that, I guess it was a worthy cause, I have burned more reading woo-woo stuff )

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Or maybe making the existence of the tallest building in the country which is a major landmark in the capital city and had a restaurant open to the public at the top top secret. Governments do strange, nonsensical, and often monumentally stupid things on a regular basis (I have ideas about this and the origin of CTs which I will discuss in another thread).
True, but see my point above, just because something is the most sensible, logical, and efficient choice doesn't mean that its what the government is likely to do.

http://www.answers.com/topic/security-clearance

This Link i think describes the structure and basics of security claearances (govt and military) best that i found anyway...

i did extensive searches on anything ABOVE top secret and turned up nil, nada, nothing (OF Course im not including conspiracy sites)
Basically its my fault this thread STARTED when i said that Top Secret seems Too Low for UFO's

Two things:

Firstly, there might be higher clearances, but they would be extremely tightly controlled... such that their existance is unknown other than to those that have that clearance. That leads to one of those faulty logic arguements. If you had such a clearance, you'd never talk about it except to others who have that clearance. Therefore the existance of such a clearance cannot be disproven. Being unable to disprove it, though, is not proof of it's existance.

Secondly, I stuffed up the original example. Let's say you are briefed into the CHURCH programme. That briefing tells you that CHURCH data involves Soviet military & political intentions and capabilities, and is considered reliable. You don't know much anything else except it involves Soviet data (as opposed to Syrian or East German, etc). It's meant to give you an idea about what the whole programme is about without giving you specifics.

Let's say you recieve INTEL advice that the French are planning to test detonate a new nuclear weapon, and that advice is based on CHURCH data. That gives you an idea of how reliable that advice might be. Because CHURCH data is Soviet data, we might have learnt this by intercepting a message somewhere within the Soviet communications system. That message itself may have been based on a Soviet intercept and interpretation of French messages. That means there are a few ifs & buts about whether that data is accurate or not with regard to French intentions. We'd know that the Soviets have this data, but not necessarily whether they believe it or not.

You get further advice that Soviet nuclear weapon technology is being supplied to East Germany, with the aim of producing an upgraded nuclear weapon. Again, it is based on CHURCH data. This information would be far more credible because it directly involves the Soviets. You don't know how they got the data, but it is more likely to be accurate.

Now, back to the codewords within the CHURCH programme. You might have to have a TS clearance to be briefed on CHURCH but not have access to any of the codeword material within that programme. Even with a TS clearance and CHURCH briefed, you might only be cleared to CONFIDENTIAL-level codeword material within the CHURCH programme.

So: Some information might be classified CONFIDENTIAL - BISHOP. You have an understanding of what it involves but not really where it comes from (because it has been sanitised). It might be from radio intercepts, it might be from a spy, it might have been overheard, etc - but it is considered reliable (unless otherwise stated).

Higher level information, perhaps called SECRET - VICAR, reveals more about where the information came from. That information might tell you that it had to have obtained from a Defence Council meeting - though you don't know if that was from a listening device, a person at the meeting, the minutes of the meeting, etc.

Even higher information might be classified TOP SECRET - POPE. This information might have only been available from discussions within the Politburo, and so reveals more about how it was obtained. Because of the content, it might indicate that it must have come from either a person at that meeting or a listening device.

Finally, there might be another programme called CARDINAL. This programme administers the CHURCH programme, and very few people are briefed on CARDINAL. The CARDINAL briefing tells you that it is a very highly placed HUMINT source within the Soviet Politburo (i.e. a spy).

So the CARDINAL people sanitise the raw data for input into the CHURCH programme. You can be CHURCH-briefed (but not CARDINAL briefed) and have access to TS-POPE material but still not know exactly how it was obtained.

That's why the whole thing is called compartmentalisation. Of course, other programmes might not need a separate administration programme. You might be briefed into the ANIMAL programme which tells you the data is based on SIGINT. At the highest level within the ANIMAL programme (TS-DOG) you know it is from an INTEL-gathering aircraft that regularly evesdrops on countries of interest.

Oh, and the codewords would NEVER be related or indicate what the data relates to. They are randomly generated.

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

Correct, except that the secret data here is FRD or NSI, but not RD.

Color-coded as well, badge-wise, in most cases.

I'm familiar with the highest position in that particular hierarchy (with multiple compartmentalizations) which one could have while employed as a non-military employee.

How appropriate that I got kicked offline as I was typing this.

Hey, dear monitors, I'm a former classifier: where's the breach?



BTW, speaking of paranoia, ever notice how the particular smilie you want to use is almost never in the sample box to the right of the text entry window?

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Top Secret isn't the highest level. It isn't even halfway up. There's also a series of paralell classifications, I.E. "Staff only", "Eyes only", "Need to Know" ect. Also, if there's a particular group created for a project that deals with classified information, a seperate catagory can be made for them as well. I.E. a "Secret" document meant for one location cannot be viewed by someone with a "Secret" classification in another area.

On what do you base that assessment?

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

Maybe he has Super-Extra-Top Secret access?

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þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

And now because he has revealed the existence of a classified level of classification the MIB are going to have to come and have a little polite discussion with him

I know that what you wrote indicates you don't know that, but I can't say what.

Clear enough?

BTW, "Need to know" has to be the most anti-innovation, pro-sweep-it-under-the-rug policy ever created.

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I tend to disagree a little. Need to know is important for security. If you dont have it, gossip and bragging will spread the info until security is compromised. I feel the biggest problem with security is letting security people be in charge it. As counterintuitive as that may sound, if your only job is to keep security, you will be less likely to see a need to risk security to complete whatever job it is that you are keeping security over.

BTW, "Need to know" has to be the most anti-innovation, pro-sweep-it-under-the-rug policy ever created.

A lot of people misunderstand the concept behind "need to know." Basically, just because someone has a clearance level of "fill in the blank", it doesn't mean they need to know everything that is classified to that level. Part of the reasoning is to limit the damage should someone be captured or go over to the other side.

There is movement underway to loosen things a bit. After the 1991 Gulf War, General Horner (commander of the air forces over there) came to Colorado Springs to become commander of US Space Command (no longer exists, BTW) and Air Force Space Command. One of the things he jumped on the intel community (IC) was the need for operational relevance in intelligence. The IC has a culture of "I've got a secret" and traditionally were (and still are in many cases) unwilling to share information. Horner laid down the law - if your work isn't accessible by the war fighters and trigger pullers, then it's useless. Many useful things came from that policy.

Today, the movement towards net-centricity is evolving more from a "need to know" to a "need to share" for information. There will still be the need to restrict some things like critical sources of information and capabilities/vulnerabilities data, more classified data will be made available than ever before. A Google searchon "need to share" and "net centricity" will link you to some good articles.

Personal experience. I used to work on classified computer systems during my time in the Corps.

Okay, I'll accept that although I still disagree. My assessment is also based on personal experience but with the intelligence side of the shop.

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

As a former member of the US Armed forces I can tell you all that TS is not the highest level of security clearances, there are several levels of TS.
I was an Air Defense Radar Operator and Technician for quite some time, which required a higher level of security classification than just TS, I wish I could say more but I do like my freedom!
Dennis

Please tell me none of them involve the word "tippy."

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"Earth diameter is 7,900 miles, and Moon diameter is 2,160 miles. It takes on average 90 minutes to complete one Earth orbit, so one Moon orbit should take roughly 25 minutes." - Sam "NasaScam" Colby

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DataCable^2008 A+