My wife used to work in Fairfax County Virginia which is just outside of Washington DC and one of the office buildings they used was formerly used by the USGovernment, my wife said alot of her meeting were held in the basement in something they called the 'skiff' that had zero cell phone receptions. It turns out that is exactly the kind of place that Top Secret/TCI documents can be viewed in a room with double metal doors and where no cell phone etc coverage exists, she said even if they left the doors open they still couldn't get their phones to work. She had no clue at the time but was never happy when a meeting was scheduled down there.
held in the basement in something they called the 'skiff' that had zero cell phone receptions.
pronounced "skiff" but spelled SCIF. Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
SCI is, in a sense, a higher level of classification than "top Secret" as to which even the names of the compartments are themselves secret. A lot of communications security stuff lives up there, but plenty of other things. There are a lot of compartments. Access to one does not grant access to another.
If I really knew much about it, I could not speak about it.
For a clue as to what it means to build one of these things, here is a technical specifications document I stumbled on online. I have no idea whether it is either accurate or up-to-date.
held in the basement in something they called the 'skiff' that had zero cell phone receptions.
pronounced "skiff" but spelled SCIF. Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
SCI is, in a sense, a higher level of classification than "top Secret" as to which even the names of the compartments are themselves secret. A lot of communications security stuff lives up there, but plenty of other things. There are a lot of compartments. Access to one does not grant access to another.
If I really knew much about it, I could not speak about it.
For a clue as to what it means to build one of these things, here is a technical specifications document I stumbled on online. I have no idea whether it is either accurate or up-to-date.
Thanks that's pretty cool! My wife retired a couple years before that and I'm guessing it wasn't used for many years before the County started using the building, it had a K-Mart attached beyond a brick wall in the same building and it had been there for more than 5 years before she got there.
In another vein of security my buddy had a top secret clearance in the Air Force, very very smart like several Patent for networking smart, and was at an Air Force Base and came to a door that had literally no outside way to open the door what-so-ever secure, he had to push a button to talk to someone inside who then refused to open the door because they didn't have prior knowledge that he was coming to work on something or other. Two months later he was cleared to go inside and they gave him a pass from the Air Force Chief of Staff so he could get inside, he never said what was in there but he clearly wasn't impressed with what he saw compared to other stuff he'd seen before.
This guy wrote the algorithms for encryption so the guys on the ground could talk to the SR-71 guys as they weren't in one place long enough to send messages in the 1960's and 70's over Vietnam etc. The message contained whatever they wanted pictures of plus where to be to send/receive the next message and in-between the SR-71 guys would go dark and just do their runs.
When he got out of the Air Force he was overqualified foe every job he applied for except for the 'Beltway Bandits' who are government contractors around Wash DC trying to pop up companies to make or do something the government wanted done, the problem was once the project was done so were the jobs unless they could pivot to a new contract. He was often out of a job so did Santa Claus jobs until he quit looking for real jobs and just did Santa gigs all year round at hospitals, nursing homes etc. Eventually 30 years of smoking took him away.
loin > purloin >
)
loin > purloin > letter
The Purloined Letter, a story by Edgar Allen Poe
Ideas are not fixed, nor should they be; we live in model-dependent reality.
My wife used to work in
)
My wife used to work in Fairfax County Virginia which is just outside of Washington DC and one of the office buildings they used was formerly used by the USGovernment, my wife said alot of her meeting were held in the basement in something they called the 'skiff' that had zero cell phone receptions. It turns out that is exactly the kind of place that Top Secret/TCI documents can be viewed in a room with double metal doors and where no cell phone etc coverage exists, she said even if they left the doors open they still couldn't get their phones to work. She had no clue at the time but was never happy when a meeting was scheduled down there.
mikey wrote: held in the
)
pronounced "skiff" but spelled SCIF. Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
SCI is, in a sense, a higher level of classification than "top Secret" as to which even the names of the compartments are themselves secret. A lot of communications security stuff lives up there, but plenty of other things. There are a lot of compartments. Access to one does not grant access to another.
If I really knew much about it, I could not speak about it.
For a clue as to what it means to build one of these things, here is a technical specifications document I stumbled on online. I have no idea whether it is either accurate or up-to-date.
https://www.dni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/Regulations/Technical-Specifications-SCIF-Construction.pdf
archae86 wrote: mikey
)
Thanks that's pretty cool! My wife retired a couple years before that and I'm guessing it wasn't used for many years before the County started using the building, it had a K-Mart attached beyond a brick wall in the same building and it had been there for more than 5 years before she got there.
In another vein of security my buddy had a top secret clearance in the Air Force, very very smart like several Patent for networking smart, and was at an Air Force Base and came to a door that had literally no outside way to open the door what-so-ever secure, he had to push a button to talk to someone inside who then refused to open the door because they didn't have prior knowledge that he was coming to work on something or other. Two months later he was cleared to go inside and they gave him a pass from the Air Force Chief of Staff so he could get inside, he never said what was in there but he clearly wasn't impressed with what he saw compared to other stuff he'd seen before.
This guy wrote the algorithms for encryption so the guys on the ground could talk to the SR-71 guys as they weren't in one place long enough to send messages in the 1960's and 70's over Vietnam etc. The message contained whatever they wanted pictures of plus where to be to send/receive the next message and in-between the SR-71 guys would go dark and just do their runs.
When he got out of the Air Force he was overqualified foe every job he applied for except for the 'Beltway Bandits' who are government contractors around Wash DC trying to pop up companies to make or do something the government wanted done, the problem was once the project was done so were the jobs unless they could pivot to a new contract. He was often out of a job so did Santa Claus jobs until he quit looking for real jobs and just did Santa gigs all year round at hospitals, nursing homes etc. Eventually 30 years of smoking took him away.
Ready to be overruled on
)
Ready to be overruled on this but while I enjoy almost any food, liver I have yet to enjoy. So to me, liver=yuck
E pluribus unum
Jinkei wrote: Ready to be
)
How about kidney pie?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_Home
Richard
Kavanagh
)
Cool! I did not know that.
Ideas are not fixed, nor should they be; we live in model-dependent reality.
Brothers > Smothers The
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Brothers > Smothers
The Smothers Brothers, an American comedy duo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smothers_Brothers_Show
Ideas are not fixed, nor should they be; we live in model-dependent reality.
Brothers > SmothersThe
)
..
Ideas are not fixed, nor should they be; we live in model-dependent reality.