5 ms·

Tinfoil hat time: it sounds like these “found” documents mostly contain information that MoD would want to leak. > "We have a strong, legitimate narrative", th

Tinfoil hat time: it sounds like these “found” documents mostly contain information that MoD would want to leak. > "We have a strong, legitimate narrative", they said, noting that the presence of the embedded journalists (from the BBC and Daily Mail) on board the destroyer "provides an option for independent verification of HMS Defender's action". As does this leak, if you believe the provenance.

azalemeth 5y ago
Quite. It's very cold-war-esque. It has a definite soupçon of publicity about it, and mostly supports the government's narrative about them vaguely being competent – we did pre-plan a trip to navigate around Crimea [a place where the British haven't traditionally had the best time!] and we also plan to keep a toe in the fort in Afghanistan -- allies be damned. Conveniently, it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign, and people across the political spectrum are fed up with him. I am 99% sure Russia would rather have the leaks that highlight the crippling lack of ability in Britain's armed forces, caused by austerity, or a true impact assessment of Brexit. I also think it's very odd that the only papers leaked were these two: it's a strange thing to specifically print out these reports. I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems.
- alksjdalkj 5y ago
  > I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems. I think it's pretty common to print classified documents, since as you say the electronic copies normally live on specific airgapped networks. If you'll need them somewhere without access to that network (e.g. most meetings) printing is the easiest option.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    But the printed copies are supposed to come with a cover page that says "Burn Before Reading".
    - dijit 5y ago
      That’s perhaps a US specific thing. GCHQ used to use banners and footers that said: SECRET//NOFORN There was a bunch of other classification criteria on the cover such as declassification date (if any) and under who’s authority it was classified.
      - wrappingpaper 5y ago
        Another armchair classification expert? GCHQ (being a British intelligence agency) has never used NOFORN as that’s an American handling caveat. The old equivalent would be UK Eyes Alpha (UK nationals, no contractors or embeds) or it’s modern equivalent UK Eyes Only. And no the UK rarely writes “other classification criteria” on the front of documents. Again you’re thinking of the USA. Along with double slashing // also an American thing though occasionally used this side of the pond.
    - gpm 5y ago
      What does that mean? Light the cover page on fire before reading the document? Light the document on first instead of reading it? Try and read it while it is burning? Pack it in a pile of pages, light them on fire, and read it after it burns (surprisingly, that actually sort of works)?
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        I suppose any of those would work, but I like that idea of lighting it and frantically trying to read it while it's burning. Or maybe a sophisticated read-while-burning machine that continuously burned that page you had just finished along with something to stir the ashes. Foreign intelligence agencies would develop their own discrete sniffer machines to detect faint traces of soot on people to identify potential intelligence personnel. Counter-intelligence would work on psyops campaigns to promote the health benefits of soot & encourage people to use new deodorants and other body grooming products laced with soot to throw them off soot sniffers. The most advanced burn-while-reading devices would have intricate ventilation and ash-isolation chambers with furnaces that burn hot enough to vaporize the ash to the sub-micron level. Portable versions would occasionally malfunction and spontaneously combust the bearer, fueling that particular subset of the tinfoil hat community. It would be an entire soot-based intelligence community arms race, hilariously ridiculous and immensely fascinating.
  - ajdlinux 5y ago
    If you've lived around government circles for long enough (in my case, merely existing in Canberra for a decade) you inevitably hear stories of senior public servants running through airport terminals, briefcase with classified documents in hand, because the Minister is going to get a plane in ten minutes and their signature is needed on an order for some critical law enforcement or defence matter that has arisen in the last couple of hours. (I've also been told by government friends that there are plenty of very significant government locations where you would assume they have a Top Secret classified, airgapped network, but they don't, even though they have appropriately classified rooms for storing and reading Top Secret print documents.)
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign The UK population as a whole seem ok with how the COVID response has been managed (see below link). I know that an opinion on the UK COVID response doesn’t necessarily have to match an opinion on the competency of the health secretary, and even that both can be independently rubbish. The below link does appear to show a disconnect between what was achieved and what people think was achieved. There seems a whiff of nationalistic exceptionalism about it. If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-advanced-economies-say-their-society-is-more-divided-than-before-pandemic/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-adva...
  - michaelt 5y ago
    > If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. Calling Hancock hopeless is almost certainly a reference to text messages sent by the Prime Minister calling Hancock "totally fucking useless" and the fact jilted former adviser Dominic Cummings [2] said Hancock "should have been fired for at least, 15-20 things" Of course, you might very well ask if Hancock is so bad, why did the PM keep him as health secretary during perhaps the biggest health crisis of all time? It's possible Hancock isn't all that bad, and we're just seeing political manoeuvring here to make Hancock take the blame for the lack of PPE, the failure to keep even a single new variant out of the country, the failure to protect care homes, the cheating to hit testing targets, the inept track-and-trace effort run by cronies, the insistence on keeping borders wide open and allowing foreign holidays, the dodgy supply contracts given out to friends and family, and so on. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-texts-show-boris-johnson-calling-matt-hancock-totally-hopeless https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-te... [2] https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27 https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27
    - dmix 5y ago
      Sounds like most countries. Apparently even the advanced countries were ill prepare for a pandemic. This was a particularly bad one though and everyone is failing to contain it, it’s easy to blame health leaders.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 5y ago
Accident, espionage, or counter-intelligence. Any if them seem plausible against the backdrop of modern intelligence agencies' screw ups.
beermonster 5y ago
It’s a bit odd it was “leaked”to the BBC. They have an odd parity with these kind of stories and official government line.

azalemeth 5y ago

Quite. It's very cold-war-esque. It has a definite soupçon of publicity about it, and mostly supports the government's narrative about them vaguely being competent – we did pre-plan a trip to navigate around Crimea [a place where the British haven't traditionally had the best time!] and we also plan to keep a toe in the fort in Afghanistan -- allies be damned. Conveniently, it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign, and people across the political spectrum are fed up with him. I am 99% sure Russia would rather have the leaks that highlight the crippling lack of ability in Britain's armed forces, caused by austerity, or a true impact assessment of Brexit. I also think it's very odd that the only papers leaked were these two: it's a strange thing to specifically print out these reports. I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems.

alksjdalkj 5y ago
> I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems. I think it's pretty common to print classified documents, since as you say the electronic copies normally live on specific airgapped networks. If you'll need them somewhere without access to that network (e.g. most meetings) printing is the easiest option.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  But the printed copies are supposed to come with a cover page that says "Burn Before Reading".
  - dijit 5y ago
    That’s perhaps a US specific thing. GCHQ used to use banners and footers that said: SECRET//NOFORN There was a bunch of other classification criteria on the cover such as declassification date (if any) and under who’s authority it was classified.
    - wrappingpaper 5y ago
      Another armchair classification expert? GCHQ (being a British intelligence agency) has never used NOFORN as that’s an American handling caveat. The old equivalent would be UK Eyes Alpha (UK nationals, no contractors or embeds) or it’s modern equivalent UK Eyes Only. And no the UK rarely writes “other classification criteria” on the front of documents. Again you’re thinking of the USA. Along with double slashing // also an American thing though occasionally used this side of the pond.
  - gpm 5y ago
    What does that mean? Light the cover page on fire before reading the document? Light the document on first instead of reading it? Try and read it while it is burning? Pack it in a pile of pages, light them on fire, and read it after it burns (surprisingly, that actually sort of works)?
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      I suppose any of those would work, but I like that idea of lighting it and frantically trying to read it while it's burning. Or maybe a sophisticated read-while-burning machine that continuously burned that page you had just finished along with something to stir the ashes. Foreign intelligence agencies would develop their own discrete sniffer machines to detect faint traces of soot on people to identify potential intelligence personnel. Counter-intelligence would work on psyops campaigns to promote the health benefits of soot & encourage people to use new deodorants and other body grooming products laced with soot to throw them off soot sniffers. The most advanced burn-while-reading devices would have intricate ventilation and ash-isolation chambers with furnaces that burn hot enough to vaporize the ash to the sub-micron level. Portable versions would occasionally malfunction and spontaneously combust the bearer, fueling that particular subset of the tinfoil hat community. It would be an entire soot-based intelligence community arms race, hilariously ridiculous and immensely fascinating.
- ajdlinux 5y ago
  If you've lived around government circles for long enough (in my case, merely existing in Canberra for a decade) you inevitably hear stories of senior public servants running through airport terminals, briefcase with classified documents in hand, because the Minister is going to get a plane in ten minutes and their signature is needed on an order for some critical law enforcement or defence matter that has arisen in the last couple of hours. (I've also been told by government friends that there are plenty of very significant government locations where you would assume they have a Top Secret classified, airgapped network, but they don't, even though they have appropriately classified rooms for storing and reading Top Secret print documents.)
lostlogin 5y ago
> it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign The UK population as a whole seem ok with how the COVID response has been managed (see below link). I know that an opinion on the UK COVID response doesn’t necessarily have to match an opinion on the competency of the health secretary, and even that both can be independently rubbish. The below link does appear to show a disconnect between what was achieved and what people think was achieved. There seems a whiff of nationalistic exceptionalism about it. If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-advanced-economies-say-their-society-is-more-divided-than-before-pandemic/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-adva...
- michaelt 5y ago
  > If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. Calling Hancock hopeless is almost certainly a reference to text messages sent by the Prime Minister calling Hancock "totally fucking useless" and the fact jilted former adviser Dominic Cummings [2] said Hancock "should have been fired for at least, 15-20 things" Of course, you might very well ask if Hancock is so bad, why did the PM keep him as health secretary during perhaps the biggest health crisis of all time? It's possible Hancock isn't all that bad, and we're just seeing political manoeuvring here to make Hancock take the blame for the lack of PPE, the failure to keep even a single new variant out of the country, the failure to protect care homes, the cheating to hit testing targets, the inept track-and-trace effort run by cronies, the insistence on keeping borders wide open and allowing foreign holidays, the dodgy supply contracts given out to friends and family, and so on. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-texts-show-boris-johnson-calling-matt-hancock-totally-hopeless https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-te... [2] https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27 https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27
  - dmix 5y ago
    Sounds like most countries. Apparently even the advanced countries were ill prepare for a pandemic. This was a particularly bad one though and everyone is failing to contain it, it’s easy to blame health leaders.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ineedasername 5y ago

Accident, espionage, or counter-intelligence. Any if them seem plausible against the backdrop of modern intelligence agencies' screw ups.

beermonster 5y ago

It’s a bit odd it was “leaked”to the BBC. They have an odd parity with these kind of stories and official government line.