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I hold a security clearance. That's not what you assume. The clearance exists for the purpose of preventing disclosure and they take breaches very seriously. I

by na85 5y ago

I hold a security clearance. That's not what you assume. The clearance exists for the purpose of preventing disclosure and they take breaches very seriously. I know a guy who had the book thrown at him for causing a (fairly minor) breach. Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the national interest, and they actively seek to prevent leaks.

duxup 5y ago
That's not what you assume as an individual because it's your job. Day to day you do the right thing. Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long.
- na85 5y ago
  >Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long. I understood your point, I just don't agree with your baseless assumption.
skissane 5y ago
> Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the national interest Once a colleague was having some problem calling a product API. He wanted coding help. I asked to see his code. He said "Sorry, I can't show you the code, it is classified". I asked, "Can you boil the code down into a Short, Self Contained, Correct Example (SSCCE)?" "I can, but that will be classified too." "How can an SSCCE be classified?" "The customer is an intelligence agency, every line of code we write while on-site is classified automatically, trying to get anything declassified is a bureaucratic nightmare". Eventually he agreed that he could go home, and try to write an SSCCE from memory at home, and that wouldn't be classified. In the process of doing that he worked out the problem himself, told me he didn't need my help any more.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  How does someone that cannot show their code to anyone expect any help? That’s just weird. I guess there’s a reason I’m not writing classified code, because I don’t think I could deal with such nonsense unless I happened to be writing a nuclear launch system.
  - mandevil 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    In that case, it's scary to think about what the quality of nuclear launch system code must be.

by na85 5y ago

duxup 5y ago

That's not what you assume as an individual because it's your job. Day to day you do the right thing. Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long.

na85 5y ago
>Tell me how long you think a given tank manual that goes into the hands of all sorts of people stays secret? That's where you assume ... yeah probably not long. I understood your point, I just don't agree with your baseless assumption.

skissane 5y ago

> Some stuff is "over classified" but the definition of classified data is that which if disclosed is harmful to the national interest Once a colleague was having some problem calling a product API. He wanted coding help. I asked to see his code. He said "Sorry, I can't show you the code, it is classified". I asked, "Can you boil the code down into a Short, Self Contained, Correct Example (SSCCE)?" "I can, but that will be classified too." "How can an SSCCE be classified?" "The customer is an intelligence agency, every line of code we write while on-site is classified automatically, trying to get anything declassified is a bureaucratic nightmare". Eventually he agreed that he could go home, and try to write an SSCCE from memory at home, and that wouldn't be classified. In the process of doing that he worked out the problem himself, told me he didn't need my help any more.

Aeolun 5y ago
How does someone that cannot show their code to anyone expect any help? That’s just weird. I guess there’s a reason I’m not writing classified code, because I don’t think I could deal with such nonsense unless I happened to be writing a nuclear launch system.
- mandevil 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  In that case, it's scary to think about what the quality of nuclear launch system code must be.