4 ms·

Aren’t these national security secrets?

by szundi 5y ago

r0gue808 5y ago
Not necessarily, there's a huge drive at the moment (in the UK at least) encouraging utility companies to make their asset related data open and publicly available. Look up the Energy Networks Association's Open Networks initiative, quite interesting. The same approach is being taken by other European countries.
caseysoftware 5y ago
I used to work in those circles ~15 years ago and the short answer was: Yes. It turns out that an absurd amount of sensitive/national security information is actually public but it becomes sensitive once it's organized in a way that it becomes "actionable" for attack, compromise, etc. In my particular situation, an acquaintance studying operations+logistics had overlaid communications trunks with transportation hubs and realized many of them were one in the same. Now that more of this information is available easily and in readily combinable forms should make us re-evaluate all of it and how much gets shared, with who, when, and to what detail. Btw, this is also a reason you should be skeptical whenever there's a leak and someone claims "none of this data is classified!" While technically true, a piece of non-classified but relatively unknown information might be the missing piece that makes something actionable.
justsomehnguy 5y ago
It is pointless to 'hide' the things which are accessible to anyone, including people who isn't even there physically, eg can look through Google Earth or just browse photos with geo-tags. Back in the day it could be (and sometimes was) a secret or protected information.
- bladelessninja2 5y ago
  That's somehow naive statement. There is a difference between getting full information just with one query and building complicated fail-prune system for weeks/months to analyze data.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    That's somehow naive statement. There is a difference between being visited by the guys in the suits because you were seen with a photo camera near powerlines and not.
    - bladelessninja2 5y ago
      You basically said is equivalent to statement that computer software is just a bunch of ones and zeros and everyone has access to ones and zeros for free. But at some point it stops being just chain of ones and zeros and becomes meaningful computer program. It's similar problem like with forbidden numbers - at some point how things are arranged overcomes the value of elements itself, but the line there is blurry. So yeah, the "naive statement" is still on your side.
      - justsomehnguy 5y ago
        Do we play 'naive' football here? You may conjure any statements you can, but something can be only hidden if there is a way to keep it hidden. Before the IT and the consumer technology revolution that would have been required physically visiting the locations and making photos (and before ~2000 - making them on a film) of the infrastructure elements. Now you can obtain pretty recent (no more than 6-8 years old for the most part, usually much newer) photos of almost anything in the world (bar Germany, China and some "not interesting" for the great powers countries) just from your chair, wherever it can be. So yes, some aspects of that information is still classified or restricted, but that's... Polichinelle secret. Everybody (who cares, of course) knows what is there, yet the suits can harass and even jail you if you somehow trespass the invisible blurry line between their negligence and their obedience to the procedure.
deleted 5y ago
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tomrod 5y ago
It was a major blocker when I was writing my dissertation. It would have been WONDERFUL to have this.
- knowaveragejoe 5y ago

Aren’t these national security secrets?

by szundi 5y ago

Aren’t these national security secrets?

Not necessarily, there's a huge drive at the moment (in the UK at least) encouraging utility companies to make their asset related data open and publicly available. Look up the Energy Networks Association's Open Networks initiative, quite interesting. The same approach is being taken by other European countries.

caseysoftware 5y ago

I used to work in those circles ~15 years ago and the short answer was: Yes. It turns out that an absurd amount of sensitive/national security information is actually public but it becomes sensitive once it's organized in a way that it becomes "actionable" for attack, compromise, etc. In my particular situation, an acquaintance studying operations+logistics had overlaid communications trunks with transportation hubs and realized many of them were one in the same. Now that more of this information is available easily and in readily combinable forms should make us re-evaluate all of it and how much gets shared, with who, when, and to what detail. Btw, this is also a reason you should be skeptical whenever there's a leak and someone claims "none of this data is classified!" While technically true, a piece of non-classified but relatively unknown information might be the missing piece that makes something actionable.

justsomehnguy 5y ago

It is pointless to 'hide' the things which are accessible to anyone, including people who isn't even there physically, eg can look through Google Earth or just browse photos with geo-tags. Back in the day it could be (and sometimes was) a secret or protected information.

bladelessninja2 5y ago
That's somehow naive statement. There is a difference between getting full information just with one query and building complicated fail-prune system for weeks/months to analyze data.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  That's somehow naive statement. There is a difference between being visited by the guys in the suits because you were seen with a photo camera near powerlines and not.
  - bladelessninja2 5y ago
    You basically said is equivalent to statement that computer software is just a bunch of ones and zeros and everyone has access to ones and zeros for free. But at some point it stops being just chain of ones and zeros and becomes meaningful computer program. It's similar problem like with forbidden numbers - at some point how things are arranged overcomes the value of elements itself, but the line there is blurry. So yeah, the "naive statement" is still on your side.
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      Do we play 'naive' football here? You may conjure any statements you can, but something can be only hidden if there is a way to keep it hidden. Before the IT and the consumer technology revolution that would have been required physically visiting the locations and making photos (and before ~2000 - making them on a film) of the infrastructure elements. Now you can obtain pretty recent (no more than 6-8 years old for the most part, usually much newer) photos of almost anything in the world (bar Germany, China and some "not interesting" for the great powers countries) just from your chair, wherever it can be. So yes, some aspects of that information is still classified or restricted, but that's... Polichinelle secret. Everybody (who cares, of course) knows what is there, yet the suits can harass and even jail you if you somehow trespass the invisible blurry line between their negligence and their obedience to the procedure.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tomrod 5y ago

It was a major blocker when I was writing my dissertation. It would have been WONDERFUL to have this.

knowaveragejoe 5y ago