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Very true, but there are full SCIFs that aren't just metal boxes. Permanent dedicated SCIF facilities (not SCIFs inside other buildings) are much more like data

Very true, but there are full SCIFs that aren't just metal boxes. Permanent dedicated SCIF facilities (not SCIFs inside other buildings) are much more like datacenters inside without the server racks obviously. Pretty unremarkable working environment. Not uncomfortable. But yeah the technology was crazy behind. Everyone on mission was on OLD Sun sparc boxes running Solaris in the mid-2000s.

bradknowles 3y ago
In my job as an Analyst/Terminal Operator in support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J4 Logistics Readiness Center in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside the Pentagon, I found that the entire NMCC was a SCIF and that it was not that different from any other group of offices in the Pentagon. Okay, it was on raised datacenter style flooring, but that was more because you had all these cables that needed to run through the flooring and for handling the cooling, than anything else. You had the security guards at the entrances, and you had to leave your backpacks and pagers and cell phones at the entrance, and there were no windows, but otherwise it wasn't really much different from any other office in the building. There were desks inside, they had STU-III classified phones, they had coffee makers, they had TVs connected to internal cable TV networks, some rooms had red phones, they had classified WWMCCS terminals inside, and so on. Our part of the Defense Information Systems Agency was disbanded after Desert Shield, and the personnel were scattered to the four winds. I was on the short list to go to the Red Phone project at the NSA, but they instead grabbed me for the internal IT group responsible for doing all IT support for the DISAnet network. After that, I didn't do any classified work, so I don't know for sure how things evolved in the classified arena. But I would imagine that smaller SCIFs might be something like a highly customized shipping container, sure.

bradknowles 3y ago

In my job as an Analyst/Terminal Operator in support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, J4 Logistics Readiness Center in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside the Pentagon, I found that the entire NMCC was a SCIF and that it was not that different from any other group of offices in the Pentagon. Okay, it was on raised datacenter style flooring, but that was more because you had all these cables that needed to run through the flooring and for handling the cooling, than anything else. You had the security guards at the entrances, and you had to leave your backpacks and pagers and cell phones at the entrance, and there were no windows, but otherwise it wasn't really much different from any other office in the building. There were desks inside, they had STU-III classified phones, they had coffee makers, they had TVs connected to internal cable TV networks, some rooms had red phones, they had classified WWMCCS terminals inside, and so on. Our part of the Defense Information Systems Agency was disbanded after Desert Shield, and the personnel were scattered to the four winds. I was on the short list to go to the Red Phone project at the NSA, but they instead grabbed me for the internal IT group responsible for doing all IT support for the DISAnet network. After that, I didn't do any classified work, so I don't know for sure how things evolved in the classified arena. But I would imagine that smaller SCIFs might be something like a highly customized shipping container, sure.