Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!oberon!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!venera.isi.edu!raveling From: raveling@vaxb.isi.edu (Paul Raveling) Newsgroups: rec.aviation,sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: The Thought Police Message-ID: <7829@venera.isi.edu> Date: 23 Mar 89 03:05:05 GMT References: <524@gonzo.UUCP> <1475@petsd.UUCP> <13987@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <976@nbife.NBI.COM> <1993NU052179@NDSUVM1> <320@carroll1.UUCP> <278@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> <1596@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <11254@ut-emx.UUCP> <4806@cs.Buffalo.EDU> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) Distribution: usa Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 117 Xref: utzoo rec.aviation:13146 sci.space.shuttle:2674 In article <4806@cs.Buffalo.EDU> ugthomps@sunybcs.UUCP (Gregory Thompson) writes: >In article <11254@ut-emx.UUCP> mentat@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett) writes: > >>Robert \ >>Dorsett, who's never had a security clearance, and hopes never to have one. :-) > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >How do you feel qualified to comment? I don't know your history, but >if you have never had a security clearance, then what do you know about it?? I'd like to comment as one who'd sign the same way -- I've never had a security clearance, don't want one, and if anyone ever convinces me it's necessary to get one, I'll want to see clearance documentation for whoever wants to see mine. My basic opinion is that secrecy is often overrated and is sometimes abused. In any case it's a pain in the whatnot. The most meaningful secrecy I've seen has been in the corporate world, topped by the electronic games industry. Mattel Electronics in '83 used security measures that didn't fall short of military secrecy by much. I've been close to military secrecy in several projects. Some notes on secrecy in each follow, but the worst case is the one at the end, courtesy of my wife. 1. Military Message Experiment -- A C**3 technology demo dealing heavily in classified message traffic (categories were unclassified, confidential, secret, & top secret). They used our stuff to handle actual classified message traffic in Hawaii. We Loved those bug reports: Them: "The software did something screwy." Us: "How did it go screwy?" Them: "We can't tell you." Us: "What was happening at the time?" Them: "We can't tell you. Just fix it." It does slow down the course of progress a bit. 2. B1-B Central Air Data computer At Garrett we had functional specs for everything we needed, such as CADC functions & interfaces to aircraft systems, but we didn't have real data for a few things. A few algorithms could be tuned by coefficients to produce wildly different behaviors, once the classified values were supplied. For the few sensitive items, Rockwell gave us artificial but seemingly realistic data for testing. So what sort of thing was classified? The most sensitive item I recall was a large set of coefficients for computing static source error correction (SSEC). That's the function to correct the raw static pressure for variables such as angle of attack, mach number, & such. I never figured out why that stuff was classified. 3. Standard Central Air Data computer -- Digital replacement for analog boxes on F-111's, F-4's, A-4's A-7's, A-6's KC-135's, C-141's, & probably some I'm forgetting right now. Just as it was surprising that the B-1's big secret was static source error correction, an example of a not-so-secret item was the F-111's top speed. I believe the public info was something like mach 2.5, which would be consistent with our functional requirement to measure up to mach 2.8. Chatting with an F-111 pilot tended to confirm that the unclassified number was realistic. 4. Most recently, Integrated Interfaces -- a research project whose application domain was the morning briefing to the admiral at CINCPACFLT (Commander IN Chief, Pacific Fleet). On this one we got a sanitized copy of the Navy's IDB data base with classified info replaced by 0's. This data base includes info on ship movements and readiness status that legitimately should be classified. We didn't have much trouble with classified info on this, and the Navy was quite helpful. 5. A word for my wife, who managed a couple VAX installations with Tempest capability for Northrop (she had a secret clearance): This is is a ROYAL PAIN, especially for a machine that can be switched between secret and unclassified work. Picture a VAX in a room built as a Farady cage. To use it in a networked unclassified environment, you haul cables across the floor, coming in from the hall through the only doorway. The room's electrical shielding can't be pierced, and no external connections are allowed for classified work. Worse yet, on switching from classified to unclassified you have to back up the classified disks onto tape, erase the disks, and verify that they're erased. Only then do you get to restore whatever you need for unclassified work. And, there's roughly the inverse process for the opposite switch. It's easy to waste hours of transition time to run a classified job, even if it only runs a few minutes. And how much work REALLY needs to be secret -- I can just envision hours upon hours of overhead per computing minute for refining SSEC coefficients for the B-2. Secrecy is expensive, & our tax bucks finance it. ---------------- Paul Raveling Raveling@isi.edu