[FRIAM] 5 agencies compromised

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Luckily the secrets I learned were exactly like the non-secrets I still deal with daily. The explanation for why Docker Swarms aren't really any different than the HWIL simulations I used to work with is only interesting to the people who already know what either buzzword might mean. The only people who would assert anything about the secrets I learned were people who already knew those secrets. Plus, black sites ensconced in cities are way less interesting than those perched atop mountains or hiding deep in the desert. That's like Hide In Plain Site 101. It always kills me when people think spies might look like Tom Cruise or Jennifer Garner. A good spy will look like that slightly overweight lady at the checkout counter in your local grocery store. If you don't want people hypothesizing in the hot-tub, don't build your site in a ridiculous place like Los Alamos. Sheesh.

On 12/17/20 4:54 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> LANL's "communications dept" had their own posters printed up that
> showed up everywhere for the full 27 years I was there for... maybe DOE
> and DOD supplied/inspired messaging... but the one that hit me as the
> most strange/hypocritical was the "Nations don't have friends, they have
> Interests" which was supposed to help undermine Scientists (and others
> with top clearances) from being seduced by nation-states who pretended
> to be "friends".   The hypocrisy IMO was the illusion that our own
> Nation State was in some way our friend, when in fact, our very
> employment and even existence as *citizens* was ultimately a reflection
> of this Nation-State's "Interests"...    
> 
> I became acutely aware of some of this when a new director gave us all a
> lecture on "neither confirm or deny" and reminded us that even to deny
> some outlandish claim about a classified matter was in fact, a capital
> crime.   The night before I had been in a hot-tub with a small group of
> Santa Fe Artist types who "Knew" all kinds of things about LANL, the
> Nuclear Weapons Programme, Area 51 and Aliens, not to mention
> Chemtrails, VaxxHOaxes, and ESP.   I remember smirking and maybe even
> scoffing into my elbow a few times at some of those statements and my
> bosses' bosses' boss was reminding me that I had in fact committed a
> Capital crime with both smirk and scoff, though it WAS dark, they
> probably didn't see my smirk and I masked my scoff as a cough, etc.  
> 
> I checked my paycheck stub that week and realized I was in no way
> compensated with "hazard pay", since having classified info in my head
> was clearly a huge risk, taking my life into my own hands every time I
> learned a new secret...    I was pretty clear in my own head what was
> true, was pro-nuke propaganda, what was anti-nuke propaganda and what of
> that which I knew enough about to confirm or deny was classified, but
> that didn't stop me from smirking and scoffing involuntarily from time
> to time.   It was the beginning of the end... fortunately DOE Q-type
> classified material was not nearly as "risky" as the DOD TS type as our
> friend Ed Snowden found out...   I think I winced every time I got close
> to the latter stuff right up until I left and the information (and my
> memory) started to age rapidly.     

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