War Plan Chat Includes Journalist

Journalists aren’t usually invited to online chats about US war plans. This seemed obvious until yesterday, when Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg published his article about being a lurker in an online chat ...

Leaking Secrets Under Social Pressure

| | classified, leaks, military, security
Here is a classic example of human nature: people on a gaming site argue that the site’s tanks don’t accurately reflect their capabilities. Participants post classified information to prove their point. Reporters ...

SCI//HCS-P/SI/TK at Mar-a-Lago

This is a brief explanation of the weird acronyms on the cover sheets that appeared in the photo of classified the FBI seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. They identify different types of ...

The Mar-a-Lago Mess

I’ve avoided commenting on the FBI’s discovery of classified documents at the Mar-a-Lago Club, the home of former President Donald Trump, before this. Numerous pundits have shared their opinions about Trump’s legal ...
Telepathic Declassification

Telepathic Declassification

| | classified, security, Trump
Former President Trump recently suggested that the sitting President simply needs to “think” something is declassified in order to declassify it. Is there a cascade of increasingly formal ways to declassify? Perhaps: ...
Update: Tweeting Top Secret

Update: Tweeting Top Secret

| | classified, security, Top Secret, Trump
Back in the dark ages of the Trump presidency, the President tweeted this photograph. An earlier post examines the legality of this act (100% legal), and speculates about the potential damage to ...
“Eyes Only” Security Marking

“Eyes Only” Security Marking

| | classified, security
Occasionally in the news (and more often in spy fiction) people toss around super-secret documents marked “Eyes Only.” The United Kingdom and Canada use “Eyes Only” to indicate specific countries with whom ...

This photo should not exist

pin.it/fnnc4j6fjamugy Once we get past the creep factor of Nazi army uniforms, we see a communications team sending a secret message. They are using the legendary Enigma machine to encrypt the message ...