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| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)
aronhegedus wrote 14 hours 24 min ago:
Cool story! The domain name is quite cool as well, happy that some
people still hold onto their silly whims instead of cashing out
nektro wrote 17 hours 32 min ago:
body {
max-width: 60em;
margin: auto;
}
rurban wrote 20 hours 51 min ago:
All the articles at [1] are a goldmine. I prefer the one of a student
called ''Missile'' Seitz buying a missile for nothing, and then didn't
have to pay income taxes for several years
HTML [1]: https://milk.com/wall-o-shame/
ikjasdlk2234 wrote 18 hours 0 min ago:
This story is under the title "Government Surplus" and is indeed
quite a tale (and on point for MIT students).
HTML [1]: https://milk.com/wall-o-shame/government_surplus.html
kazinator wrote 21 hours 32 min ago:
I've read this before but this time what stands out is:
> (To me, $8 represented 40 round trips to the beach by streetcar, or
80 admission fees to the movies.)
Glasses being a ripoff scam goes back that far?!
bandrami wrote 23 hours 36 min ago:
My favorite part of re-upping every five years is the investigator
indignantly asking why I spent multiple years in all these different
countries and showing him the government orders that posted me there.
There's really a "left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing"
aspect to this process.
themafia wrote 23 hours 50 min ago:
> It apparently didn't occur to them that if I were a real Japanese
spy, I might have brought the glasses with me from headquarters.
It occurred to them. They like to test their apparatus out anyways.
piskov wrote 1 day ago:
> it was in 1943, just after citizens of Japanese descent had been
forced off their property and taken away to concentration camps
Anyone else did that during the war or only horrible Hitler and humane
Americans?
Come think of it, I wonder what would happen to all the immigrants if
full-on war ensues.
xyzelement wrote 23 hours 12 min ago:
I think the motivation and experience of those camps were quite
different
piskov wrote 22 hours 49 min ago:
Yeah, letâs call that involuntary race-based detention a retreat.
defrost wrote 23 hours 51 min ago:
Like the USofA, the British interned "enemy nationals" - this policy
extended across the Commonwealth including Canada, Australia, India,
and elsewhere.
During the Second World War, the British government interned
several different groups of people, including German, Austrian and
Italian nationals.
However, following Nazi Germanyâs military successes in France,
Belgium and the Netherlands in the spring and summer of 1940, there
was increasing concern that âenemy aliensâ in Britain would form
a â fifth column â.
These concerns were amplified by the British press. As a result of
this growing fear, the British government interned approximately
27,000 âenemy aliensâ, including those assessed as low risk,
supposedly in the interests of national security. Those interned were
predominantly men between the ages of 16 and 60, but 4000 women and
children were also interned.
~ [1] In Australia: [2] In India: [3] Technically Heinrich Harrer was
not a civilian as he held the "honorary" rank of a Nazi sergeant in
the SS, kind of an early PR stunt rank given due to his status as a
world famous mountaineer .. still it points to the internment of
Germans and Austrians in India and references an interesting book
HTML [1]: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-c...
HTML [2]: https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/immigration-and-ci...
HTML [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years_in_Tibet
sigwinch wrote 13 hours 21 min ago:
Also, noting Peru, this happened on every inhabited continent. The
USA figure of 120,000 interned isnât even high on the list.
Stalin interned 180,000 Koreans just in case.
whattheheckheck wrote 23 hours 52 min ago:
People are cruel. Good people arent cruel enough to overpower the
cruel people
keepamovin wrote 1 day ago:
At least we now know that everyone working in classified programs is
above reproach and cleaner than clean. It's a good thing too, because
working without accountability in secret would definitely be abused,
but thankfully that's not the case because the people hired are too
pure and good.
It's also a very good filter for high openness and creativity, ensuring
that the most sensitive works attracts the most brilliant creative
geniuses. Truly these nations know how to develop their advantages in
the best way.
tokenless wrote 1 day ago:
They just needed to polygraph him
;-)
rkagerer wrote 1 day ago:
This one's fun too:
HTML [1]: https://milk.com/wall-o-shame/two_dollars.html
NooneAtAll3 wrote 1 day ago:
honestly, had he written the reason as "I devised new encryption scheme
at 12" he might have gotten promoted rather than dissuaded
it's like insurance claim - precise wording matters more than facts
cheese_van wrote 1 day ago:
It might have been 2002, can't remember, when they upgraded the e-QIP
software for the security check form.
I was doing my mandatory update coincidental with the roll-out and when
I got to the question, "mother a US citizen" I had to check the "no"
box and the immediate pop-up was "date of first contact?" which
actually got me thinking along existential lines for a moment.
ErigmolCt wrote 1 day ago:
So something uncomfortable about clearance processes: they're not
purely about truth, they're about interpretable truth
runamuck wrote 1 day ago:
"the most frequently occurring letters in typical English text are
e-t-a-o-n-r-i." But "Wheel of Fortune" told me to guess R-N-S-T-L-E!
toast0 wrote 1 day ago:
It's not contradictory. Wheel of Fortune only gives you one vowel for
free, e is the most common, same as here.
Wheel of Fortune gives you several consonants, order matters less,
and both lists share n r and t.
bjt12345 wrote 1 day ago:
I admire people who don't lie about past drug use on their clearance
forms. Sure, it might delay their clearance, but I still admire them.
The core social problem with drug addiction and alcoholicism is this
concept of telling people what you think they want to hear from you,
not telling them the truth.
acomjean wrote 1 day ago:
This happened to my mom when being interviewed when coming over here in
the 60s.
During verbal questioning she said something like âof courseâ. The
government agent turned deep red and asked her if she understood the
question (English isnât her first language and she hadnât).
Sheâs been here since.
I kind of get that the agent is looking out for the applicant in this
story. You have no idea whatâs going to happen when you do a
security clearance thing and they ask about this and that. How serious
is the wrong answer.
Excepting my favorite question which something like âhave you ever
tried to topple the government?â
The system is messed up when screening for honesty encourages people to
lie.
ErigmolCt wrote 1 day ago:
I suspect that's why experienced officers sometimes intervene like in
the OP's story
est31 wrote 1 day ago:
Note the date, it's April 1 1988.
Wowfunhappy wrote 1 day ago:
Just how little space was there on the form? I think I would have tried
something like:
"When I was 12 years old, I exchanged encrypted messages with friends.
The FBI found a code and briefly thought I was a spy."
Or, if there was even less space:
âAs child, used encryption for fun. FBI found code & investigated.â
I would want to avoid lying at all costs, even if a superior instructed
me to. Who knows what could happen.
rdtsc wrote 1 day ago:
> When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned it
quickly, looked me over slowly, then said, ``Explain this''--pointing
at the FBI question. I described what had happened. He got very
agitated, picked up my form, tore it in pieces, and threw it in the
waste basket.
> He then got out a blank form and handed it to me, saying ``Here, fill
it out again and don't mention that. If you do, I'll make sure that you
never get a security clearance.''
It's important to "see like the government" when dealing with the
government (pun on "seeing like a bank" by [1] if anyone didn't catch
the reference).
Everything fits into bins and categories with checkmarks and such. As
an entity it has no "bin" for "investigated as Japanese spy as a joke
when was a child". So you have to pick the closest bin that matches.
However, that doesn't mean the same government later won't turn around
also punish you for not picking the right "bin". Not "realizing" that
it's its own fault for not having enough categories i.e. bins for you
to pick. And, some may argue, that's a feature not a bug...
HTML [1]: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/seeing-like-a-bank/
john01dav wrote 18 hours 31 min ago:
In response to the seeing like a bank article, one thing which can
make this a lot better is to use asynchronous ticketing or messaging
systems instead of phone trees.
At my bank, I can just send a message in the app, even when it's
closed, about whatever I want. Then, when the bank opens, someone
reads it, and then either handles it, or transfers it. Then, if its
transferreed, that person either handles it or forwards again.
The same triaging of basic issues exists, the same tiers described in
the article, but the user interfece is wildly
superior. I take 1 minute to write what I need to write, and then a
few business hours later, its solved. I don't need to waste my time
on hold. I don't need to be instantly available for an undetermined
period for a call back. I don't need to explain the same issue
repeatedly. If I'm asked a question, I can answer it, and the answer
is then attached to the full log that every escalation or transfer
has full access to.
This is so much better that I refuse to do business with most
businesses that don't offer something like this. I was extremely
pissed when a data broker leaked my SSN and I was forced to deal with
such institutions to clean up that mess.
raverbashing wrote 21 hours 5 min ago:
Exactly this
People of a more autistic orientation here seem to think this is a
no-no when in fact it's quite the opposite
The note was investigated. Not the person.
shakna wrote 1 day ago:
And then, over with AGSVA, they just do interviews. Every candidate
gets one, and they absolutely do bring up all the random crap that
happens to various people as kids. And ask why it wasn't on your
form.
ErigmolCt wrote 1 day ago:
The danger isn't just being risky, it's being anomalous
notatoad wrote 1 day ago:
the challenge is always determining what the "bins" are.
maybe the government has no bin for "investegated by the FBI for a
silly and innocuous reason". but maybe they do, and lying about it
slots you into the bin for "lied on their security clearance form".
Frost1x wrote 1 day ago:
In the security space youâre encouraged to be as transparent as
possible. Most modern forms have ample space to write in detailed
explanations.
I have some silly not nearly as interesting infractions and I wrote
them out in detail explaining, without any issue in processing
background checks. It usually is something thatâs asked about in
an in person interview at that point.
phreeza wrote 1 day ago:
Not sure if you were maybe joking, but Seeing like a Bank is itself a
pun on the famous book "Seeing like a state"! [1] So you've come
almost full circle!
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
rdtsc wrote 1 day ago:
It is the full circle! patio11 refers to that explicitly in the
blog. But most people here probably saw and remember Pat's blog
more than the book.
jglamine wrote 1 day ago:
The book is very famous! I would guess more people have heard of
it than read that specific BAM post.
bigiain wrote 23 hours 9 min ago:
You're almost certainly right. But I bet the tables tip
distinctly the other way if you're talking about HN readers
instead of everybody. So I'd guess you're both right.
sam_lowry_ wrote 1 day ago:
I once worked at a top financial firm which had regular background
checks from Pinkerton (yeah, that very agency from the books and with
bad US history).
They sent me a questionnaire asking to fill personal details in a Word
file while their email signature said not to disclose personal details
over email.
Security clearance business is rotten to the core.
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
Security clearances are probably a really good example of Goodhart's
Law.
One reason for all these questions is really to determine if someone
can be blackmailed, and thus a security risk. (Big reason they look at
your financials and why debt can cause you to lose clearance) But the
letter of the law trumps the spirit. A common lie these days is about
weed usage. You may get or entirely rejected for having smoked in the
past even if you don't today (e.g. you tried it once in college but
didn't like it). So everyone lies and it creates a system where people
are even told to and encouraged to lie, like in TFA. The irony being
that this is exactly what creates the situation for blackmail! Now you
can get blackmailed for having that past thing cause you to lose your
job as well as lying on your clearance form.
Honestly it seems smarter to let the skeletons out of the closet. Spill
your secrets to the gov. Sure, maybe the gov can blackmail you but a
foreign government can't blackmail you for something that the gov
already knows. You can still have filters but the dynamic really needs
to change. Bureaucracy creates its own downfall. To reference another
comment, I'd rather a functional alcoholic have a clearance and the gov
know about it than a functional alcoholic have a security clearance and
the gov not know about it (or pretend to not know). We've somehow
turned clearance checks into security risks. What an idiotic thing to
do
scoodah wrote 1 day ago:
You shouldnât be denied for smoking weed in college and disclosing
it. I had no issues with that. The other thing is you can appeal a
denial of your clearance if you can demonstrate the issue is not an
issue. If you truly did only smoke weed in college and get denied due
to that, you could appeal and make your case that your weed use is
not ongoing, ended in college, and not an issue in your personal
life. Itâs not guaranteed to be a successful appeal, of course, but
the process does exist.
The bigger problem is when people fib about their usage. Saying you
only used it in college when youâve used it more recently is
something people do fairly often, and seemingly are encouraged to fib
about.
commandersaki wrote 1 day ago:
It seems to me that if you lie and get the clearance, it is better
than being honest and getting NACKed. Maybe morally dubious, but
there's financial incentive and motivation for having a clearance.
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
I think you need to reread my comment... you seem to have
misunderstandings...
hinata08 wrote 1 day ago:
imagine curing alcoholics and drug dependant ppl who work for you ?
I'm really surprised at how they would rather ignore or silence all
and report that they is strictly no problem among their pool of
employees, to say they have the best employees and good KPIs
It doesn't look like a winning strategy indeed.
I myself refused to do government jobs as the table in which you had
to list foreigners in your friend list was just so small. They prefer
you to say you don't know nobody.
Also yeah, I agree with you. These forms are straight out of the
1950s when more liberal habits have been coming since the 60s. And
we're straight up declining anyone who is outspoken about his habits
while he knows the true boundaries of the laws.
The government is just selecting applicants who do the sharia or some
straight up vague "you have to be a good guy" menaces that completely
opens them to blackmail
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
> imagine curing alcoholics and drug dependant ppl who work for you
?
To complicate this further I think people don't recognize how
people can start their jobs without problems and then gain them.
These are stressful jobs (and with low pay) so that itself is a
common gateway to a drinking problem. But there's also very mundane
ways too. A large number of heroine and fentanyl addicts had their
addictions begin through use of legal medication. The problem is we
have a culture that pretends addiction is a choice and that the
only to become addicted is through poor decisions and that to kick
an addiction just requires "really wanting to stop". But that's not
really consistent with the definition of addiction...
It seems like a poor strategy for high security topics, like you
say. If anything, I want these people to have zero fear of opening
up about their addictions. Be it gained unintentionally or through
bad decisions. Reason being that 1) it reduces the risk of
blackmail and 2) giving them a pathway to help also reduces their
chance of blackmail. We don't even need to mention the fact that
these are people and should be treated with kindness, we have
entirely selfish reasons to be selfless.
> I myself refused to do government jobs as the table in which
you had to list foreigners in your friend list was just so small.
I always found that odd myself. Do these people know what the
demographics of a typical American University are these days? If
you don't have a decent list of foreign nationals then you're
either 1) a social recluse or 2) in a cultural bubble, and probably
not the kind that we want people with this kind of authority to
have... But I think they could resolve some of this by clarifying
what level of contact they mean. Is it someone you sit next to in
class and talk to frequently? Or do they not count if you don't
talk with them outside class or study groups? Last time I looked at
the forum it seems like they want you to just list anyone you ever
talked to.
Personally I've avoided getting a clearance because I just don't
see the value. It is a lot of work to put together, forces you to
be more quiet about what you work on, means you need to be more
careful/vigilant in every day things and especially when traveling,
and all for what? Low pay and not even that cool of work? I mean if
it was working on alien technologies and cool sci-fi shit, sign me
up! But the reality is that most of the work isn't very exciting.
I'd rather have more freedom, more pay, and work on more
interesting things. Maybe their work can have more purpose and more
impact, but I am also not convinced that's true for the majority of
things you need clearance for (even as a person in STEM).
vscode-rest wrote 1 day ago:
This information is highly outdated. You can say any number of things
on your SF86 and still get cleared. This is indeed the point.
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
The weed example is something that happened to a friend of mine.
That's within the last 5 years...
In fact, I remember Comey saying something about it too. But the
rule as I know it is not having smoked in the last 3 years. While
that is probably fine for most people, it does seem to have a bias
when you're considering people fresh out of college. Considering
that college is frequently where people try weed, along with a lot
of other things (not even drugs, just new activities, dress styles,
and so on) as they find themselves.
vscode-rest wrote 1 day ago:
That is not the rule by any means. 6 months is a rule of thumb.
What exactly happened to your friend? It is not in the domain of
possibility that they were explicitly informed âyou are being
rejected for X reasonâ, so everything they do say is pure
speculation. Probably, they lied about something and got caught.
OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah on my SF86 I listed all the dumb shit I did and the investigator
called obviously kind of concerned but receptive. We went through
each one and his key point was "do you understand you can't do that"
and as long as you answered yes, documented it on the form ahead of
time, and it was obvious you weren't lying through your teeth then
pretty much anything you did that wasn't in the last 3-5 years was
pretty much immediately forgiven.
Some security officers are really touchy on these kinds of things and
will tell you to exclude or lie but investigators pretty much never
care what you did as long as it is obvious you don't plan on doing
those types of things again or being an active problem.
They just want it for their records and they want you to be an open
book such that they don't feel you are concealing anything
problematic.
godelski wrote 1 day ago:
> Some security officers are really touchy on these kinds of things
and will tell you to exclude or lie
But this is the problem. It is good that the investigators don't
care but the security officers are the one you meet and talk with.
They set the tone. Them doing this gives people the impression that
investigators will care. And frankly, some do. I don't think we can
dismiss the security officer's role here.
dang wrote 1 day ago:
Related. Others?
What not to write on your security clearance form (1988) - [1] - Jan
2023 (545 comments)
What Not To Write On Your Security Clearance Form - [2] - June 2010 (98
comments)
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34437937
HTML [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653
grepfru_it wrote 1 day ago:
In case you want to read about the proactive information speeding up
your security clearance:
HTML [1]: https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/6/50
kamyarg wrote 23 hours 5 min ago:
This has been one of the best articles I have read.
Thank you for the digging that up and sharing.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
I appreciate the fun, but he's clearly messing with them or has
Asperger's. You can definitely reduce hoops by knowing the bins,
which they helped him with.
SpaceNoodled wrote 1 day ago:
Clever, but I'd worry that they'd actually find some way to nail me.
aliceryhl wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you. I was wondering about that.
ink_13 wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for posting. That's actually a much more interesting story.
neilv wrote 1 day ago:
This sounds a bit like Feynman. I wonder whether it was more the
style of the time.
gwbas1c wrote 1 day ago:
I ran a dial-up BBS in the late 1990s. One summer a few of my loyal
users suddenly stopped calling.
About a year later I learned that one of my users hacked an airport. At
the time a few of my users would set their computers to dial random
numbers and find modems answering. One of the numbers was a very
strange system with no password. The story I heard was that they didn't
know what the system was, because it had no identifying information.
HTML [1]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/doj-charges-yo...
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago:
> the hacker left behind a calling card by changing the system
identification name to "Jester."
> The attack on the branch of an unidentified major pharmacy chain
occurred on four separate occasions from January through March of
last year. The hacker acquired the names, contact information, and
prescriptions for the pharmacy's customers
I think the story you heard was a watered down version of what they
were doing. You canât do things like exfiltrate data from a
pharmacy database and not know what the system youâre attacking is
for.
TrackerFF wrote 1 day ago:
The fact is that even for (NATO) top secret security clearances, there
are lots of people that lie through their teeth, and receive the
clearance. Obviously on things that aren't in any records. The big ones
being alcohol use, drug use, personal finances, foreign partners. Some
are more forgiving than others, though.
The military is unfortunately chock full of functional alcoholics. As
long as they don't get caught drunk on the job, seen partying too much,
DIU, or admit anything to their doctor, they keep getting renewed their
clearance.
Interestingly enough, if there's even the smallest suspicious that you
smoke weed, they'll put you through the wringer. I've seen more people
lose their clearance for pissing hot, than those with six figure debts
or drinking 5 days a week.
Nasrudith wrote 15 hours 15 min ago:
The punchline is that automatic firing for 'vulnerabilities' itself
creates the very blackmail vulnerabilities they are trying to avoid.
kevin_thibedeau wrote 22 hours 22 min ago:
The US government uses data brokers and the banking industry to
continuously monitor cleared people. Eventually they will find any
problematic patterns of life.
samus wrote 19 hours 48 min ago:
The point is that they seem to worry more about being a weed user
than being an alcoholic.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
omg this was my experience. I figured there was no point lying
officially, so I listed exactly how many times I smoked weed and took
mdma. I was banished to the unclear side for my entire 3 years there.
Meanwhile the head of IT was a raging alcoholic. I even wrote their
very first J2EE webapp, which required me to be escorted to the
cleared side anytime someone needed help with my code. I couldn't
touch the keyboards! I was giving vi instructions verbally lol
0xTJ wrote 1 day ago:
I was chatting with an old classmate at a homecoming a few months
ago, and he mentioned that, during the polygraph top get Canadian Top
Secret clearance for a co-op job, he had to say how many drinks he
had each week. Being a university student, it got brushed aside, but
the answer was considered to be alcoholism-level.
ghostpepper wrote 23 hours 0 min ago:
You can get co-op/internship that requires a Top Secret clearance?
not_the_fda wrote 12 hours 20 min ago:
Yep. I worked on the control system for the Virginia class attack
sub-marines for my co-op. Also got to ride around in a Seawolf
class submarine.
seabass-labrax wrote 21 hours 44 min ago:
There are co-operatives in manufacturing which would need their
staff to be security-cleared in order to win government contacts
(such as assembling weapons). Perhaps this is what parent is
referring to. Co-ops aren't just for groceries :)
xav0989 wrote 17 hours 23 min ago:
In the Canadian university lingo, co-op refers to a (usually
paid) internship that you complete as part of your degree. You
usually have a couple co-op terms/semesters along with your
traditional terms. For example, you may start your degree with
two semesters of classes, then a semester of co-op, then one of
classes, then another two co-ops, more classes, etc. until you
complete the degree requirements. Degrees with a co-op
requirement usually will make mention of it (e.g. Software
Engineering with co-op).
Terr_ wrote 1 day ago:
In a weird way, that's almost a positive sign, if you view the
security-clearance process as mostly being about quickly clearing
away secrets that could be used for blackmail down the line, when
the person has more authority and more to lose.
Terr_ wrote 16 hours 46 min ago:
P.S.: Further musing: There's a system-design tension between
granting access to people that are "perfect" versus "flawed in
ways we are aware of and can manage." Where a process ought to
land on that spectrum depends on certain assumptions about
baseline applicant quality, an estimate of the organization's
accuracy at [false/true] [negatives/positives], and the impacts.
If you auto-reject the people who admit to something sub-criminal
like cheating on their spouse, that means no applicant will ever
admit to it, so you'll end up with more people hid it. In the
long run, that means a higher proportion of employees who have
something an adversary can use for blackmail, and the blackmail
is more-effective because the repercussions are large.
DonHopkins wrote 1 day ago:
The US Military is currently led by a dysfunctional alcoholic totally
unqualified DUI hire.
hinkley wrote 1 day ago:
When gift buying for minimalist friends it's common to offer gifts of
perishable items or experiences like tickets. So that a week from now
the gift has been cleared from their domicile.
It also seems like a fairly smart way to do graft. If you're bribing
someone and they drink up or smoke all the evidence then they can't
prove how much or how often you bribed them. Which would make
alcoholics a good target especially if you can get your hands on
fancy liquor.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
I doubt anyone in an official capacity is using such techniques,
but I can tell you this is common in sales. A lot of people in
management with control of budget have at least one of just a
handful of human weaknesses.
HWR_14 wrote 1 day ago:
The Vietnam War and all the soldiers on drugs encouraged a very
strict drug policy.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
Makes complete sense. I've spent some time around Southeast Asia
and met plenty of vets that discovered many psychoactive substances
who also happen to be anti-war.
ErigmolCt wrote 1 day ago:
A lot of that comes down to what's objectively verifiable vs what's
discretionary, and also what's culturally normalized inside the org.
albedoa wrote 1 day ago:
> Interestingly enough, if there's even the smallest suspicious that
you smoke weed, they'll put you through the wringer. I've seen more
people lose their clearance for pissing hot, than those with six
figure debts or drinking 5 days a week.
I have to defer to you here since it sounds like my experience is
more limited, but this is not my understanding at all. The agencies
care a lot about financial indiscretions, as those applicants are
most susceptible to compromise. And indeed, if you look at the lists
of denials and appeals, you might think that money issues are the
only reason anyone is ever denied.
Lying about having smoked weed is another story.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
First job out of college, I spilled my guts on form 86, ~40 joints,
~10 ecstasy. Denied clearance the entire 3 years. This was 2002.
albedoa wrote 1 day ago:
Were you sponsored by a company? I feel like there is a
difference in diligence and expeditiousness when you have a
sponsor that is familiar to the OMP/DoD.
And yeah, I said something like "I smoked a couple times in
college but not anymore". This was about two years after college.
I wonder if quantifying your joints raised a flag lol.
hinkley wrote 1 day ago:
How do you really ever know if someone you hired for psyops is
telling you the truth?
ganoushoreilly wrote 1 day ago:
It gets weirder when they train you how to evade polygraphs as
part of your role.. only to have you take one for your re
investigation and to be asked "have you ever tried to evade a
polygraph" or something along those lines. Of course you're not
in a SCIF and your training or having been exposed to that
training may in fact be classified. Quite the pickle..
lesuorac wrote 1 day ago:
> The military is unfortunately chock full of functional alcoholics.
As long as they don't get caught drunk on the job, seen partying too
much, DIU, or admit anything to their doctor, they keep getting
renewed their clearance.
Well yeah. If it's not affecting your job then what's it matter? If
your a closet alcoholic then sure that's something the Russians could
hold over you.
There's millions of people with clearances; that's impossible to
staff at below market wages and also above average moral(?)
standards.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
And, within high-trust societies (eg Japan, Korea, Vietnam) getting
wasted lubricates social bonds in the workplace. I've met
successful functional alcoholics. Seriously, they actually function
and make lots of money. They're also fun to be around as long as
you're not working for them.
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago:
> If it's not affecting your job then what's it matter? If your a
closet alcoholic then sure that's something the Russians could hold
over you
Alcohol lowers inhibitions and alters decision making. Drinking a
lot of alcohol more so than casual drinking. Frequently drinking a
lot of alcohol has a very high area under the curve of poor
decision making.
Functional alcoholism can come with delusions of sobriety where the
person believes theyâre not too drunk despite being heavily
impaired.
So theyâll do things like have a few (or ten) drinks before
checking their email. It makes them a better target for everything
like fishing attacks, as one example.
Itâs not just about enemies holding it against you.
vscode-rest wrote 1 day ago:
Gross misunderstanding of the threat model.
Phishing is not the problem here. Your laptop isnât getting
SIPR emails with links to fake login screens.
sigwinch wrote 14 hours 12 min ago:
They donât ask about any of that. If in a drunken blackout
you find a USB drive on the subway and plug it in, the system
is concerned about the blackout state and not the USB. Itâs
self preservation depends on telling the difference between
incompetence and deception.
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago:
I think youâre misunderstanding the threat model for why
security clearance cares about impaired judgment of your off
time, too. Thereâs more to these peopleâs lives than when
theyâre on the clock (figuratively speaking). Getting
compromised anywhere is a problem.
sigwinch wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
I think youâre right. These are human systems always
fighting the prior battle. Nowadays, itâs probably true
that the threat from digital hygiene exceeds any intention to
leak. The way thatâs demonstrated is by the Secretary of
Defense misusing Signal instead of being one level smarter
and intuitively making the right messaging choice. The system
is very much ready to build a preternaturally superimposing
file on Pete Hegseth. But the system as a substitute for
imagination is not elaborated to improve itself.
wongarsu wrote 1 day ago:
Being drunk at the bar/club/social event and telling that very
interested lady a bit too much is probably the better example
Still not as bad as being susceptible to blackmail or bribes
vscode-rest wrote 1 day ago:
That is not correlated to Alcoholism. The âextremely hot
spyâ problem is essentially unsolved.
tbihl wrote 23 hours 54 min ago:
I got ads from the army about "extremely hot spy" over
Valentines day weekend
heraldgeezer wrote 1 day ago:
Are you saying weed should be punished less, or the others should be
punished like weed?
c22 wrote 1 day ago:
I'm not sure security clearance is really about punishing people.
heraldgeezer wrote 1 day ago:
You know exactly what I mean. Chased after, investigated?
c22 wrote 1 day ago:
I think I'm less confident that I know what you mean now than I
was before.
b112 wrote 1 day ago:
Who are you replying to? When I click 'parent' on your post,
the poster said nothing about his opinion on what should be
done, only what he's seen.
drdaeman wrote 1 day ago:
I think theyâre saying that there is an inconsistency, but they
donât suggest anything, leaving any conclusions to the reader.
Itâs just âthings arenât rightâ, and not âhereâs what
we need to doâ¦â
heraldgeezer wrote 1 day ago:
Yes and I am saying I am tired of those boring cop-out
"analysis". Yes, having a social science degree, it was full of
those. Make solutions instead. Anyone can """analyze""".
moron4hire wrote 1 day ago:
> I've seen more people lose their clearance for pissing hot
When? In the 90s? Biggest pothead I know has had a clearance since
'05. For my own form, I straight up admitted I had done it and did
not regret it.
hinkley wrote 1 day ago:
It was always explained to me as a mix between, 'are you going to
fuck things up by being in an altered state' and 'is someone going
to blackmail you to make you into a double agent?'
If your family and wife know you sometimes sleep with men, that's
not necessarily a problem. If nobody knows, that's a problem.
Similarly if your wife and boss don't know you owe $50,000 to a
bookie or your coke dealer, that's a liability.
Actually would be sort of interesting if your boss did know you
owed a bookie $50k and they found a way to use that to make you
into a triple agent...
tucnak wrote 19 hours 11 min ago:
> Actually would be sort of interesting if your boss did know you
owed a bookie $50k and they found a way to use that to make you
into a triple agent...
Welcome to counterintelligence you'll like it here
ikr678 wrote 1 day ago:
>It was always explained to me as a mix between, 'are you going
to fuck things up by being in an altered state' and 'is someone
going to blackmail you to make you into a double agent?'
You are missing the foremost consideration - how
critical/specialised/irreplacable is this person in their role
and can we just ignore the positive test instead.
If you are good enough at what you do and management like you
positive tests dont seem to matter if you make the right noises
about it being a one off, retesting clean etc.
acehilm123456 wrote 1 day ago:
When I was 15, a couple months short of 16, I ended up working as a
student intern at a research facility. They required a clearance to
badge into and out of the building, but I never worked on anything that
directly needed the clearance.
So I was given the form to fill in and read the question:
Since you were 16, or in the last 7 seven years, have you ever smoked
weed?
So I thought, I guess I better think back to when I was 8!
moron4hire wrote 1 day ago:
I have a somewhat similar story involving the death of an extremely
elderly neighbor by an accident on his farm,
and the suspicion by the state police that I at 12 years old had
murdered him, based solely on someone saying they thought they saw me
messing with his mailbox from a car that was similar to the one parked
in our driveway. The mailbox which stood directly next to ours at the
end of an easily walkable driveway. So yes, Mr. SF-86, I had once been
investigated for a felony. Oh, you're only supposed to tell the truth
if the truth will help the government catch to a bad guy? Very
impressive system, sir. Top notch.
dgacmu wrote 1 day ago:
The modern SF-86 only asks about charged, not investigated (and
AFAIR, that was the case also 20 years ago).
(And arrested, but presumably you were not).
svag wrote 1 day ago:
Not related to this story, but this one [1] was hilarious :)
HTML [1]: https://milk.com/true-stories/stupid_computer_users.txt
avodonosov wrote 1 day ago:
This story was written in another text also and discussed on HN. It was
longer and the author also described how later in life he introduced a
standard to wear hemlets on bicycle competitions. (Sorry, I dont have a
link handy)
forinti wrote 1 day ago:
> On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that putting
certain provocative information on a security clearance form can
greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is another story.
I have to know this now...
kyusan0 wrote 1 day ago:
Here you go:
HTML [1]: https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html
p1anecrazy wrote 1 day ago:
What a wholesome guy. Thanks for the read
denotational wrote 1 day ago:
> On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that putting
certain provocative information on a security clearance form can
greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is another story.
Presumably this is the famous (?) story of him listing his race as
âmongrelâ whenever asked?
nosrepa wrote 1 day ago:
From elsewhere in this thread:
HTML [1]: https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html
boothby wrote 1 day ago:
Boggles the mind that the advice from the security was to lie on the
form, which is almost certainly a felony.
sigwinch wrote 14 hours 6 min ago:
Nitpick: itâs not like the FBI investigated a 12-year-old with a
library card. That would be humiliating. They investigated an
alarming new cipher and doggedly ran down any possibility of a West
Coast sleeper cell during an era of Japanese internment.
The right answer was: the FBI was investigating the note.
nashashmi wrote 20 hours 23 min ago:
The word investigated is a lot bigger than some simple inquiry
someone makes. Investigation is actually a complete tear down of
someone's past in a search for clues. He was not investigated. He
played a part in an investigation of a lost cipher. His cipher was
investigated.
HWR_14 wrote 1 day ago:
The advice was from the 1949-1952 period. I imagine that was the
prevailing wisdom developed getting literal former Nazis jobs in our
space program, etc.
scoodah wrote 1 day ago:
In this particular case I think it has more to do with the times than
anything else. Discovering the records of that investigation from
when he was 12 in the 40âs would have likely been a massive
undertaking if not impossible. The investigator likely recognized
this and just had him remove it.
These days I donât think that happens with digital records.
Omitting that incident would almost certainly cause more issues than
not now as Iâm sure theyâd turn up in the investigation. If not
included on your sf86 youâd likely be grilled about it.
Investigators are usually reasonable in my experience. If you omitted
it because you earnestly forgot because it happened when you were 12,
theyâd likely understand if you were forthcoming about it during
your interview. Investigators are human though so it depends on how
they feel.
What they really care about is stuff to try to purposely hide.
ErigmolCt wrote 1 day ago:
Clearance forms are weird in that they're not just legal documents,
they're inputs into an investigative process
midtake wrote 1 day ago:
He was TWELVE at the time the "investigation" happened, and he
clearly wasn't engaged as a suspect. His mother was.
He had no obligation to put that on security clearance form
whatsoever.
tomrod wrote 1 day ago:
He wasn't investigated though. His missing glasses and hobby were.
Once they found out the owner was not worth investigation, it was
dropped.
xenocratus wrote 1 day ago:
I mean, his name is Les Earnest, they should expect it.
bityard wrote 1 day ago:
It's easy to pass judgement on a decision like that when so far
removed from the context where/when it took place.
It's likely that answering yes to that question meant an instant
rejection for the clearance AND summer job. The FBI was probably not
inclined to spend money looking into such an obviously trivial matter
just so some kid could get some work experience. "Sorry, try the
McDonald's down the street."
That security officer did the author an incredibly big favor.
appplication wrote 1 day ago:
When I joined the Air Force, they helped us fill out the clearance
forms. One question was related to marijuana use in the past. The NCO
helping us told us âif you have used it before, be honest. They
will know.â But then followed it up with âremember: you used it
less than 5 times and you didnât like itâ.
mgerdts wrote 1 day ago:
I remember similar advice.
In Navy boot camp the person reviewing my security clearance
application (which was filled out weeks before) was very helpful in
the way he asked the critical question. âIt says here you tried
marijuana once. Is that true?â
bell-cot wrote 1 day ago:
"Well, some guy I didn't know very well said it was marijuana -
but how would I know? All it seemed to do was make my eyes
water, and give me a headache..."
pbhjpbhj wrote 1 day ago:
He lied originally, kinda.
He made a cypher with a school friend, which cypher was handed by a
stranger to the FBI and investigated. That one possible outcome of
the investigation might be 'the subject is a Japanese spy' doesn't
mean _he_ was suspected of that; not by the FBI at least.
If he said, "I made a cypher in school", then likely the form would
have been considered fine? Presumably his record clearly showed the
FBI incident, so I'm surprised that lying in the second form didn't
cause concern sufficient to question him. But there you go; I've
never had any associations with TLAs, what would I know.
cs02rm0 wrote 1 day ago:
The travel forms to visit the US ask if people have ever been
involved in espionage, at least they did, I'm not aware that it's
changed.
You can guarantee the many people who work for intelligence agencies
of US allies aren't admitting to that when they travel to the US.
It's all a bit of a game.
swiftcoder wrote 1 day ago:
Those forms also ask if you've ever been a member of a communist
party, and basically everyone over 35 in all of Eastern Europe
would have to check that one (they don't, if they want to enter the
US)
midtake wrote 1 day ago:
Do you mean everyone who was 18 by 1989, or 55 today?
swiftcoder wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, my sense of the passage of time is a little off. I've met
folks who were members of the FDJ in East Germany as young
teens, but as you say, they are 50-ish now.
selkin wrote 1 day ago:
Every statement in the above comment is wrong:
People born in the 90s wouldnât have a chance to be old enough
to belong to any group other than a preschool before the collapse
of the Soviet and Soviet aligned regimes.
For those who were adults before 1990, while they may have been
party members for reasons unrelated to political ideology, it
wasnât as common: in the late 80s, only ~10% of adults in
Warsaw pact countries were communist party members. Far from
âeveryoneâ.
And even if you check that in the DS-160 visa application form,
you are allowed to add an explanation. Consular visa officers are
very well familiar with the political situation at the countries
they are stationed in, and can grant visa even if the box is
checked.
binarymax wrote 1 day ago:
The reasoning for some of these questions is that if you are
caught, itâs sometimes easier to charge you with fraud (lying on
the form) than the actual thing (such as espionage).
4gotunameagain wrote 1 day ago:
Wouldn't they need the be able to prove that you are a spy in
order to argue that you lied ? In which case who cares about the
form ?
toast0 wrote 1 day ago:
There's often also some arbitrage on standard of proof or
statutes of limitation or jurisdiction.
Maybe to deport you for espionage requires a jury trial, but to
revoke status for misleading answers on an immigration form is
administrative and so is deportation for lack of status.
I seem to recall some extraordinary cases where untruthful
answers on immigration forms were used to justify
denaturalization.
xboxnolifes wrote 1 day ago:
Proving you worked for a spy agency is far easier than proving
you did spying in actuality. Assuming you didn't get caught in
the act.
bigfatkitten wrote 1 day ago:
The fact you worked for an intelligence agency doesnât mean
you were an intelligence officer. You couldâve been a
cleaner, or an executive assistant, or maybe you were working
as a software developer on the payroll system.
stnikolauswagne wrote 1 day ago:
Thats why I presume its asking about previous engagements, if
they catch someone they suspect of espionage, dig into their
background and find proof of previous activity they have a
clear fraud charge without having to prove their suspicions
about current activities.
dcminter wrote 1 day ago:
"Do you seek to engage in or have you ever engaged in terrorist
activities, espionage, sabotage, or genocide?"
Quite.
pbhjpbhj wrote 1 day ago:
But they're required by laws of their own country to lie,
presumably. There are certainly game-like aspects.
master_crab wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs also odd, because usually, as long as you donât lie on your
security form, youâll get your clearance.
The coverup is always worse than the original sin.
DennisP wrote 1 day ago:
And there's good reason for that. Someone with a clearance once
explained to me that they're mainly worried about things that make
you vulnerable to exploitation by foreign agents. If you're
covering something up, that's something they can use to blackmail
you.
But maybe if the thing you're revealing is "I myself was suspected
to be a spy," that changes the calculus a bit.
u1hcw9nx wrote 1 day ago:
If it is plausible that you did not remember, it's not a felony.
Something that happened for 12-years old is easy to forget.
There is nothing morally wrong in felonies like this, just don't get
caught.
bigfatkitten wrote 1 day ago:
Not remembering is one thing, but if they find out during the
vetting process, and then they ask you about it, your answers had
better be forthright.
mcmcmc wrote 1 day ago:
> There is nothing morally wrong in felonies like this, just don't
get caught.
Highly debatable. If you believe in a categorical imperative that
to intentionally deceive another person is wrong, then lying by
omission is still an immoral act. A Christian might also interpret
the words of Jesus âRender to Caesar what is Caesarâsâ as an
imperative to comply fully with the law of the land.
raverbashing wrote 20 hours 26 min ago:
Cool, you do that then. I bet you'll get a gold star at the end
of the year
kelnos wrote 1 day ago:
There are many laws in many jurisdictions that are immoral.
Following those laws would be an immoral act. Legality and
morality should be aligned, but in the real world they often
aren't.
If Jesus (assuming he existed, even, regardless of any sort of
divinity) tells us that following the law is always the moral
thing to do, then he was wrong.
pluralfossum wrote 1 day ago:
Mala in se vs. mala prohibita.
I don't think it's all that debatable to say that deceiving
people is categorically wrong, nor is it to say that it's immoral
not to follow the laws of the land -- both are obviously untrue
as absolute statements.
For extreme examples, would it be immoral to lie to the Gestapo
about harboring Jews? Were people illegally helping slaves escape
the American South being immoral?
HWR_14 wrote 1 day ago:
> would it be immoral to lie to the Gestapo about harboring
Jews?
This is something that first/second year philosophy students do
debate.
defrost wrote 1 day ago:
Minnosoteans are currently hiding, feeding, and supplying
undocumented community members.
They are not debating it.
mcmcmc wrote 1 day ago:
You are completely missing the point of the categorical
imperative. There are no exceptions, no loopholes, no
utilitarian calculus.
> For extreme examples, would it be immoral to lie to the
Gestapo about harboring Jews? Were people illegally helping
slaves escape the American South being immoral?
If you believe in that categorical imperative, then yes. Iâm
not saying I believe in it or that Kantian philosophy is the
only correct one. There are endless belief systems and
philosophical schools of thought that can be used to answer
that question, and they will have different answers for
different reasons.
roughly wrote 1 day ago:
The thing that is missed in most efforts to replace people with
machines is how often the people that are being replaced are on the
fly fixing the system the machine is intended to crystallize and
automate.
ctoth wrote 1 day ago:
And then, how often they aren't[0]
[0]: "Computer Says No"
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago:
> how often the people that are being replaced are on the fly
fixing the system the machine is intended to crystallize and
automate.
If the system is broken, this is actually a good thing.
I have some experience doing automation work in small and large
scale factories. When automating manufacturing work you almost
always discover some flaws in the product or process that humans
have been covering up as part of their job. These problems surface
during the automation phase and get prioritized for fixes.
You might think you could accomplish the same thing by directly
asking the people doing the work what could be improved, but in my
experience they either donât notice it any more because itâs
part of their job or, in extreme cases, they like that the
inefficiency exists because they think it provides extra job
security.
michaelt wrote 1 day ago:
> If the system is broken, this is actually a good thing.
Sometimes when you reveal extensive noncompliance with dumb
requirements, the requirements get less dumb. Other times, the
organisation doubles down and starts punishing the noncompliance.
My employer's official security policies say everyone should
kensington lock their laptop to their desk at all times, even
though the office is behind two guards and three security doors.
Nobody does. But if someone made a load of noise about it,
there's no guarantee they'd remove the widely ignored rule; they
might instead start enforcing it.
mark-r wrote 13 hours 10 min ago:
And so people learn to not make noise. And another broken
system remains entrenched, forever.
roughly wrote 1 day ago:
> If the system is broken, this is actually a good thing.
And the system is always broken. Reality is messy, systems are
rigid, there always has to be a permissive layer somewhere in the
interface.
yowayb wrote 1 day ago:
So many websites and apps are still broken in so many little
ways. Maybe broken isn't the right word. But all kinds of
annoyances and breaches still happen all the time.
I generally don't complain/review, and just learn the
workarounds/shortcuts, but I very much welcome the increased
(albeit perhaps less skilled) workforce leverage, because I
think in a year or so we'll see steady improvements
accumulating.
Dansvidania wrote 1 day ago:
This is exactly why âautomationâ hasnât taken _that_ many
jobs. It is a totally overlooked detail. Thanks for the reminder.
threatofrain wrote 1 day ago:
Some industrial shipping docks can be managed by a very small
crew. I think this is the metaphor for what's going to happen to
a lot of industries.
reactordev wrote 1 day ago:
Iâm not so sure. They operate that way because of scale and
economy (and tech that enables that). In a future where all
industries are optimized in such way, very little will actually
flow as most wonât have the money to buy goods, thus
factories wonât make goods, thus shippers wonât ship, and
the global economy grinds to a halt.
We need waste as much as we need investment. The trick is to
find the value in between. I think the sweet spot will be
augmenting work, not necessarily optimizing it.
foxglacier wrote 1 day ago:
That doesn't seem to make sense. As things get cheaper and
wages go down too because there's an oversupply of labor,
those poorer people can still afford those cheaper things.
reactordev wrote 1 day ago:
Things never get cheaper. The only things that have reduced
in cost is tech related because we kept making advancements
as per Mooreâs law.
The two things that matter, housing and food, are way way
up.
animal_spirits wrote 21 hours 23 min ago:
Luxuries are cheap and necessities are expensive
htrp wrote 1 day ago:
dark factory
Someone1234 wrote 1 day ago:
This is what a lot of people miss about "AI will replace"
programmers narrative.
When converting from a traditional process to an electronic one,
half my job is twisting people's arms and playing mind reader
trying to determine what they ACTUALLY do day-to-day instead of the
hypothetical offical, documented, process.
Some of the workarounds that people do instead of updating the
process are damn right unhinged.
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote 1 day ago:
Without going into details, just recently I was able to get
pretty decent business requirements from group manager, but it
seems the only reason I was able to get somewhat decent idea of
what they actually do, is because there was certain level of
trust since we worked together previously so there was no need to
bs one another. I openly stated what I thought is doable and he
seemed to understand that I need to know actual use cases.
edit: Otoh, my boss is kinda giving up on automating another
group's process, because he seems to be getting a lot of 'it
depends' answers.
Someone1234 wrote 1 day ago:
I will say, in a lot of cases, they aren't BS-ing/lying with
intent. Just the general way their minds work seemingly isn't
compatible with the very idea of laying out the process in its
entirety (inc. the warts/hacks/workarounds).
So what ultimately winds up happening is, you'll roll out the
process according to the official way, and then it is
drip-drip-drip of changes as you find out the real-world
version.
alansaber wrote 1 day ago:
Probably thought he was joking around. This was for a summer
internship after all.
breadchris wrote 1 day ago:
I got distracted by how incredible owning milk.com is
Hamuko wrote 1 day ago:
In an incredible coincidence, I just yesterday listened to a podcast
episode that discussed milk.com.
HTML [1]: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/03/nx-s1-5526903/domain-name-val...
alansaber wrote 1 day ago:
Almost as cool as owning ai.com!!
c22 wrote 1 day ago:
How do you feel about x.com?
DonHopkins wrote 1 day ago:
Never heard of it. Do you mean twitter.com?
jsheard wrote 1 day ago:
Buying AI.com for an AI company just shows they have more money
than imagination. Many such cases during the dot-com era (pets.com,
mp3.com).
The real flex would be for AI.com to have nothing to do with AI
whatsoever.
DonHopkins wrote 1 day ago:
Artificial Insemination is a massive global industrial SaaS
(Sperm as as Service), one of the few sectors that can literally
make its customers' clients come and deliver!
zarzavat wrote 1 day ago:
> The real flex would be for AI.com to have nothing to do with AI
whatsoever
Apple Intelligence?
amarant wrote 1 day ago:
Apple Inc. was right there man.
Talk about missing the low hanging fruit!
;)
gundmc wrote 1 day ago:
Not on the same scale as AI, but my first ever AirBnB host still
owns harley.com. He made his money writing "The Yellow Pages of
the Internet" physical books and had turned down numerous
lucrative offers from Harley Davidson.
Really fascinating and quirky guy as you can probably infer from
the site.
jsheard wrote 1 day ago:
Similarly, the guy who owned nissan.com never sold out and
continues to spite Nissan Motors even in death. [1] You've got
to actually use a trademark-adjacent domain in good faith
though, otherwise you might get the rug pulled from under you.
HTML [1]: https://nissan.com/
HTML [2]: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a69634055/75-million...
qup wrote 1 day ago:
He used to (maybe still does) have a page where he talked about
turning down millions of dollars for it.
pousada wrote 1 day ago:
See the link above.
Heâs willing to part with it for 10 million
jsheard wrote 1 day ago:
[1] Also the server header is "lactoserv"
HTML [1]: https://milk.com/value/
tokenless wrote 1 day ago:
Err. Id consider a 1m+ offer if I were him. With explosion of tlds
and AI making the domain name less relevant (you ask AI and click
its link) it will probably depreciate and better to grab $$$ and
invest elsewhere.
connorgurney wrote 1 day ago:
Which is a real server, no less!
HTML [1]: https://github.com/danfuzz/lactoserv
simantel wrote 1 day ago:
purple.com had a similar page for years, and eventually the
mattress company rolled up with a dumptruck load of cash
tverbeure wrote 1 day ago:
The FAQ is super informative!
HTML [1]: https://milk.com/faq/
hypercube33 wrote 1 day ago:
I miss the Grate book of MOO lore from Usenet
Dansvidania wrote 1 day ago:
Is it allowed to lol on HN?
vntok wrote 14 hours 25 min ago:
Increasingly more every year.
DonHopkins wrote 1 day ago:
No, you can only go low: "MOO!"
WalterGR wrote 1 day ago:
You are welcome to lol silently.
Dansvidania wrote 1 day ago:
Nah
lacoolj wrote 1 day ago:
Wonder if author name is Alice
ctoth wrote 1 day ago:
"Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"
lesuorac wrote 1 day ago:
For context: Alice's Restaurant Massacree [1]:
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaKIX6oaSLs
bombcar wrote 1 day ago:
It's obvious the real spy was Bob.
jll29 wrote 1 day ago:
Bob AKA "Satoshi-san".
sargun wrote 1 day ago:
I find it a little funny how much the government spends on these dead
end investigations. We never will know precisely how much is wasted.
tverbeure wrote 1 day ago:
And then when something big happens, everybody and their dog starts
screaming âhow could this happen?!?â
You canât have it both ways⦠(not specifically directed at you.)
Nasrudith wrote 15 hours 4 min ago:
I think it is quite reasonable to tell incompetents that they can't
just cover their ass by claiming "you can't demand perfection".
These are the same kind of incompetents who want the pay but not
the responsibility of the position. Who think that building a giant
haystack of all of the data is the solution so they can illogically
claim to have prevented something that because you had that needle
in there somewhere! Except you never found it in time because you
were too busy building the tower of Babel out of hay! It is just
utterly idiotic double-think. (Cough, cough NSA!)
topkai22 wrote 1 day ago:
Investigating a cryptographic key found near a major military
installation during war time doesnât strike me as a waste of money.
We have the full information about the outcome, but the San Diego FBI
field office did not.
I think thatâs what makes this story so funny- the FBI was acting
appropriately and rationally, but ended up with a relatively absurd
result.
dehrmann wrote 1 day ago:
If a Japanese spy knew this would happen, they could waste enormous
amounts of time by spreading unused keys around San Diego.
basilgohar wrote 1 day ago:
It's not funny. It's a dag-gone jobs program. ICE, TSA, and more
throw away billions to effect little but a heavy burden on the
population. These organizations, FBI and other law enforcement
included, invent crises and problems so as to secure even more
funding.
Maybe the individual investigator in the story is excepted
considering it seems he took it seriously, perhaps, but yes, a lot of
money is intentionally thrown into these organizations for security
theater, jobs programs, and padding the pockets of political friends
and cronies.
What we should be worried about is how many legitimate threats fly
under the radar because time and again these organizations have been
proven to be highly ineffective at actually preventing what their
charters mandate, but they can appear to be very visibly effective by
incarcerating thousands of innocent people.
abeppu wrote 1 day ago:
I mean, in this case the government spent thousands because there was
a small amount of circumstantial evidence that suggested there was
clandestine communication happening during wartime.
What was the immediate government spending on Japanese American
internment, where there was no evidence or investigation into the
~120k people whose lives were disrupted, and who were transported,
housed, fed and guarded for multiple years?
Arguably, spending thousands on investigating something specific is
less wasteful than the alternatives the government was willing to
take at that time.
alwa wrote 1 day ago:
(1988) and real cute
From an OG computer scientist [0], about antics at age 12 which might
strike some of us as familiar :)
[0]
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Earnest
emmelaich wrote 1 day ago:
The personal web page is entertaining.
HTML [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20231021140222/https://web.stanf...
DIR <- back to front page