Surpassingly strange.

Based on the employees I talked to, they were a pretty conservative lot*. I seem to remember some rumor about government agencies, but I doubt it was more than conspirator theory paranoia.

You're right about the way intelligence people talk. I used to be on a standards committee that had a representative from NSA**, and he had a way of talking that reminded me of military intel. people I've encountered.

* Mind you, this was in 1970, when the whole area was so conservative that Eva and I had to lie to the apartment manager and claim we were married, or they wouldn't have rented the place to us.

** "Just Defense Department, Ma'am"

BTW, Teresa, what's 'conversial' about Cryptome?

Just out of curiosity, what is the distinctive speech pattern you are talking about? Is it word choice, speech rhythm, or a disturbingly different word view?

Or something you just can't put your finger on?

Or something you'd have to kill me if you told me?

If true, it would provide instant access to an unlimited number of covers you could create at the drop of a hat for almost any location on the planet.

I haven't quite decided if I think it's true.

According to Wired:

Young -- a 72-year-old architect in New York -- has hosted countless government documents with the "For Official Use Only" markings intact; exposed the names of long-ago CIA collaborators; the alleged identities of current British intelligence agents; compiled a travelogue-style guide to the Pennsylvania mountain believed to be the vice president's "undisclosed location";

et cetera and so on...

Hitchhiker's Guide lists the site as "mostly harmless".

LiquidWeb is pretty reliable.

Also, if me waving the company flag is a no-no here, I won't be insulted if this post gets moderated into oblivion. :)

"something you just can't put your finger on?"

I've had similar experiences to Bruce, and some that are similar to what Teresa is perhaps describing too.

Here's how the phenomenon was described to me: ever hear the term gaydar? There's an awful lot in common between the culture of the intelligence community and the culture of the closeted gay community. They're both very good at operating under a cover identity, and they often need to identify other players in the same trade first by the application of a subtle intuition.

Here's what I think is the telltale signal: they've all got an identifiable constellation of linguistic tics, 1) a high sensitivity toward the treatment of people more or less as containers of information, and 2) a vaguely detectable kind of paranoia about self-regulating their own compliance with non-disclosure agreements. (Beware though— it's easy to get a false positive when you're dealing with someone who works for a privately operated intelligence operation and who has only been exposed to the culture second-hand...)

Of course, I could be wrong about that. Let me check with my controller... whoever that might be today. BRB.

Terrorists, on the other hand, are relatively short on intel resources.

So the KGB might know about Universal Export, or just where the Circus really is. But the average terrorist is as likely to finger AMS Trading.

There has been a fear of terrorism, and other non-government threats, since at least 1917. Communist Revolution never happened, but it was feared. Governments feared that Douhet was right. And, with the Cold War ended, they had nothing to mask their fear of their own populations; no excuse to keep secrets from the likes of us.

Terrorism may be the new excuse.

I seem to recall a connection between RD and USIA well-documented during the '70s.

Perhaps if the publisher's family includes Bonesmen . . . ?

As to the distinctive diction of operatives and Alphabet-Supers . . . my acquaintances have all had an oddly flat or childish affect on certain topics.

I can tell when someone is also a member; vs. when someone is trying to convince me they are. The latter happens more often than I'd have thought, before I became an interrogator.

Part of it is a compartmentalization.

Part of it an honesty, which is mistaken for openess (if one doesn't lie, one can't be latter tripped up; and answering questions/steering the conversation can avoid talking about things you don't want to have to deny/obfuscate).

I was at a party once, in Greens. Someone started talking to me, asking what I did, etc. I told her. She went to the hostess and said something to the effect that I was either pulling her leg, or not a very good intelligence type; because I told her so much.

Cat commented: "Terry didn't tell you anything he didn't want you to know." Which is only partly true; by talking to her I did give her the chance to infer things about me, but I probably didn't give up any concrete facts I didn't want to.

There's also a reserve. Things we don't discuss, conversations we don't join.

And, as a rule, intel types tend to be smart. They may be conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between, but they are persuadable. Looking at the facts is part of the job. Figuring out what the "facts" mean is also part of the job, and not being openminded about that is detrimental. I may not like the facts, but I can't change them.

Trying to shoehorn/cherry-pick/ignore the facts, to make them support what I wish they meant is a disservice to my fellows, my superiors and myself (the last because it means I will, sooner, or later, be wrong).

So there's also a certain skepticism in their personalities.

This must make successful impersonation of something you're not terribly hard. Someone trying to pretend to be a cryptographer or mathematician or computer scientist would have a really hard time fooling me, even if we didn't go into much depth of technical information. Someone trying to pretend to be an editor would likely fool me, but wouldn't convince Teresa or Patrick. Someone pretending to be a doctor would probably fail to convince a doctor or nurse who worked around doctors all day. Etc.

The disk is set up as a web site so it would be possible to upload the whole thing onto a server somewhere and hey presto! - Cryptome reborn.

In a "three-factor" view of authentication, this tells a gatekeeper "something you are" -- a sort of authentication that humans do almost automatically, but machines have a horrid time with. Bruce Schneier discusses this sort of issue regularly.

As far as Cryptome's takedown, I do expect he'll find other sites, perhaps a whole flock of mirrors. I'd call this a temporary inconvenience.

In the case of military intel people it's a little more obvious, at least to me, because I'm used to talking to military types in the first place. Intel types have obvious (to another military person) lacunae in their conversation. And military intel people sometimes present themselves at a rank other than their real one. Rank is not just a matter of the stripes on your arm or the bars on your shoulder; there are non-verbal cues that someone pretending doesn't always keep straight.

I find this really fascinating. Can either Bruce or Terry go into more details about this? I don't know a whole lot about the military, but I find the way people are prescribed to interact with each other really interesting. (This might be perhaps I'm really awful at it. At my previous job, a workmate took upon himself to signal me during meetings whenever I was about to go out of bounds.)

This is akin to the old WWII spy story, when the US spy switches hands to use his knife.

Verbal clues are easier to habituate or break. For instance, most military people will use pay rate instead of rank, especially for NCO ranks. There are ways of talking about things, such as deck instead of floor, charge and powder, range for distance, cut of a line, etc.

The way people categorize items can also tell much about their past and thought processes, that is some people will lump things that are alike, others will place them in order used.

I'd say gaze is one of the best ways to figure out rank and service, because it's so automatic and so hard to change. For instance, you can tell a grunt (an infantry soldier who's been in ground combat) from an artillery solder or a tanker by the way their gaze moves around, never stopping for more than a second or two on anything, even when they're talking directly to you, and deeply engaged in what they're saying. It's an unconscious action that may have saved their lives, so it's not something they can stop easily just because they're pretending to be a desk soldier.

As for rank, remember the military is strictly hierachical so people tend to look more often at the senior person in a group than anyone else, and to have their bodies facing them directly. The senior person tends to move around more, and expects to be at or near the physical center, or at least at the focus of attention of the group. Movement and body placement are easier to control consciously than gaze, but they can still trip you up.

http://www.ctyme.com/hosting/index.htm

He's got a "Free Speech" policy, and will host them in a heartbeat.

The loss of Cryptome from the Internets Tubes would be a tragedy, and huge loss for Free Speech. I learn SO much about our government from daily reading of Cryptome.

I hope that this helps.

--MF

JC: The military is stratified. It doesn't take long for aspects of that to become ingrained (about one week is all it takes for a recruit to be in physical awe of his drills, even if the recruit has no liking, nor even respect for them).

As time goes on, that becomes both more entrenched, and more subtle. I'm a staff sergeant. At one level I'm in the lower middle of the pack (I am at the sixth level of nine enlisted ranks, there are five warrant rankes, and 10 Officer ranks above me; though all of them from O-7 up [brigadier general] are equivalent, as far as it concerns me).

At a diffferent level, I have a fair amount of, inherent, authority. The three types of rank (enlisted, warrant, officer) are distinct.

If we look at say, Ft. Hood, there are some 30,000 people on the post. I can probably tell 12,000 of them what to do.

Taking that level of social standing into account, I'll never be taken for a private again. I can't even fake it, because my model set of reactions to everyone don't involve the right sort of equality to privates, and fail to have the right sort of deference to NCOs, and Officers.

I can, however, easily fake being a Warrant Officer, and without too much trouble (or risk of being caught out) pretend to be a captain (but oddly enough not a Second Lieutenant, for the same reason I can't pretend to be a private).

In the U.S. Army clothing, and the like, aren't as telling as they are in the British, because the class distinctions aren't as relevant.

But how one stands, what one does when a Sergeant Major enters a room, the way one moves when tasked to do something; how someone delegates a mission when tasked.

There are some places where the rules fall apart.

Some of that is in intel. Lots of things (at least in the American model) are not work for officers, and so the people who do things that civilians think of as work for "people in charge" are done by the people they think of as idiot drones.

But take the range I was working for the past four days. On a range the principle of, "Don't confuse your rank with my authority" is in full flower.

In my lane, I am the boss. When I'm running an interrogation, General Pace could come in, and I'll tell him to bugger off (politely, if possible, but forcefully; no matter what).

I had a Master Sergeant (two grades, and a small world of rank above me) try to buffalo me. I'd told her not to touch her magazine. She told me that, because (as we'd previously discussed) she was familiar with firearms, her husband runs NRA ranges, etc., etc., etc., I could trust her.

And I told her there was no way I was going to cut her any more slack than anyone else.

I yelled at officers, who did stupid things, in the same way I yelled at privates.

It's not anger, or frustration with the person (though the regular sequence of the same errors could make it a decidedly frustrating day.

On the other side of the coin, I was as deferential to privates who needed help, as I was to majors. I was the range armorer, responsible for correcting malfunctions the soldier couldn't, and evaluating things which might make for a legitimate excuse for the soldier re-shooting the course (without penalty) or deadlining a weapon (I actually had to deadline one... checking the soldier's description of the malfunction was some of the most frightening things I've ever done with a rifle).

So when one of those came up, I dropped whatever I was doing and paid absolute attention to what I was being told.

How does that relate? The sense of self-assurance that comes of living within that sort of world, and of having that sort of relationship to people shows. When someone who has it, uses it, it often just comes across (to those who don't know) as a sort of competence. To those who've been in, it says something else, and the air of competence becomes nothing more than one more thing to look at when pigeonholing someone.

The people who took over when they died were a whole 'nother kettle of fish