In 1986, I worked for Lockheed Corp. in Sunnyvale, California.  I was recommended for a black program (a program that does not openly exist) developing voice recognition systems for advanced aircraft control for the United States Air Force. The problem at that time was that the G forces of which airplanes were capable made simple pilot hand movements a near impossibility.  Voice control was a possible answer.  I had privately developed a software-based voice recognition system around that time called Voice Command.  It was ahead of its time.  The Air Force wanted a piece and since I was currently working for Lockheed, a secret security clearance interview was quickly arranged.

The questions were extremely personal:

Have you ever used illegal drugs?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How much?

Answer: Lots

Question: Have you ever sold drugs?

Answ: Yes.

Question: To what extent?

Answer: Enough to make a lot of money

Question: Which Drugs?

Answer: You name it, from smack to weed, to meth.  Psyhedelics were my specialty.  Mushrooms, LSD,  DMT, Psilicybin, Peyote.

Question: Do you still use or sell drugs?

Answer: No.

Question: Have you ever engaged in unusual sexual activities?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Tell us the specifics.

Answer: Almost everything.

Question: Homosexual activities?

Answer: Yes.

Question: When?

Answer: When I was 13 with a neighborhood boy.

Question: Any others?

Answer: No.

Question: Have you ever engaged in BDS&M? (Bondage, Discipline, Sado-Masochism)

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can you embellish?

Answer: Yes. If you can imagine it, I have tried it.

Question: Golden showers? Brown showers?

Answer: Yes

Question: Bondage?

Answer: Yes. I became an expert at tying knots – silk scarves were my specialty.

Question: Have you engaged in anal intercourse?

Answer: Yes, of course

Question: Have you ever paid for sex?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How many times?

Answer: Probably fewer than 1,000 times.  Perhaps 500 to 1,000 times. 

Question: Have you ever lied

Answer: Yes.

Question: About what?

Answer: About everything.

Question: Give us Examples.

Answer: Lying to my wives about extramarital affairs.  Lying to my bosses about why I missed work.  Lying on my taxes.  Lying about my age.  Lying about where I was last night. Lying to my parents and teachers when I was young.  Lying to my wives and lovers.  I have lied about my net worth – both more and less.  I have lied to police about the quantity of alcohol I have consumed and about the speed I was going. I have lied about reasons for being late, lied about where I kept my valuables. I have lied to fat people and told them they were not fat.  I have lied to ugly people and told them they were not ugly.  I have lied to idiots and told them they were smart.

These and other deeply personal questions were all asked, entered into a data base and filed away in the dark recesses within the government file systems. Everyone who has ever undergone a secret or top secret security clearance has a file containing answers to the same questions I was asked.  Frequently, investigation discovers items that were not disclosed. These too are included in the file.

Shared Forever

Here is something that might surprise nearly everyone:

No digital data is ever deleted.  Database administrators learned long ago never to erase anything. When  something is erased, a flag, usually referred to as “inactive” is set and the data is then ignored.  But the data never goes away.  This is something to keep in mind.

In any case, after my interview I assumed that even Satan would have a better chance of getting a security clearance than me. I was wrong. My clearance came within two weeks.  Apparently I was deemed unlikely to submit to blackmail or coercion by a foreign agent.  They were right.  I could give a flying f–k about who knows what about the things I have done. In any case I was surprised when I was cleared.

Pervasive Danger in These Secrets

There are 2.4 million government employees including congressmen, senators, aides, contractors, military personnel, civilians with security clearances and others.  Four million records were stolen – nearly twice the current number of existing Government employees.  Government employees and security cleared civilians from the deep past must obviously be among them. I am positive mine are among them.  If I am contacted about keeping my info private unless I do something, I will recommend the New York Times for publication, give them the editor’s phone number and I will promise to lobby for the front page and to cooperate on embellishing the stories if needed.  But I fear that others may not feel so free.

Herein lies the monumental horror of this hack.  The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) have inferred that China was the source of the hack. Had it been an individual or small group of individuals, it would have shown up on the Deep Web or even the Dark Web and my indexing programs, or my hacker friends, would have located the data and informed me.  That has not happened.  Clearly, the hack came from a government or some other powerful agency.  This bodes ill four our future.

Security Failure

Given our current technologies, how could this hack have possibly been allowed to happen?  Homeland Security has created a $3 billion program, called Einstein-3, which was designed to prevent exactly what just happened.  It lamely alerted the world long after the attack had occurred and the data was stolen.  If this is not a failure of monumental proportions then someone, please, tell me what is.

We have access to cheap, efficient and nearly uncrackable encryption.  Yet the Government fears it and does everything within its power to suppress it or weaken in by demanding “back doors” through which hackers, as well as the government, can easily read the encrypted data.
And it appears, sadly enough, that no encryption whatsoever was used on the incredibly sensitive data that was taken.  Am I alone in considering this to be insanity in the extreme?

FBI: Cripple Your Security

The deputy Director of the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division stated two days ago that no encryption should ever be allowed.

I can only assume that a lingering massive dose of some potent cathinone was still flowing through his system or that his teleprompter went haywire.  It is inconceivable that such words willingly left the mouth of a human endowed with his responsibilities.  The Social Encryption that is currently being developed in the Demonsaw Project, for example, uses keys that the users, and certainly the company developing the software, can never find and do not need. Plus, the out-of-band communication relies on shared experience only – no key information is ever shared, or even remembered by the users.  The levels of abstraction and near infinite entropy of Social encryption  make it unlikely to be be cracked within this century.  Plus, a back door to such technology is impossible.  Will the Government simply bury this technology and “Silence” The creator?  have we come to that?

Additionally, the deputy director stated that “Privacy” must come second to “Security.”  I sh-t you not.

Question: Since when does a fundamental right, guaranteed by the Constitution, come second to Governmental paranoia? 

Privacy is a Right

Privacy is a fundamental requirement for civilization. Joseph Goebbels coined the phrase, in 1933, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”.  Goebbels was Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda.  No worse propaganda has ever spewed forth from the human mind. We all indulge in the exercise of privacy – every moment of every day.  Privacy is a choice of judgement.  When we meet someone for the first time we limit what we divulge about ourselves.  A first meeting with someone might be limited to a discussion of the weather and how we feel about our day.  A second meeting might divulge a tiny bit more.  When we have known someone for years, we might choose to divulge our darkest secrets.  And the judgment of choice is not simply a factor of time.  It will vary according to the type of relationship.  We know our parents for dozens of years, and yet there are things that most people choose not to divulge to their parents.  The same with our children, our spouses, our bosses, co-workers, religious leaders and friends.  The factors that influence disclosure involve trust, fear, shyness, level of anonymity, whether the disclosure might hurt another, and numerous others.  The choice of privacy is a non-stop function of human society.  It cannot be any other way.  Imagine a society in which everyone knew everything about everybody else.  The society would instantly deteriorate into animosity and chaos.  We are judgmental people, and our tolerance for our neighbor is fragile.  Privacy keeps judgment at bay.

This nonsense that we must lose privacy to gain security must stop. Now! We are spending Trillions on Homeland “Security” to try to discover, within our own citizens, the potential for some future terrorist attack.  Yet, what has just happened is a terrorist attack that will eventually dwarf 9/11 in damage done to our country.  Please people, I cant be the only one who sees this.

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