*Insert Klichéd Title Here*

“Well, Alfred,” he says, “it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything entertainingly ditzy.” He closes his eyes, breathes deeply through his nose, and exhales, looking like some parody of a coffee commercial.

(id in alt!)

She's still only 17, and fate has been so unfairly cruel. I think she'll be okay, but it's going to take time.

(id in alt!)

(id in alt!)

** Permission to post it was granted by the artist Do not repost/edit the art without permission Please, support the artist on their page too **

Artist : 優曇波羅

It's so they have a patch they can edit "silence" over some extraneous background noise later (the phone ringing, me getting an email, the toilet flushing in the bathroom next door, the elevator coming and going, noisy student group, etc), but the point was that they can't just slap any old "silence" over a recording done in a certain room. They have to use the "silence" *from that room* or it will be jarring on a subliminal level to the people listening. Because silence has a sound, and it's a little different everywhere you hear it.

We are not the land of Lilo and Stitch. We are not a paradise.

We are a nation suffering.

There are only around 600,000 Native Hawaiians left. Only around 200,000 of them live in Hawai’i.

Hawai’i has the second largest homeless population in the nation, falling just behind New York. There are 19 million people in New York. Hawaii only has 1.4 million people. Yet their homeless rates are neck and neck. A majority of those experiencing homelessness in Hawai’i are Native Hawaiian.

Tourism destroys sacred land. Mountains are moved to make room for telescopes. People live in tiny concrete apartments that cost $2k a month because the rich move to the islands to carve their own paradise. My people spend every night praying we can afford to eat the next day

The Navy poisons the water over and over. They lie and say it’s safe. People fall ill. Then they dump the waste into the ocean and promise to do better. They lie.

Okay so one of the many things that drives me absolutely nuts about most TV shows and (some) books that involve secret or classified information or secure facilities is how absolutely not secure everything is, so these are a few basic things that people get wrong:

You can't carry around classified information. There are, I assume, exceptions in specific cases, though they are assuredly very carefully managed, but random intel agent #12 cannot legally just take home classified information so they can work on it at home. That's incredibly illegal. And that's for a reason--secure facilities are, as the name suggests, secure. Everywhere else is varying levels of not secure. Even for people working with regular business or government materials on their work phone or laptop, there are varying levels of strict rules about where you can leave it, how to report a lost device, and not keeping it in checked bags.

Badges should be innocuous and limited in visible information. Any sensible security system doesn't have badges that are numbered/colored/otherwise identified by access level, because that is a really easy way to identify targets for thieves/people who want to break in. American federal ID cards (CAC for military, PIV for civilian) have really specific layouts. Some companies distinguish between full time employees, interns, vendors, etc in their cards.

Badges shouldn't be displayed outside of the office. This is not really followed by real people (if you get on the metro on DC you will see a wide variety of visible badges), but displaying a badge is not security-wise because 1) it makes them easier to steal, and 2) it can make you a target.

Names/access level/information shouldn't be openly announced. I'm looking at you, MCU Spider-Man fanfiction. Just. Don't.

Confidential/classified information shouldn't be openly discussed. Stop having your characters talk about confidential or classified information in front of people who shouldn't know it, or even just out in the open at all. They shouldn't be telling their parents, their friends, their spouses, etc. Even businesses or government buildings that deal with sensitive information, there may be spaces where certain things can or can't be discussed, and employees/contractors will go through approximately 8 million trainings on where you can't discuss certain information. This also involves erasing whiteboards, locking computers, etc.

So, I have some further things to mention (keeping in mind that this is coming from someone on the outside)!

I have occasionally asked someone a question (about current events, technology, or something along those lines) and been told, “I can’t talk about that. I don’t think it’s classified, but it’s something I heard in a room with classified information.”

If someone works in one of these jobs, they will occasionally lie to every single one of their friends and family members. This doesn’t generally bother those friends and family members. Assuming that the nature of their job isn’t classified in and of itself (like claiming to work at a department store when you actually work for the CIA), you just kind of accept it. Sometimes you realize that you’re being lied to, but I suspect most of the time you don’t. But if someone goes on a work trip to a place that’s allegedly a three-hour plane ride away and doesn’t call to tell you they’ve arrived until ten hours later, and then only calls you at 10pm in the time zone they’re allegedly in... maybe there’s something going on that you’re not aware of, and maybe you keep your mouth shut about it.

On a practical note (and due to many rants from someone I know), no one is going to drop a classified file and have stuff come spilling out. When they are transported, they are kept wrapped up in multiple layers. This not only keeps someone from dropping it and allowing any passersby to read what’s on those papers, but it also acts as a tamper-proof seal. If someone receives a file with torn packaging, you know something’s up.

Another thing I know, courtesy of a rant from someone who accidentally did this: duress codes and keypads! If you have a location that requires a coded entry, first of all you cannot do a cool trick with a mirror to see what the code is while someone else puts it in. You cannot see it on the camera. IIRC, you will likely stick your hand in a little opaque box to put in the code because the people who design these things are not idiots. Secondly, you will have a duress code. This code will likely still give you access to the room/building/whatever, but it will alert security that you are doing so under duress. This may be by putting in the actual code backwards, or by using a previous code, or something else entirely. In this case, be sure to keep track of which codes are which, so that you don’t leave the lab on a regular day of work to find the hall lined with very concerned (and very armed) security personnel prepared to shoot whoever “forced you to let them in the room” (this story is definitely based on a true story, and we still mock him for it).

Secure locations are more secure than you think. The previous post mentions things like cell phones and furbies (and yes, everyone in town laughs about the furby thing), but this extends to a lot of other security measures. For example, cable management. In secure computer labs, there are likely to be extensive rules about how close cables can run to each other. You need to know exactly what is doing what, and it needs to be clear that nothing else is there. A mess of cables could easily hide something that’s not supposed to be there.

For the love of God, learn what a closed network is. If you have a bunch of classified materials that do not actively need to be shared, you cannot hack in from the outside to get access to them. Those computers are not connected to anything outside of that room or facility. Also, if you have a mystery thumbdrive you do not plug it into your network, holy shit what is wrong with you, this is what non-networked devices are for you idiot. There are plenty of computers on hand that completely lack the hardware necessary to connect to another in any way, shape, or form. Your virus can’t turn on the computer’s wi-fi to send information to you because there is nothing to turn on.

There are a lot of security measures. A lab may have things like thermite grenades on hand. In the event that you need to destroy everything inside, you put the grenade on top of a file cabinet and set it off. It won’t explode, it’ll just melt through the file cabinet, setting everything inside on fire. And yes, that sounds super badass and I kind of want to see this happen.

Sometimes a person with this kind of clearance is just going to go silent. It may be when you’re watching the news, discussing current events, or when you’re talking about a cool article you just read about some new developments in technology, but it’ll happen. If they’re good at it, you won’t notice. If they’re not, you’ll smile to yourself and keep your mouth shut.

Also I’ve kind of touched on this, but this is not going to be strange to the people around the person with clearance. The things that I’ve described here are pretty mundane when this is a part of your life. You may joke about it with other people (a friend and I will laugh about her dad’s late night calls that are followed by “I’m leaving town. I’ll be back eventually.”), but this isn’t odd to you. It’s like joking about any other aspect of someone’s job, like a weird fast food uniform or an eccentric boss.

Kind of connected, but no one who’s been married to someone in one of these jobs for any decent amount of time is going to be mad that their spouse is “keeping secrets” and the next time I see this trope in media I’m going to punch someone. Keeping secrets is literally part of their job and you know that. They will keep those secrets or they will go to jail, and you do not want your loved ones in jail. Depending on the nature of their job, you may worry about them, but you will not be mad at them for not telling you every detail of their day at work. If this kind of thing is a problem, it will be a problem from the start and is just generally a sign of incompatibility.

And finally, and most importantly:

I know people whose careers came to a permanent standstill because of security violations where nothing was even compromised-- like leaving the encryption keys in an unlocked drawer in the wrong locked room. Even if you aren't bust down in rank, there is exactly ZERO chance you will ever get promoted again, you loose your clearance, and if your job needed a clearance, guess what? No more job. No one can protect you if you mess up security, even if it's on accident, even if it's not entirely your fault.

As mentioned, there's a lot of intense regulations regarding anything and everything about security. Not only are there extensive special rules about how to transport classified info, there's only certain people who are allowed to transport the classified info and need both training and formal orders to transport that info.

Also EVERYTHING that can hold or transport information is labeled with its classification level. Papers? Labeled. Phones? Labeled. Desktops, laptops, occasionally kids' walkie talkies as a joke (but never labeled as Secret even as a joke because losing your career isn't funny). It's why all reports, power points, and random documentation coming out of the military say Unclassified even if it seems obvious that it's unclassified, like a unit holiday party.

Having a clearance doesn't mean a lot as far as accessing info. My spouse and I both had clearances, but we worked in separate units. We couldn't tell each other classified info for a variety of reasons-- no need to know, no secure place to talk, etc-- but also most classified information is boring as shit. The reason it ends up classified is because knowing enough of the "boring little logistics" can still badly compromise a mission. We'd never say "it's classified" when a topic under the umbrella came up, we'd just say "can't talk about that" and move on to a new topic.

Oh, you think you can write a character just plugging a usb into government computers? lol. lmao. Every usb port on those things has been disabled for data transfer to basically anything other than a keyboard or mouse.

You want to burn a cd? Good luck with that. You literally don't even have access to a cd burner or the ability to use it unless you have the proper clearance and a hyperspecific, government approved reason to.

For a closed network with a classification and ID system, You have to have your government id card plugged into the computer's card reader at all times or it will instantly log you out of your user profile.

If you are using a temporary profile because you don't have card yet, no information can be saved on it because all of it will be wiped the second you log out (have fun trying to complete your excruciatingly long entrance trainings before your shift ends, because the paper completion certificates are the ONLY proof you did them, before you get an ID card to tie any user data to).

You're basically not allowed to do any normal computer fuctions/commands without an IT person's approval. We're talking disk cleanup, using task manager to kill memory eating bloatware, installing literally anything, etc.

pov: you are walking in the forest and think to yourself: ‘you are dead’ ‘no, i am dad’ and lose your mind so you make a whole comic about it and then put it together in a video with background music and animation