What not to write on your security clearance form (1988) • Hacker News Board

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#481

Post by notch656c » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 6:44 AM UTC

greiskul wrote: post #480

notch656c wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can be blackmailed. If the thing you did was less bad than the penalty for treason or revealing secrets (life in prison and/or death) then the blackmail argument falls apart. It's just more irrational hocus pocus by self-important bureaucrats. Hell the thing you're blackmailing doesn't even have to be true, they can just find an ex lover and blackmail that person to say you raped them or whatever, and well eve…

> Hell the thing you're blackmailing doesn't even have to be true, they can just find an ex lover and blackmail that person to say you raped them or whatever, and well even if you beat the charges your kids get tossed into DCS/foster care your life is ruined etc etc. Someone being falsely accused like this would most likely immediately report it to their boss in the government asking for help. It would be very unlike…

A rational person would immediately report it whether the blackmail was true or not. The penalty for revealing secrets is worse than about any crime except a few high level drug dealing or crimes involving death. If you get fired because you didn't admit to eating a scary mushroom or whatever so be it, the alternative is much worse.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#482

Post by anthomtb » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 6:46 AM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #466

anthomtb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first clearance interview, about 10 years ago, it was all going along just fine. I had the standard litany of "bad" things any early 20-something American guy gets into - a few mushroom trips, an alcohol ticket, friends from foreign countries. No deal-breakers so long as you are honest and I answered honestly. The only stumbling block came when the interviewer asked "have you smoked marijuana?". I truthfully answe…

Now I'm curious. How had you never tried marijuana given that situation?

Vanity. Having lost significant body fat mid way through high school, I could not stand the idea of consuming a drug whose side effects included “the munchies”.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#483

Post by notch656c » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 6:48 AM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #476

anthomtb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first clearance interview, about 10 years ago, it was all going along just fine. I had the standard litany of "bad" things any early 20-something American guy gets into - a few mushroom trips, an alcohol ticket, friends from foreign countries. No deal-breakers so long as you are honest and I answered honestly. The only stumbling block came when the interviewer asked "have you smoked marijuana?". I truthfully answe…

I don't understand why the US is so full on about marijuana. I've heard this is a major thing in federalinterviews but other much more scary drugs are not. What's the hangup with this particular drug that's actually legal in many states? Ps: I've been asked that question too in less formal settings and I always truthfully say no which does raise some eyebrows as I'm Dutch :) But I've really never done it. Not countin…

A great deal of government positions involve carrying a gun. Having a gun and being a pot user is a felony with 10+ years in jail. It's one of the most serious non-violent offenses for mere personal use possession on the books.

It's also very easy to detect because pot stays in your system longer than about any other drug and the penalty for pot use by non-firearm owners is so weak and unenforced that people often forget it is a very severe crime for the ~40% of US that owns arms. People mistakenly get nonchalant about it.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#484

Post by saagarjha » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 6:53 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #428

rwky wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK visa application has the same questions pretty much identical. Also made me laugh!

Kinda makes me wonder what happens if someone checks yes. How do they deal with that?

Probably deny you entry?

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#485

Post by dr_dshiv » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 6:55 AM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #472

cfeduke wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a somewhat similar experience with the polygraph portion of my clearance process - apparently its common to calibrate the machine to the subject by asking "have you ever smoked marijuana" and they expect you to lie and say "no" but then sometimes people have never smoked marijuana.

The polygraph is 100% pseudoscience - at best it's a prop to make interrogating people that don't know it's fake easier because they believe the interrogator can read their mind, but it falls apart when the person being taken knows that it's woo. So we shouldn't really use technical/scientific terms like "calibration" when talking about it...

It’s not like, thetans. It may not be reliable, but it’s not pseudoscience.

From Wikipedia:

>In 2002, a review by the National Research Council found that, in populations "untrained in countermeasures, specific-incident polygraph tests can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates well above chance, though well below perfection". The review also warns against generalization from these findings to justify the use of polygraphs—"polygraph accuracy for screening purposes is almost certainly lower than what can be achieved by specific-incident polygraph tests in the field"—and notes some examinees may be able to take countermeasures to produce deceptive results

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#486

Post by notch656c » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 7:05 AM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #451

int_19h wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen immigration officers go on power trips before, and it ain't pretty. That much discretion with little if any opportunity for the potential victims to retaliate goes to some people's heads. And then they just need an excuse.

Well, if they decide they don't want you to pass - I suspect they'll find their excuse then, no matter what. With power tripping people, I believe, it's typically not about someone's file but if they arbitrarily like you as a person or not.

I had one tell me, a US citizen presenting with valid passport, he had the authority to prevent me from entering the united states.

I told him he had no such authority, unlike with the room full of Mexicans around me he was used to harrassing, and even if I didn't answer his (non-citizenship related) questions he'd still have to let me in.

By god did that piss him off, and I spent many hours detained, but in I went. After hearing his irate and false claims that my passport would be revoked, not allowed in, etc etc.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#487

Post by euroderf » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 7:06 AM UTC

chiefgeek wrote: post #397

anthomtb wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first clearance interview, about 10 years ago, it was all going along just fine. I had the standard litany of "bad" things any early 20-something American guy gets into - a few mushroom trips, an alcohol ticket, friends from foreign countries. No deal-breakers so long as you are honest and I answered honestly. The only stumbling block came when the interviewer asked "have you smoked marijuana?". I truthfully answe…

I filled out DoD form for TS clearance years ago and answered honestly that I had smoked weed and done coke in college. That's what my boss said to do. He said if they caught you in a lie you were finished because that meant you could be blackmailed. EDIT to add: Ironically he had gotten in trouble for phone phreaking as a teenager.

Yes, it is about blackmail. At the start of the 80s, smoking weed or being gay was OK with DISCO (Defense Industrial Security Clearance Organization) as long as you came clean about it and (for example) did not try to hide your sexual orientation from your friends & family. Because therein would lie the opportunity for blackmail.

This attitude of tolerance eroded later in the 80s. During the Reagan regime, they (DoD?) sent out a memo saying that marijuana use was "incompatible with national security goals". Not sure what the effect was out in the trenches though.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#488

Post by euroderf » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 7:11 AM UTC

evouga wrote: post #207

sybercecurity wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interview/form is looking for potential blackmail or tendency to lie or obscure facts. If you are honest, that's fine, although they sometimes ask that you are currently using as well and that is a strike against you.

I was talking to an NSA recruiter last year, though, and they told me they routinely report applicants to the FBI for confessing to crimes during a polygraph. So damned if you do, damned if you don’t… (For a recruiter he did an uncanny job at convincing me never to work for the NSA)

But if the crimes that you confess to are skilled hacking crimes and the NSA hires you anyways, then the FBI never finds out ? Thus making the NSA judge & jury.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#489

Post by euroderf » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 7:13 AM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #412

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was completely honest on my form. E.g. i admitted to drug use, but the firm was so insanely detailed there was no way to be fully honest. It literally asked how many times youve done each drug, who with, whered you get etc. Well for a raging polysubstance addict, this is hilarious. Just listing all the differe t drugs would take more room than there was on the forum and that doesnt even start to account for all the…

The fact that you frankly acknowledged the drawbacks and foolishness of casual cocaine use, with the benefit of additional age/maturity/experience, reflecting upon your own actions as a younger person is probably why they cleared you. Additionally they were looking for any hint that you might have had an ongoing/current drug habit where you would either be vulnerable to financial pressure or societal coercion from dr…

"Older but wiser" ? Check. Cleared.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#490

Post by lukan » Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

the_af wrote: post #434

lukan wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"he recommends that even innocent people never talk to cops!" I think it is wrong to overgeneralize. What if the cops ask you about a missing kid, where you are innocent and actually might have information to get that kid back alive, because you happened to see the number plate from a black van speeding off at time X?

I recommend you watch the video. If the cops ask you about a missing kid, you don't know that you are not a suspect. You cannot know, actually. If you are a suspect -- regardless of your innocence -- and you talk to the cops without a lawyer, you may implicate yourself in some way. Yes, innocence doesn't matter one iota. Having factual evidence about the kidnapping could conceivably implicate you faster . Recollectin…

I watched that video, but I refuse to see cops always as the enemy.

So maybe let me refine my question, what if it is your neighbors child, you know closely or even your own child. You still would not talk to the cops, out of the fear that they wrongly suspect you and have a dead child on your consciousness?

I mean, I am not from the US, but if your police is really that bad, I think you gotta change something.

And I watched that video (some years ago) and if I remember it right, in his example the person that stupidly talked to the cops, was actually guilty.