Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

sjgames.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 49 posts

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#31

Post by fulafel »

bradknowles wrote: post #21

There’s another part to the story which I have told to the folks at SJG, but to which they never responded. In late 1990, I was working in the basement of the Pentagon, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the J4 Logistics Readiness Center, inside the National Military Command Center. I was a gamer, but I also had a TS/SCI security clearance. I had heard about the SS raid on SJG, and I was pissed off. So, I decid…

How likely is it that the game was really the first outing of a leaked secret name? A random name clash or copying from another source seem just as likely.

Also, making names secret under threat of criminal punishment sounds quite problematic. A name itself after all doesn't convey information, and you have to be able to name something to, for example, contest its secret status through legal channels available to a citizen.

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#32

Post by evgen »

bradknowles wrote: post #21

There’s another part to the story which I have told to the folks at SJG, but to which they never responded. In late 1990, I was working in the basement of the Pentagon, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the J4 Logistics Readiness Center, inside the National Military Command Center. I was a gamer, but I also had a TS/SCI security clearance. I had heard about the SS raid on SJG, and I was pissed off. So, I decid…

I find this highly unlikely for a couple of reasons, but the primary reason is that GURPS Cyberpunk was not published until _after_ the SS raid on the company as a part of operation SunDevil.

The actual chronology is closer to something like this: feds target a bunch of hackers, one such hacker is also working on a game for SJG, during raid on his house feds notice all of the galley drafts and docs for GURPS Cyberpunk (some of which may have been internal phone company docs and manuals that would look very suspicious to a non-technical agent who signed up to look cool standing next to the president and has no idea about most of this stuff) and so they ask him about it, he happens to mention all of the other docs are just down the road at the SJG office, some fed gets a bright idea and a bunch of them head over to SJG to make a very big mistake...

Source: Straight from the mouths of Steve and Loyd. I was hired by Steve to start Austin's first real ISP with the money he won in this case and my future brother-in-law worked for SJG at the time of the raid.

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#33

Post by LoSboccacc »

fulafel wrote: post #31
bradknowles wrote: post #21

There’s another part to the story which I have told to the folks at SJG, but to which they never responded. In late 1990, I was working in the basement of the Pentagon, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the J4 Logistics Readiness Center, inside the National Military Command Center. I was a gamer, but I also had a TS/SCI security clearance. I had heard about the SS raid on SJG, and I was pissed off. So, I decid…

How likely is it that the game was really the first outing of a leaked secret name? A random name clash or copying from another source seem just as likely. Also, making names secret under threat of criminal punishment sounds quite problematic. A name itself after all doesn't convey information, and you have to be able to name something to, for example, contest its secret status through legal channels available to a c…

Beside those names are quite generic on purpose, so I can imagine there are a lot of possibilities for collisions

like, see the list of WWII operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_military_...

Operation Menace - Corkscrew - Dracula - it's extremely likely to have a name collision if anyone where to come up with secret operation names.

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#34

Post by algorias »

bradknowles wrote: post #29
bradknowles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domino effect. It’s not just reclassifying documents, it’s reclassifying entire projects, and so many more things that can fall out from that trigger. I don’t have first hand knowledge of any such cases, but I can certainly conceive of them.

So, I'm sure that some people here are still unclear on how I can come to the values I referenced above. Let's do a little thought experiment, and I'll show you my thinking on the subject. Let's say that someone in the military decides to use the word PANDA as a classified military code word to cover a certain type of activity -- for example, all signals intelligence (see " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Sorry, but this seems like cartoon logic to me. What power would knowing the word PANDA give me in this case? None. What knowledge does it give me? That the US does signals intelligence, and that someone on wikipedia/HN claims that such SI includes programs X,Y,Z, without any actual evidence.

For all I know, SJG picked a cool sounding word a 16 year old would like, e.g. SHARK, and it just happened to be an actual code word.

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#35

Post by eh78ssxv2f »

kregasaurusrex wrote: post #22
Jtsummers wrote: post #19

In 2011 (2010?), at the Origins convention in Columbus then VP Biden was conducting a fundraiser at the same time at the same convention center. It was hilarious to see the secret service agents walking around. At first I thought it was some kind of MIB LARP or something. Seeing Secret Service agents trailing behind the (armed with swords and maces and such) entourage of a minotaur was hilarious. Sadly, no one got th…

Scheduling at the Columbus Convention Center really seems to be done without any regard for neighboring events. An Ohio Linuxfest a couple years ago was done right alongside a youth cheerleading competition, which had made some parents seem noticeably uncomfortable. And other weekends have mixed conventions like Wizard's World Comic Con and Origins, where I'd guess there's an overlap of people who'd like to go to bot…

May be I am missing something about the American culture...What's wrong with having Linuxfest next to cheerleading competition?

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#36

Post by pjc50 »

bradknowles wrote: post #29
bradknowles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domino effect. It’s not just reclassifying documents, it’s reclassifying entire projects, and so many more things that can fall out from that trigger. I don’t have first hand knowledge of any such cases, but I can certainly conceive of them.

So, I'm sure that some people here are still unclear on how I can come to the values I referenced above. Let's do a little thought experiment, and I'll show you my thinking on the subject. Let's say that someone in the military decides to use the word PANDA as a classified military code word to cover a certain type of activity -- for example, all signals intelligence (see " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I'm not saying this isn't true, but I am going to say that it's nuts to do this without evidence that there is actually a compromise rather than a coincidence. Otherwise I could put up a pile of randomly generated pages ("AARDVARK is a classified keyword" etc for all dictionary words) and render the system unworkable.

Maybe this is why the F35 is so far behind and expensive.

Famously the Times crossword on the day prior to D-day included several of the codewords, but this appears to have been a total coincidence.

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#37

Post by gonzo »

evgen wrote: post #32
bradknowles wrote: post #21

There’s another part to the story which I have told to the folks at SJG, but to which they never responded. In late 1990, I was working in the basement of the Pentagon, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the J4 Logistics Readiness Center, inside the National Military Command Center. I was a gamer, but I also had a TS/SCI security clearance. I had heard about the SS raid on SJG, and I was pissed off. So, I decid…

I find this highly unlikely for a couple of reasons, but the primary reason is that GURPS Cyberpunk was not published until _after_ the SS raid on the company as a part of operation SunDevil. The actual chronology is closer to something like this: feds target a bunch of hackers, one such hacker is also working on a game for SJG, during raid on his house feds notice all of the galley drafts and docs for GURPS Cyberpun…

Long live io.com

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#38

Post by walterbell »

bradknowles wrote: post #29
bradknowles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domino effect. It’s not just reclassifying documents, it’s reclassifying entire projects, and so many more things that can fall out from that trigger. I don’t have first hand knowledge of any such cases, but I can certainly conceive of them.

So, I'm sure that some people here are still unclear on how I can come to the values I referenced above. Let's do a little thought experiment, and I'll show you my thinking on the subject. Let's say that someone in the military decides to use the word PANDA as a classified military code word to cover a certain type of activity -- for example, all signals intelligence (see " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

Using this logic, what would be the estimated impact of the OPM breach?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#39

Post by HelloNurse »

bradknowles wrote: post #29
bradknowles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domino effect. It’s not just reclassifying documents, it’s reclassifying entire projects, and so many more things that can fall out from that trigger. I don’t have first hand knowledge of any such cases, but I can certainly conceive of them.

So, I'm sure that some people here are still unclear on how I can come to the values I referenced above. Let's do a little thought experiment, and I'll show you my thinking on the subject. Let's say that someone in the military decides to use the word PANDA as a classified military code word to cover a certain type of activity -- for example, all signals intelligence (see " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

But what would the enemy know because of this "leak"?

That someone who is known to have a TS/SCI/PX clearance is a signal intelligence expert? Where is the threat, compared to other easy ways to figure out someone is a NSA employee?

What a budget item is about? Somewhat interesting, but hardly compromising security (assuming the budget wasn't obfuscated, e.g. by splitting entries and adding fake ones, to begin with).

That PANDA is probably small enough to have no subcompartments? A lot of data would be required to confirm such an hint, and clearly not a running around like a chicken with their head cut off matter.

Re: SJ Games vs. the Secret Service (1990)

#40

Post by e12e »

bradknowles wrote: post #21

There’s another part to the story which I have told to the folks at SJG, but to which they never responded. In late 1990, I was working in the basement of the Pentagon, supporting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the J4 Logistics Readiness Center, inside the National Military Command Center. I was a gamer, but I also had a TS/SCI security clearance. I had heard about the SS raid on SJG, and I was pissed off. So, I decid…

I don't see what you're getting at here: if the raid was about stopping the publishing of a gurps mod of "top secret" or something ; it'd be a pretty poor job as you bought the book after raid.

Second, I believe it's a matter of record that SJG got caught in "operation sundevil" - a massive crackdown driven by a couple of high profile hacks, mixed in with paranoia driven by such authorative sources as the fictional move "war games"...

[ed: whops, no - that's one of the top ten false facts; apparently sundevil was limited to credit card fraud]

See also: Bruce Sterling, hacker crackdown.

Post reply on HN