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I'm hoping they've implemented some form of localized EMP that you have to pass through now to leave, because large storage is so incredibly small now that it would be impossible to discern it from articles of clothing.

The "hard" part is really just getting the data off the computer in the first place, which is probably why they don't allow bringing in technology anymore.

I wonder how much of a micro computer could be smuggled in one or two parts at a time, stored in articles of clothing, with the intent of simply saving data to a micro SD card which would be the only thing you need to smuggle back out. You would need to be able to assemble the device without soldering.

I guess the easiest would be to build a digital camera to record the screen or photos instead of trying to plug into the computers themselves which probably have robust host intrustion detection and prevention. Or perhaps if you could just record the digital output of the computer before it reaches the monitor. That could be prevented with some form of HDCP though, I think.

This all sounds kind of like a science fiction movie (or In the Line of Fire or that Snowden movie) but it's an interesting thought exercise in any case.

Yeah this was long ago so I've no idea what their policies are now.

Pure speculation: I have to imagine they take further steps now as what is "no electronics" now isn't reliably what you can easily see now.

The "localised EMP" you mention could simply be a low power microwave oven of same type we have in our kitchens you have to walk through. Waves of that frequency would not harm a person if they were fairly low power, but it would mess up every bit of non-metal-shielded electronics.

If you want to destroy a piece of electronics quickly put it in a microwave oven and hit start (also don't expect to eat from that oven later - plastic residue etc if it heats up that much is probably not safe to eat). This will destroy usb keys and storage on them, SSDs, laptops, smartphones and data on them. The only kind of data safe is magnetic type hard drives, but they become less and less common these days.

You could even make a kind of "wand" similar to what guys at the airport have for pinpointing metal items on people. Wave it around someone suspected of having a listening or recording device - job done.

“non-metal-shielded electronics“

So a bad actor would shield them? The primary countermeasure to incredibly small storage is minimizing the availability of devices that could write them on site. That microSD hidden in a nostril won't be of much use if the attacker does not find anything to plug it.

(regarding OP's story: I was kind of expecting it to end with the spaceballs password in heavy use behind all that physical security, still kind of disappointed/relieved)

Remember to switch it off if you invite Dick Cheney in for a visit, though. Frying his pacemaker would be a bit of a PR hit.

You made it weird by singling out Cheney, but impact on medical devices is an important consideration for any such scheme.

The intention wasn't to "make it weird"; he simply serves as a prominent example of a) someone with an implanted medical device and b) someone who probably spent a lot of time in SCIFs.

Not frying his pacemaker would be a hole in the perimeter

Or boon depending on your judgement of the 46th Vice President.

What if you stick the flash drive up really far up your bum? Wouldn't the saltwater in your body form a Faraday cage around it?

Trips to the bathroom involved no privacy at all.

So you'd have to pull some sort of slight of hand to manage that.

Why,I always wipe like that! Yup, all the way to the elbow as if I were looking for a flash drive that somehow managed to get up that far! Yessiree, and it's completely normal that i keep a small memento in a wrap of TP in my pocket after a good visit to the bathroom!

> I'm hoping they've implemented some form of localized EMP

What would that do to, say, an artificial pacemaker? Feels a little, as you say, science fiction.

A friend of mine had an amusing story about a visit to a secure facility. He was an engineer in the late '80s or early '90s at company that made some kind of custom text search hardware. He was sent to a customer site to do some service on one of the machines.

The customer was some government intelligence agency (he didn't tell me which one). The machine was in a small room, which also had a printer. To get to that room, you had to walk through a big room full of workers at desks.

Before entering that big room, his escort would press a button beside the door that apparently signaled to those in the room that an outsider was going to come through. That would make some audible signal in the room, and start some red lights flashing on the ceiling. Everyone in the room then had to clear their desks, putting all their papers in their drawers and locking them, and returning the most secret document to their safes.

When all that was done, everyone returned to their desks and then someone would open the door, my friend's escort would tell him to not look around, and would escort him through to the room with the machine. The door would be closed and locked, with my friend and the escort in the machine room, and my friend could work on the machine. Out in the big room, the workers would take their work back out and go back to work.

Occasionally, someone in the big room wanted to use the printer in the machine room. Before they could do that, my friend had to be escorted out of the machine room, back through the big room, and out to the corridor...going through that whole "secure the room so an outsider can pass through" procedure to get back out, and then to get back in after the printout had been retrieved.

Unfortunately, my friend had a lunch that day which disagreed with him somewhat, so that afternoon there were also a few times he needed to get to the bathroom, which of course required going through the big room each time.

Where was this? What was the "site?" What country? And what kind of work were they outsourcing to outside the military?

US.

No comment on the rest / some of it I honestly don't know.

None of the organizations involved share a lot of data / answer questions / you don't ask, and everything is designed around you not knowing.

I'm not the original commenter but I'm familiar with policies like this. I grew up in Lynchburg, VA, where the Naval Nuclear Fuel facility is, operated by what was B&W. It had identical policies: everything that goes in, stays in, no one allowed in without clearance, no paper or electronics leave, air gapped computer network, etc. Not the monitored bathroom breaks, though....

I'm guessing Cavalier, Mountain Home, or Tonopah.

Given the intensity of the security described, I strongly suspect the answer to each of those questions is "I can't say".

We outsource pretty much anything to contractors, though.

...including security clearance investigations...

Sure but never bad to ask :)

The boindfolds seem like extra work, I would just get a SUV and totally black out the rear, or well, put in some seats in the rear of a delivery van.

But I guess the boindfolds also had a psychological effect of "we mean business".

A blindfold allows someone to be in close proximity to the person while also retain g visibility and communication with that person and other people (e.g. the driver).

If you lack out a special cabi area for a vehicle, either you are leaving them to their own devices in that area, or limiting the senses of your own staff you put in to watch them.

Finally, it's just a lot more expensive and cumbersome to have a large piece of machinery like that, and more likely to fail. What happens if the engine fails? Do you need a spare now? Using a blindfold as backup means that a blindfold is sufficient, so just use it and any vehicle now works.

> If you lack out a special cabi area

"if you black out a special cab area". :/

Is it just me, or does it feel like the SwiftKey keyboard for android has gotten much worse in its autocorrect in the last couple years?

Yeah that could be true.

I did a poor / vague job of describing that the blindfold was used inside buildings too. Folks walked with their hand on the shoulder of a guard in front of them from time to time.

Makes sense. That presumably means people don't have to turn their monitors off and shuffle everything off their desks every time an uncleared person has to move through.

IMO It's also probabbly something security can manage and adjust easily.

Like new a policy, fine leave the blindfold on longer.

Broken blindfold, just grab another.

But say truck with a broken blackout window ... can't go onsite.

How did I misspell "blindfolds" twice!

If you knew the location of "the site" (because you drove to it) - what benefit was the blindfold for the site?

The location of the site is pretty pointless and impossible to obscure (everyone can find it in satellite imagery). However they can certainly obscure more specific details about the site: what building houses what, where access points are, physical security measures around those points, components used in entries, etc.

I'm guessing here because they don't tell you.

But at the gate you couldn't see much of anything. So you effectively never saw the outside of the site, and even parts of the inside of the building.

What you could see, where you could go, all of it seemed to be clearly planned ahead of time and it was just what was essential to complete the task.

Not op, but if there are multiple buildings you won't be able to leak which one is working on what.

Everyone knows roughly where Area 51 is, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll let a contractor know where all the external security cameras are sited.

If "the site" was a building on a military base you'll still have no idea where the exact location is.

I am guessing to obscure which building was which since the blind fold didn't come off until you were inside the building.

wow, me working on FEMA's backups was no where near this secure.(no blinkfolds and guarded all the time inside)

But yea, same thing with them being well aware of your arrival before you show up.

It was their underground bunk backup site near DC, think it was Baltimore area. Drove up to a guard in front of chain link fence.

Why would you be willing to work in such conditions? If my employer demanded to send me to such a facility I would happily tell them to shove it and look for another job.

It wasn't a daily thing. It was a rare event for anyone to make that trip.

Most of the time we worked with traditional commercial customers that while some were secure, were nothing like I described.

Nobody seemed to have any concern with the policies / security.