
What does GCHQ know about our devices that we don't? - bcn
https://www.privacyinternational.org/blog/what-does-gchq-know-about-our-devices-that-we-dont
======
hendzen
I doubt the components are backdoored by default in stock hardware. More
likely, GHCQ was worried that other nations (China, Russia, etc.) were
targeting Guardian journalists in an effort to gain access to the Snowden
cache. As such, GHCQ probably was simply taking extra precautions in the event
that hostile intelligence agencies had installed implants into the Guardian's
hardware. Or perhaps, GHCQ/NSA had installed the implants themselves to
monitor the journalists, and then wanted to destroy the evidence. See the
leaked ANT catalog for an idea of the types of hardware implants that SIGINT
agencies have developed.

~~~
ZenPro
It was previously my job (for 3 years) to investigate security breaches and
destroy devices. You are almost uncannily correct.

> _I doubt the components are backdoored by default in stock hardware. More
> likely, GHCQ was worried that other nations (China, Russia, etc.) were
> targeting Guardian journalists in an effort to gain access to the Snowden
> cache. As such, GHCQ probably was simply taking extra precautions in the
> event that hostile intelligence agencies had installed implants into the
> Guardian 's hardware._

This is it in a nutshell, and, legislation states they had to physically
destroy the devices. It was not optional. It was the law. There is absolutely
nothing more to it.

> [Edit to Add]

Believe me, I have destroyed the brand new iDevices of senior Government
personnel because they plugged it into a classified network to charge it for
less than a minute. The law is the law. I actually had a wall of digital
devices we had drilled, degaussed etc etc. The Guardian were treated the same
way we treated everybody. I had my phone confiscated cause I stupidly did the
same thing at the start of my career. _shrug_

There really is no story here which makes the cloak and dagger theories _even_
more funny. It is almost cargo cult-ish. Some guys at Cheltenham will be
rolling in the aisles reading these comments.

> [Legislation Guidance for those asking]

You can Google and read the statutes and policies yourself.

>> Once the classified material had been confirmed, security operators were
then legislatively bound to destroy or other render unusable the material in
question.

The legislation which required all reasonable and necessary measures are
contained within the Official Secrets Act 1989, the National Security
Strategy, the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers
Act 2000 with detailed policy guidance promulgated to intelligence operators
via HMG Information Assurance Notes (1/2 (SPF)) and, more importantly, HMG
Information Assurance Note 5 and the Joint Services Publication 440 which
governs counter-compromise measures.

Ultimate responsibility for HMG security policy lies with the Prime Minister
and the Cabinet Office. Departments and Agencies, via their Permanent
Secretaries and Chief Executives, must manage their security risks within the
parameters set out in the framework, as endorsed by the Official Committee on
Security (SO).

All HMG employees (including contractors) have a collective responsibility to
ensure that government assets (information, personnel and physical) are
protected in a proportionate manner from terrorist attack, and other illegal
or malicious activity.

The loss or compromise of such Critically Important Assets would have a
severe, widespread impact on a national scale and Departments must work with
the National Technical Authorities and the Cabinet Office to ensure they are
afforded appropriate levels of protection.

[EDIT TO FURTHER ADD]

I have posted the links to 7 policy and legal frameworks. If you cannot find
these documents or you are _still_ asking then frankly, you are too fucking
stupid to trying to analyse the law or most other things.

People on HN are not your legal secretary. You not being able to find
something is not proof of it's absence.

~~~
EthanHeilman
The question for me is why they choose to destroy some chips and not others. I
could guess about what makes a chip destroy worthy and another chip not
destroy worthy, but I'd like some groundtruth.

~~~
dfox
It would be useful to have entire list of what they have destroyed, but these
three listed components are:

keyboard controller - random chinese ASIC that probably contains MCS51 core
and some kind of non-volatile memory (with no meaningful way to ascertain
whether it is flash or mask ROM) => it is data storage device

"trackpad controller" \- actually serial flash that trackpad controllers
apparently boots from => data storage device

"inverting controller" (seriously, wtf? :)) - simple analog chip which
probably contains <1k transistors, but it's datasheet says it is
"programmable" (by means of few external resistors, so it does not actually
store any data), and was probably destroyed in order to destroy everything
that stores data or is "programmable".

~~~
Create
_(seriously, wtf? :))_

[https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/bh-
us-11-briefings.ht...](https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/bh-
us-11-briefings.html#Miller)

~~~
dfox
My point in this case is that LT3957 does not even contain any embedded
firmware. There even is a block diagram in it's datasheet that consists of few
opamps, about 20 logic gates and few blackboxes that does not do anything
complex (I assume that each such blackbox is not more than about 20
transistors).

[edit: the "seriously, wtf?" comment has to do with naming it "inverting
controller", not with it's destruction]

------
patrickyeon
There is a possibility that GCHQ knows these chips are storing data without
users knowing it.

It's equally possible that GCHQ isn't sure that they aren't storing data
(double negative, I know). Or that GCHQ wants to be sure nobody at the
Guardian was savvy enough to sneak data on to these chips.

I'm not suggesting one or the other is more likely, I really wouldn't know. I
find it more interesting that they felt the need to do this, when really the
only assurance they have that the documents are destroyed is the word of the
Guardian's employees. Other than someone speaking up, there's no way for
anybody to _actually know_ if there are other copies floating around.

~~~
icodestuff
I think the second possibility is much more likely. If it was the first, they
wouldn't have tipped their hand, given that the guardian staff would have been
among those users.

------
joshfraser
It sounds like there are 3 plausible reasons. (1) they had compromised those
components and were trying to clean up after themselves (2) they were afraid
someone else had compromised them (3) intentional misdirection.

If the GHCQ knew that these components were easily compromised, they would
have bugged them themselves given their interest in the material on those
machines.

~~~
vasquez
4) They were on a power trip and looking to destroy things for the sake of it,
just to make some point. 5) Extending their "field time" for personal reasons,
e.g. because it pays really well. 6) The people in question were just
completely clueless about hardware.

~~~
dfox
It seems to me that they simply destroyed everything that contains the word
"programmable" in it's description, including switching regulator that is
"programmed" by choice of external resistor.

------
GigabyteCoin
Perhaps they were looking for common attack vectors/device modification
surfaces, rather than looking for specific information there.

For example, perhaps the GCHQ have reason to believe that Chinese spys were
bugging keyboards and mice sent to journalists and their companies. So they
removed the chips that they knew could possibly be bugged and took them home
for further inspection?

If they could prove that the Guardians computers were already compromised by
Chinese spys, and that the guardian was holding top secret sensitive
information on them... GCHQ could skewer the Guardian publicly for releasing
state secrets to China.

/speculation

------
fidotron
The purpose of the exercise was only partly to destroy any potential storage,
but also to intimidate the Guardian. Having an air of fake mystery to
irrational actions just adds to the effect.

If the whole thing was too easy the capacity for that intimidation would have
been greatly reduced, and leaving it hanging allows paranoid people to latch
on to stuff while giving GCHQ the air of having preserved some secrets, when
their instructions were probably get rid of certain components, for sure, but
randomly do some other stuff for confusion to cover exactly what it was we did
have to get rid of.

~~~
ZenPro
Nope. There is absolutely no intimidation whatsoever and reports by the
Guardian journalists confirm that the GCHQ engineers were simply resigned to
an extremely common and boring task. They joked about the futility of it as I
understand.

There was no intimidation.

~~~
mikeash
Are you serious? From a link that you yourself provided in another comment
([http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-
relea...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-released-
guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq)):

> Days later Oliver Robbins, the prime minister's deputy national security
> adviser, renewed the threat of legal action. "If you won't return it [the
> Snowden material] we will have to talk to 'other people' this evening."
> Asked if Downing Street really intended to close down the Guardian if it did
> not comply, Robbins confirmed: "I'm saying this."

In what universe does "we will shut down your company if you don't obey" not
qualify as intimidation?

~~~
ZenPro
In the Universe of legal systems.

I suppose you could say that the police "intimidate" criminals by threatening
to arrest them as well but it would make no more sense than you are making.
Like a parent "intimidates" a child by grounding them instead of throwing into
the street to fend for themselves.

The Government had a legal case, they offered the Guardian a solution which
was quicker and less disruptive to their business.

Is your argument that the should not have compromised and just launched a case
to have the Guardian shut down immediately? Is that your argument?

Because if not then you have very little evidence to say the Government were
not being reasonable.

~~~
mnordhoff
Some people define "reasonable" as not seizing information from journalists,
destroying their stuff, offering them choices that include getting shut
down...

Edit: How effectively they can cloak themselves in legalism is beside the
point.

Edit 2: I'm resisting writing more, because there has to be a Godwin's Law
equivalent for when you start quoting dictionary definitions at people. Also
I've made more than enough flip remarks that could be used against me by a
future authoritarian regime...

Edit the third: I'm sympathetic to your arguments about mundane classified
data handling, particularly as _[ed: you 're]_ a mundane classified data
handler, but I'm afraid government agents fucking with journalists gives me
strong feelings of Not Okay.

~~~
ZenPro
Actually I am a startup CMO.

The Government didn't fuck with Journalists. Journalists tried to fuck with
the Government and got owned. Exactly the same way the software engineers of
the Valley were being owned by the NSA for years.

------
vajorie
Who was that guy with that bigass beard was? You know, the one everyone in
tech takes lightly and treats as the butt of the joke? He keeps owning your
asses as you keep ignoring him.

The one who advocates open hardware. You know.

~~~
pyre
It's all a matter of trust in the end. Even with Open Hardware, the production
line, or the transport of the hardware to your doorstep could be compromised.
The same way that even Open Source software can be compromised if no one is
paying attention or you are being specifically targeted.

~~~
femto
How much trust is required also depends on how far one takes "Open". The
homecmos project [1] is taking it down to the level of atoms.

[https://code.google.com/p/homecmos/](https://code.google.com/p/homecmos/)

------
dclusin
It's surprising that they didn't destroy the entire computer to cover up what
they were hiding. This seems like a relatively small subset of components to
investigate.

------
pjc50
We've been here before, 20 years ago, in the "Spycatcher" trial. The UK sued
to suppress information from the book which had been printed in Australia from
making it into the UK newspapers.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/13/...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/13/newsid_2532000/2532583.stm)

United Kingdom vs. Observer (sister paper to the Guardian) is worth reading at
this point:
[http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-...](http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-57705)

" These two newspapers had for some time been conducting a campaign for an
independent investigation into the workings of the Security Service. The
details given included the following allegations of improper, criminal and
unconstitutional conduct on the part of MI5 officers:

(a) MI5 "bugged" all diplomatic conferences at Lancaster House in London
throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, as well as the Zimbabwe independence
negotiations in 1979;

(b) MI5 "bugged" diplomats from France, Germany, Greece and Indonesia, as well
as Mr Kruschev’s hotel suite during his visit to Britain in the 1950’s, and
was guilty of routine burglary and "bugging" (including the entering of Soviet
consulates abroad);

(c) MI5 plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate President Nasser of Egypt at the
time of the Suez crisis;

(d) MI5 plotted against Harold Wilson during his premiership from 1974 to
1976;

(e) MI5 (contrary to its guidelines) diverted its resources to investigate
left-wing political groups in Britain."

(a) and (b) are basically the same as some of Snowden's allegations:
diplomatic meetings are bugged.

(c) is a routine violation of international law, although to be fair we were
trying to invade Suez at the time;

(d) is MI5 trying to overthrow our democratic government, straightforward
totalitarianism;

(e) is still going on, and Scotland Yard are involved as well (e.g. the deeply
embedded undercover officers in the Green movement).

The judgement eventually held that MI5 attempting to block the publication of
Spycatcher was a human rights violation. I would expect a similar result in an
ECHR trial about attempts to block Snowden's leaks, if such a trial happened.

~~~
arethuza
Nitpick - it was MI6 (AKA The Secret Intelligence Service) that plotted to
kill Nasser - MI5 is the Security Service.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spycatcher](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spycatcher)

Poor Harold Wilson - he really was a case of 'Just because you're paranoid
doesn't mean they aren't after you'

NB Given the famously poor relationship between MI5 and MI6 I did wonder if
the former had decided to take up "spying" by itself... :-)

~~~
pjc50
I pasted from the court transcript and you're quoting Wikipedia. Let's see if
I can get the page corrected with a primary source ...

~~~
arethuza
The book appears to say:

"At the beginning of the Suez Crisis, MI6 developed a plan, through the London
Station, to assassinate Nasser using nerve gas."

According to this PDF:

[https://wikispooks.com/w/images/a/a5/Spycatcher.pdf](https://wikispooks.com/w/images/a/a5/Spycatcher.pdf)

------
jimrandomh
One possibility, as mentioned, is that these ICs are not what they're claimed
to be. Someone should take them out of equivalent devices, decap them, and
publish some photos.

Another possibility is that they weren't just looking to destroy data, but
also to sneak a peak at the data being destroyed. Scraping off a power IC
might let them attach a power source, to turn on parts that were supposed to
be off. Scraping off other ICs might get them access to I2C buses.

~~~
leoedin
There's a huge leap between having access to pins and actually accessing data.
Even talking to unknown i2c devices requires some experimentation. Even if
there was a clear channel through which you could access data over i2c (I'm
not aware of any consumer bulk storage device which makes data available over
i2c), doing that covertly in a short period of time while giving pretences
that you're destroying the device would be practically impossible. GCHQ
employees aren't magicians.

I suppose it's possible that the guardian hid all the secret data in i2c
eeprom chips which happened to be on their motherboard. "Possible" in the very
remotest sense. You'd need to be pretty knowledgeable in digital electronics
to even approach that successfully.

I suspect it's more likely that GCHQ have a list of ICs which can store data,
and to be safe they are required to destroy them all.

------
mbell
> We have reached out to Apple to understand the storage characteristics of
> this component and the role it plays in overall device operation.

I spit out my beverage when I read that. They reached out to Apple to
understand the 'storage characteristics' and 'role' of a DC regulator...

~~~
Elrac
That was my reaction too. Unlike other chips which at least sit on some data
buses and theoretically have electrical access to the information being
processed by the PC, _this_ device is attached to little other than a DC power
lead.

To target this particular device as a data tap borders on science fiction.
It's theoretically possible to glean bits of data from surges in power
consumption, but not very practical.

------
highlander
Considering the circumstances, I wouldn't be surprised if they destroyed those
extra chips just to troll the internet...

------
josephcooney
GCHQ are probably pretty far ahead of the game as far as disinformation goes.
Consider what the UK government did to cover up operation overlord.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodyguard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodyguard)

I seem to recall a story where they put fake plans in the pocket of an army
coat, which they put on a recently deceased person dressed in full military
uniform (of military service age), and then strategically dumped it where they
knew the germans would find it. Or maybe that was just a spy movie I watched.

~~~
timthorn
Yes, this happened - Operation Mincemeat:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/operation_mincemeat](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/operation_mincemeat)

~~~
DanBC
A few people mention operation mincemeat.

> letter from Ernest Whitley Jones, joint general manager of Lloyds Bank,[7]
> demanding payment of an overdraft of £79 19s 2d (£79.96).

This amount of money seems incorrect. A £56 ring would cost £2000 today, thus
a £79 overdraft would not be £79 today, or someone would not have a > £2000
overdraft.

I do not edit wikipedia.

~~~
phpnode
That's a conversion to the decimal amount, not a conversion to today's
equivalent.

~~~
DanBC
That feels like an odd thing to do, especially for international readers who
won't know or care about UK decimalisation in 1972(?)

~~~
dragonwriter
Its not really odd, its a natural way to convert a quantity stated in three
units that have no obvious relation _even to each other_ to someone unfamiliar
with the pre-decimal system into a quantity stated in a single unit.

------
reggplant
Destroying those components would render the machine useless without external
inputs and outputs, maybe their intention was simply just to disable the
machine, executed in a rather odd manner.

------
jradd
My __theory __is that they were not destroying any kind of persistent data on
these components like IC 's; rather, destroying what/where/whom they might be
able to identify or correspond with via serial numbers, dates, manufacturer,
locations of where that component came from, etc.

At least for the components of which have no memory, volatile or not.

~~~
dfox
Both keyboard and trackpad controllers are microcontrollers with embedded
flash, third chip (LT3957) says it is "programmable" in it's datasheet
(although in this case it means that it's characteristics can be changed by
values of external components, not that it contains any kind of non volatile
memory).

------
Alphasite_
Obviously, the easy answer is that theres somehow something that lets you
record data in those components. On the other hand, you have to consider that
perhaps those are components that they've known other groups (them selves
included) to use to store data, so they want to ensure that they're destroyed.
Perhaps they dont want any inadvertent leaks of the data to a third party?

~~~
revelation
No, the easy answer is that the same idiots run GCHQ that are employed in
other government branches and they sent the trained equivalent of metalworkers
to destroy these things, and they accordingly proceeded to hack into every
computery looking piece.

I think this part gets lost in the cloak and dagger stories that dominate the
media. No, the NSA and GCHQ have not revolutionized computing, they run the
same shitty Java enterprise stuff designed by thieving contractors we all do.
Just take a look at their hideous powerpoint presentations.

------
datenwolf
If I may speculate about why those ICs were destroyed, then I'd wager on, that
the decision about which ICs to destroy was not made by an engineer, but by
some overseeing manager who went through a number of PowerPoint slides (like
they were leaked over the past year) and identified those as a threat, because
those ICs have been mentioned for being an active part in data exfiltration.

Let me explain: What those ICs have in common is, that each of them bases
their function on fast switching of voltages:

The keyboard controller IC rapidly (at several hundred kHz) switches voltage
through the key matrix row-lines (addressing the row) so that on the column
lines the voltage is read out and thereby telling if a key is pressed, hence
making the connection.

The touchpad controller IC does the same, but not for reading out electrical
connection made by keys, but the change of capacitance caused by a dielectric
(=finger).

The voltage inverter IC is switching a voltage to drive an induction coil for
a voltage converter.

Now the (often unwanted) side effect of switching voltages is, that they
create electromagnetic waves, that radiate away. Unless you're building a
radio transmitter you don't want that, as this is then EMI (electromagnetic
interference). EMI is a big concern in the design of keyboard, touchpad and
voltage conversion controller.

But for spooks the EMI caused by regular device operation can be a great
covert channel to exfiltrate information. To the unwary it just looks like the
regular, random EMI but a spy agency may know how to cleverly use it.

Now making use of keyboard row-column switching caused EMI to eavesdrop on
user input is by no way something new. This kind of tempest attack is as old
as it gets. You can nicely see on an oscilloscope when the controller begins
reading out the keypad (there's some pause before) and every row switching
produces a pulse; if there's a key pressed the pulse looks different; also the
shape of the pulse depends on the amount of wire closing the circuit, so this
gives you the key position on the row and column, thereby telling you which
key is pressed. When voting computers were about to introduced in the
Netherlands European hackers demonstrated, that the entry system of the
machines used could be eavesdropped on by their EMI. Unless you got yourself a
super EMI optimized keyboard on your computer, you're likely giving away your
inputs by EMI.

The touchpanel controller is similar.

Now the inverter controller is interesting, because those normally drive a
display's backlight, which is more or less independent from the data displayed
on the display. But then the display brightness can be controlled by software!
So by having a spy program run on the computer that modulates the display
brightness with some data you want to exfiltrate you can make use of that
channel. However the bitrate will not be very high; if I had to make an
educated guess, I'd say about 100 Baud to 1 kBaud.

Anyway I think those techniques may have been presented or documented
somewhere and a person without the technical understanding at GCHQ command
thought those particular controllers would maybe hold some secrets or are
something special, while in fact the really interesting stuff happened
somewhere else. It's not even clear that the laptop computer had display
modulating spyware installed. But that's what I was looking for on suspect
computers first, because the keyboard and touch controllers are boring and
their principal vulnerability to eavesdropping by EMI emission is well known.

------
motters
The most likely explanation I think is that these extra chips are targeted for
implantation as part of Tailored Access Operations, or the GCHQ equivalent.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations)

------
shin_lao
Probably a procedure against potential bugs placed by a foreign intelligence.

------
ZenPro
When I was serving I always used to wonder why the Ministry of Defence never
used to defend itself with a public spokesman about public allegations.

Now I know why - people are morons and no explanation will suffice. It is
really not worth the time or resources to argue with people who have no
primary experience of the subject they think they are qualified to argue
about.

Carry on HNers; you are doing a fine job.

------
ZenPro
Just to be clear on this matter. The Guardian were given every option to
return the classified material.[1]

 _In two tense meetings last June and July the cabinet secretary, Jeremy
Heywood, explicitly warned the Guardian 's editor, Alan Rusbridger, to return
the Snowden documents._

>> _At one point Heywood said: "We can do this nicely or we can go to law"_

That is not intimidatory. It is exactly how I would expect a democratic
institution to act. They didn't send in jackbooted armed personnel to shut
down the editorial department. Two computer engineers arrived and oversaw
classified material being destroyed. That's it.

It's about as intimidating as a police officer telling a suspect he can get in
the car nicely or he can be handcuffed.

The Guardian were asked point blank in a Parliamentary Hearing - "Do you think
the entire episode was a PR stunt?" and they said "No."

EDIT TO ADD: I love it :-) Voted down for publishing the story written _by_
the Guardian about the entire incident.

[1][http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-
relea...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-released-
guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq)

~~~
andy_ppp
Some of the down voting here is really weird right now. It's not really
worthwhile commenting so I've given up. If you have anything outside of a
mainstream geek view you are toast on HN. Your comment is fine and adds
information, so I can't understand why it's been down voted.

~~~
nullc
Because he's aggressively making the same claims in many threads, the
discussions in those threads suggest that people have found fault in his
arguments (e.g. they think he's misrepresenting the law).

Because of the way the threading works people are seeing his N repetitions of
these claims, with rebuttals, before seeing this post, so naturally they're
down-voting it.

~~~
ZenPro
In response to people aggressively stating the same false allegations.

1\. Miranda was denied a lawyer.

>> False. He refused the lawyer after it was offered and confirmed it in his
appeal and his subsequent account.

2\. The Guardian accused the GCHQ of merely conducting a PR stunt.

    
    
      >> False.  Guardian admitted it was not a PR stunt.
    

3\. No laws exist that pertain to the destruction of magnetic media holding
classified data.

    
    
      >> False.  Too many statutes and policy papers to list *again*
    

4\. No other countries have similar laws

    
    
      >> False.  Posters from Australia and the USA and Commercial organisations have confirmed it is exactly the same in their countries.  Posters working with List X companies have confirmed the exact same legal environment. 
    

5\. I am a shill.

    
    
      >> So false it is absurd.  I disagreed with JTRIG, advocated free press and refuse to disparage the Guardian and wrote a lengthy article about questioning the intelligence services.  I am so much of a shill I purposefully sabotaged my own shilling with a failed iAMA on Reddit and links to my own startup. 
    

6\. Intelligence Service had no right to detain Miranda

    
    
      >> False as per the ruling of the High Court.
    

7\. Intelligence Service had no right to seize magnetic media containing
classified information.

    
    
      >> False as per High Court ruling.
    

8\. Intelligence Services were under orders. IE Nuremberg Argument.

    
    
      >> False.  Intelligence Services are not bound by the Military Act of 2011.  They are not under orders.  
    

9\. Intelligence services would have sent gunmen into the Guardian to claim
their property.

    
    
      >> So false it is nearing Hollywood levels of nonsense. 
    

10\. I am anti-Snowden, pro-NSA

    
    
      >> False.  Never stated my leaning either way.  Merely described the circumstances that lead to hard drives being destroyed.
    

11\. I am a liar / Walter Mitty / fantasist etc

    
    
      >> False.  Served 8 years in military intelligence as an EW OP, Operations Analyst and then Counter Intelligence operator.  Full reports and SC and NATO SC clearances with lapsed DV clearances.  Regardless of accusations, I *know* my service record is genuine.
    

12\. I have invented the law.

    
    
      >> False.  Consider for a second the absolute ludicrous nature of this thread.  Just rationally consider it.  It is highly likely that only one person on the thread (me) has *ever* been responsible for the destruction of magnetic media containing compromised material of classification.  I wrote about it on Quora (verified by Marc and for Urban Times (credentials verified by the Editorial Team) and I have explained why it happened.  I have not defended the law or advocated it, merely explained it.   And there is an entire thread of people claiming that they know better and, brilliantly, some of them are not even British.  The did a cursory Google search, did not read anything and decided I was lying. 
    

The best part is a poster above actually linked to a document which word for
word proved _exactly_ what I had posted. He was using it as some sort of
evidence I was lying! It was a baseline policy document directing you to the
legislation of information breaches and destruction of IT...

If ever there was a thread evidencing the reasons against Democracy it is this
one.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_democracy#Irration...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_democracy#Irrational_voters)

