[MilCom] Re: RR.com and security issues

[Ken]

Hello Tom & the group:

Well as far as "sensitive" information being posted, I highly doubt
that any classified information (classifications such as
CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, TOP SECRET), would ever
be provided to to RR or any other radio website --- The legal ramifications
to the site would IMHO be very swift REGARDLESS who gave it to the site.
HOWEVER, I think that most of the radio frequency & specific usage type 
information would
probably come under the "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY"  administrative category.

Military personnel, federal employees, contractors, and "other users"
(e.g. Civil Air Patrol members) I believe now have to signed
"non disclosure" forms for FOUO information they receive/access
An example of this  can be found at
http://www.ccr.gov/pdfs/CCRNonDesAgr.pdf
Note there's a lot of laws listed on this form & I'm not a
lawyer BUT for those who have signed these
agreements be aware of what you signed!!!!  Cause
the fed/military are going to come after you if you
do disclose this information to unauthorized people.

I think generally Radio Reference's decision
to remove federal "sensitive" data is reasonable when
requested to do so by an "appropriate" official.

Also I think that columnists at such hobby magazines
as "Popular Communications" or "Monitoring Times"
magazines might get a lot more "candid" information
if they set up some sort of an annoymous frequency/
information tip site that couldn't be traced back to anyone.

Not so sure what can be done IF FOUO info is published in
a hobby magazine, or for that matter is downloaded by users from
a website such as RR.  We do know that as far as RR website
is concerned, the webmaster/owner is getting letters from military
officials asking for that information to be removed.   Not sure
how the hobby magazines would address these matters since
there's always going to be back issues available & once the
magazine is distributed it's public information that you can't
take back!  Don't think they are going to cut the pages out of
the magazines!!!

I think some of the pioneers of hobby magazine writing
such as Tom Kneitel probably came under the scrutiny of
some 3 letter federal government agencies.  Tom did a lot
of digging and many of his publications of yesterday acted
as a blue print for our current group of authors/publishers
& columnists!!!

BTW There's always the potential of finding some excellent official 
information
on the internet that is publically accessible.   Additionally I think
that all boils down to committing some of our time to using the
"SEARCH" button on our scanners to discover WHAT is active
in our respective geographic areas, and to share it with other hobbyists
either via a maillist (such as milcom), websites, or a "hot tip" to the
appropriate milcom columist in your favorite hobby magazine!! :) ;)

Ken

Please visit my blogs occassionally to see other information not always 
posted to mail lists
"Adventures in Radio Scannerland" http://radioscannerland.blogspot.com/
"Western Mass Military Comms" http://westernmass-milcom.blogspot.com/

--- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Swisher" <milcom65 at yahoo.com>
To: <milcom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 1:59 AM
Subject: [MilCom] Re: RR.com and security issues


>
> Ken, I agree with you on the on-air monitoring aspect.
> However, having my own web site as well as being a DB
> admin for RR.com, I cannot agree on the other part. If
> someone submits information, we simply have no way of
> telling how they came by that information. It could
> simply be good monitoring work by someone, or they may
> have a contact somewhere that provided the information
> to them.
>
> Either way, the person who has violated any security
> regulations is the employee who released the
> information in the first place, not the web site who
> posted it.