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Comment by ascales | Hacker News Reader

Clearly a big deal and congressional IT staff are going to have a crazy few weeks ahead of them. However, my understanding is that any classified information would have to be in a SCIF. I assume that would be the case with congresspeople as well. I've also heard that the congressional paging system locks devices when an emergency is announced, but haven't seen that corroborated anywhere. Anyone know if that's true?

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There are lots of different levels of classification. Not all interaction with all classified information needs to happen in a SCIF.

Plus, classification is reserved for government documents, right? If someone's goal was to specifically expose "DNC secrets," a la Watergate, the most damaging information would likely not be "classified" in the formal sense of the word.

The other issues is what "Thing" was left behind in the Capitol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%...

Imagine something like 'The Thing' but with ~75 years of technological advancement.

The Capitol is going to need to be cleaned for such devices and equipment for a long time before it can be considered secure again.

On the flip side, any devices that may be found are likely to be close to the latest models, and like with project SATYR, the US may have a potential goldmine of new tech in the coming years.

EDIT: Combined with the recent hacking of the US, the synergy of having physical access creates a load of headaches and nightmares. If I were in the federal information security space I would be very interested in visa and flight logs in and out of the US right now.

Only DoD Top Secret data must be stored in a SCIF.

Counter evidence: the protesters were saying that they saw computers unlocked with email still open.

Uhh yeah, probably because the congresspeople were evacuated in a hurry because there was an angry mob storming their building?

At least where I work, we're required to configure computers to lock after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Sadly 10 minutes probably not enough time in this case if they had that security feature on.

Unless the user decides to leave Windows Media Player playing in the background in a loop to circumvent the lock.

I was providing counter evidence to:

> I've also heard that the congressional paging system locks devices when an emergency is announced

If computers locked automatically when an emergency is announced, it doesn't matter if the staffers evacuated quickly.

It takes less than one second to press Windows+L. Certainly they could have accomplished that as they got up from their seats.

I mean, sure, they had time. But clarity of mind during an evacuation is something I imagine is _hard_ for most people. Definitely would be for me.

What is a "SCIF"?

Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Inform...

Special room for classified stuff. Even once you're inside the classified room (usually windowless and behind a locked keypad) a lot of stuff is also behind locked filing cabinets.

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