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To tie this to the software development community, I used to work in electronics manufacturing for a company that provided services to defense contractors. The vast majority of my dev team (SWEs, PMs, QA, Ops) were offshore, split between Latin America & India mostly. The product owner & architect of one of our team's key software services (shop floor test integration/automation tools) was Brazilian. In one version of the code he'd set some debug flags so he could triage an intermittent error. Unbeknownst to everyone (I mean, we should have known, but didn't think to check), the version was deployed to prod in a factory building DoD stuff.

We got called not long after by the site's compliance officer asking why classified data was being accessed by non-ITAR-compliant personnel. It was explainable and we got through it just by implementing and adhering to an additional deployment control, but I still remember him telling us that the products being built don't become classified until the serial number label is applied to the board. That label is what ultimately identifies the product and the program ... so if we had a way of testing things without labeling them (for example, by creating dummy labels that didn't mean anything but could still be UUIDs), it was no problem. So then we adapted our software to allow for these dummy serials for testing purposes ... and we also created a classified compliance trigger in our BI tools to prevent manufacturing history for any classified unit from being visible to an non-compliant personnel after the manufacturing step where the real SN label was applied.

Speaking of naval nuclear, I grew up in Lynchburg, VA, home of BWXT, and my dad is a [retired] naval officer & nuclear engineer who spent his career at B&W (commercial). I had several friends who went to work at BWXT and they took data controls extremely seriously. No computers (including cell phones) allowed through the gate. No paper allowed back out, and any new hire who didn't already have a security clearance had to work in a physically airgapped (trailers, enclosed in razor wire fencing) office on not much of anything until they got cleared. For some it took 6-9 months after they were hired.

> The student was ordered in writing to not read about nuclear engineering outside of the school building, regardless of the source. Even though it's all publicly available information that is taught in any undergrad engineering program.

that in particular seems extreme, but I know someone who worked on nuclear reactors for the DOD and they were told to not comment on/confirm anything related to nuclear as a CYA, even if it was widely available public info.

I remember being told all the real information is out there. Confirmation is what's lacking. Especially for things like Tab data like what you pick up on the world of tanks forums.

> ..only a handful of numbers related to the nuclear power plant on each class of ship that actually need to be classified..

What do you actually mean by numbers in this context?

nice try Iran

I imagine it's things like the maximum power output of the power plant, the volume it runs at, things like that. Similarly, the max depth of submarines and their audible signature are closely guarded secrets.

If they are talking about the power plant I’d assume it’s also characteristic things like response times and control/configuration data. That’s what ultimately identifies a reactor to pick the apart from others.

E.g. if you exactly know reactor XY was assigned to Z submarine, and you see it in the boneyard, you could assume Z was decommissioned. And if you are e.g. China you could estimate how many submarines are deployed in your vicinity.

I think one of the big reasons for over-classification is that people often only learn things in a classified context. So if you only ever see F=MA in a classified document you'll kind of assume that it's a classified formula.

Also when classifying things you do have to portion mark but you don't need to justify any of the portion markings so you don't have to actually know if/why something is classified to mark it and that causes markings to perpetuate.