From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 95 15:35:37 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Secret Clearance (was: re: NIST GAK export meeting, sv)
Message-ID: <199512062336.PAA14064@ix6.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 09:00 PM 12/5/95 -0500, Pete Loshin <pete@loshin.com> wrote:
>The point is, if you want to keep your organization's systems secure,
>you need some mechanism to do so. Security clearance is one way;
>banks and other financial institutions do other things (like finger prints,
>background checks, etc.)
...
>My big question is, do any of the companies providing Internet services,
>or Internet software, or digital commerce services/software, employ
>any of these security mechanisms on their employees? 

Few, if any, other than companies already in the military business;
secret clearances are _expensive_, usually take a long time to get,
and the military only gives them to people who need them.  Normally,
to get clearances for your employees, you need to have a security
bureaucracy to also get clearance for handling classified material
in your building, though perhaps they'd make other arrangements
so the cleared escrow agent could take the master keys down to
the local FBI office to unlock somebody's correspondence.

Commercial companies are more likely to use bonding services to
insure themselves against employee theft, though they also
do things like talking to previous employers, and for sensitive
positions some companies check criminal records.  Many companies
will run a TRW-or-equivalent credit check on applicants to
see if there are major outstanding problems (though somehow the
Mafia seldom reports bad gambling debts to TRW :-), and some
companies pretend they're doing drug tests to check for
people with expensive habits.
#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281

# Anybody notice that Microsoft's Wide Open Road ad has barbed-wire fences
# on both sides of the road?