Author Topic: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline  (Read 66770 times)

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #120 on: 03/22/2013 04:57 pm »
Any update on the story about the Chinese scientist allegedly carrying sensitive materials onto an airplane?

IF I had to bet money on this, I would bet that the scientist simply forgot he had a second laptop in his luggage.

According to NASA Watch, the individual in question plans to plead "Not Guilty" and will opt for a jury trial.  So this is going to be long, drawn out, bloody and possibly very, very embarrassing for NASA.
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Offline russianhalo117

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #121 on: 03/22/2013 06:11 pm »
Any update on the story about the Chinese scientist allegedly carrying sensitive materials onto an airplane?

IF I had to bet money on this, I would bet that the scientist simply forgot he had a second laptop in his luggage.

According to NASA Watch, the individual in question plans to plead "Not Guilty" and will opt for a jury trial.  So this is going to be long, drawn out, bloody and possibly very, very embarrassing for NASA.
So is this now the second, third or forth time or more this situation has occurred since 2000. The one I mainly remember is when a person originating from China attempted to leave JSC for Beijing with a laptop containing ISS commands or something of that nature regarding sensitive MCC data involving control and systems of ISS. I might have misremembered that incident a bit, but I definitely remember something like that occurring at NASA JSC before I finished high school and moved back to Turkey for my senior year which was in 2008-2009.

Offline RocketmanUS

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #122 on: 03/23/2013 12:07 am »
Would it be reasonable to bring the NTRS site back up with a list of the items it has to offer. Then when there is a request for that information, that piece could be looked at by security to determine at that point to release that information or note. The more request for an item the higher the priority to revue for release. This would reduce the amount of items needed to look over as only the items asked for would need to be looked at for the documents that had already been on the site. For new items to be posted then they would need to be looked at before offering them on the site. Once a request for a document went in it would take time before it was released. So the requester would need to leave their email to be informed of the status of the requested document(s) or return to the site later.

Does this sound reasonable?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #123 on: 03/23/2013 12:12 am »
That'd basically moot the whole point of NTRS, which is the ability to search and access multiple different documents easily. There are other sources at NASA that operate like you suggest, but it's a huge pain to access information that way. The net effect would be that a tiny fraction of the original activity (1%) and research would happen on NTRS and it'd probably cost NASA more.

It's still hard for me to wrap my head around how dumb this is.
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Offline RocketmanUS

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #124 on: 03/23/2013 12:36 am »
That'd basically moot the whole point of NTRS, which is the ability to search and access multiple different documents easily. There are other sources at NASA that operate like you suggest, but it's a huge pain to access information that way. The net effect would be that a tiny fraction of the original activity (1%) and research would happen on NTRS and it'd probably cost NASA more.

It's still hard for me to wrap my head around how dumb this is.
OK, thanks.

I was trying to see if there was an option to get the site up faster.
Once a document was approved then it would already be up for the next person looking for it.

Any suggestions on how it could get up faster other than just turning it back on?

Offline Art LeBrun

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #125 on: 03/23/2013 12:38 am »
Isn't DTIC a candidate for this same action?
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #126 on: 03/23/2013 12:41 am »
Isn't DTIC a candidate for this same action?
Don't give them any ideas!
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Offline iamlucky13

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #127 on: 03/23/2013 01:26 am »
That'd basically moot the whole point of NTRS, which is the ability to search and access multiple different documents easily. There are other sources at NASA that operate like you suggest, but it's a huge pain to access information that way. The net effect would be that a tiny fraction of the original activity (1%) and research would happen on NTRS and it'd probably cost NASA more.

It's still hard for me to wrap my head around how dumb this is.

Not entirely. NTRS both provides for searching of what records are on it, as well as easily accessing the actual document. Just knowing what documents exist is useful.

And not all of the documents indexed by NTRS are hosted on it, as far as I understand.

But since even abstracts can potentially hypothetically contain classified information, I doubt whoever made this decision would allow a meaningful search.

Offline Integrator

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #128 on: 03/23/2013 09:20 am »
Can we please put the full capability behind the firewall, like everything else, so we can use it internally? It is a relatively simple thing to do from IT perspective.

And I agree with the comment about the utility of the search engine "card catalog" (remember those??) alone.  Go ahead and restrict access to the actual documents themselves.  If I actually need the document, I can go to the e-stacks or request a hardcopy elsewhere through channels, once I have a title and number for it. 

The bottom line is, I believe the public has a right to access the catalog of products produced by NASA [Government] over the years, unless they are classified "CONFIDENTIAL" and above.  That's what the FOIA process was created to address.

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Offline spectre9

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #129 on: 03/23/2013 10:20 am »
I wanted to find out how much a Mercury capsules weighs so because wiki is useless I headed off to NTRS to grab myself some juicy info.

This is the 2nd page after the title page.

Now tell me this?

Why has it been changed to "unclassified" in '73?

Hasn't somebody already been through this? I would think that's fairly obvious.

Full of technical goodness but not so much as to keep secret from the world.

Surely all of NTRS has had the same precautions taken?

Offline Prober

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #130 on: 03/23/2013 02:04 pm »
Which many at NASA have willfully ignored..

He's not just making this stuff up. China *is* engaged in a widespread industry espionage program.


Yes, with two major goals both by 2020 one related to space and one related to a navy.
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Offline Danderman

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #131 on: 03/23/2013 02:15 pm »
I wanted to find out how much a Mercury capsules weighs so because wiki is useless I headed off to NTRS to grab myself some juicy info.

This is the 2nd page after the title page.

Now tell me this?

Why has it been changed to "unclassified" in '73?

Hasn't somebody already been through this? I would think that's fairly obvious.

Full of technical goodness but not so much as to keep secret from the world.

Surely all of NTRS has had the same precautions taken?

"Unclassified" does not mean that the technical information is suitable for export.  Secret designations have nothing to do with export clearance.

Offline Proponent

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #132 on: 03/23/2013 02:24 pm »
Isn't DTIC a candidate for this same action?
Don't give them any ideas!

Access to DTIC has been curtailed; it's now necessary to be a DoD or US government employee or contractor or be sponsored by such.  Exactly when this change took place, I don't know.

Offline Art LeBrun

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #133 on: 03/23/2013 03:08 pm »
Isn't DTIC a candidate for this same action?
Don't give them any ideas!

Access to DTIC has been curtailed; it's now necessary to be a DoD or US government employee or contractor or be sponsored by such.  Exactly when this change took place, I don't know.
I just tried DTIC Online with seemingly no restrictions......
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Offline Jester

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #134 on: 03/23/2013 05:00 pm »
Slightly updated notice currently on NTRS

The NASA technical reports server will be unavailable for public access
while the agency conducts a review of the site's content to ensure that it
does not contain technical information that is subject to U.S. export control laws
and regulations and that the appropriate reviews were performed.
The site will return to service when the review is complete.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #135 on: 03/23/2013 06:15 pm »
{snip}
Why has it been changed to "unclassified" in '73?


The document was changed to "Unclassified" in 1973 because the "CONFIDENTIAL" classification given in 1961 was set to run out after 12 years.
1961 + 12 = 1973

Unlike the UK and Australia in the USA when creating a secure item you have to say how long it will be classified for.

Offline spectre9

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #136 on: 03/24/2013 12:08 am »
In Australia we don't suffer from the same China paranoia as the USA.

When Hilary turned up she had to say something like "you can be friends with both of us". I got a laugh out of that.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #137 on: 03/24/2013 12:46 am »
In Australia we don't suffer from the same China paranoia as the USA.

You mean our government sold out to the Chinese decades ago.. there's still plenty of China "paranoia" in the mining industry (aka, the industry in Australia).
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline spectre9

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #138 on: 03/24/2013 01:46 am »
I didn't say there's zero China paranoia, just that it's not the same.

We're closer to Asia, we need to play things a little differently.

Offline deltaV

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Re: NASA Contractor Arrested for Espionage. NTRS taken Offline
« Reply #139 on: 03/24/2013 04:06 am »
The NTRS action was stupid, but not liking China isn't just paranoia. China has a law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law) formalizing their policy that if Taiwan publicly claims independence then they'll invade it. Taiwan's government (ROC) used to govern all of China until a 1949 revolution, so PRC calling it a rebellious province is historically wrong. Defending Taiwan against PRC aggression is a major challenge for the US.

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