Spot the Fed

[TheCotMan]

Reminds me of the accountant in The Untouchables movie. Little squirley guy, 98 lbs soaking wet. How to spot them, hmmmm....

Well, some of the observational checklist items can be used. Those items that help to check for the door-busting type feds don't count against the "98-lb soaking wet" type. (The idea was to have a scoring system that would test positive for many kinds of people that count as Fed, and negative for people who would not count.)

More suggestions of observations and questions are welcome. It is trivial for me to add new questions... the form auto-recomputes min/max etc.

[astcell]

I always got a kick out of folks who for some reason believe "If you ask a cop if he is a cop, he has to say yes." Hahaha...says who!

[Voltage Spike]

I always got a kick out of folks who for some reason believe "If you ask a cop if he is a cop, he has to say yes."

If he lies to you three times, then it becomes entrapment.

[hackajar]

I always got a kick out of folks who for some reason believe "If you ask a cop if he is a cop, he has to say yes." Hahaha...says who!

Crossing the Constitutional Line sums up that cops can lie till they fall over sideways.

If the hells angels knew that you had to tell the truth, there would be either more crime, or a lot of dead cops.

[cristisphoto]

Spotters of feds...

I\Well let's see
I was in the Navy
Now I am just a lame Civi
So if anyone can spot a fed it'd be me
as My dad was in Law enforcement
But me being the qUEER rEBEL hEHEH lol
aNY QUESTIONS?????????????????????

[TheCotMan]

IaNY QUESTIONS?????????????????????

Yep. Do you have suggestions on things to observe beyond those that have been listed? Do you have suggestions on questions to ask other than those that were listed?

[highwizard]

I\Well let's see
I was in the Navy
Now I am just a lame Civi
So if anyone can spot a fed it'd be me
as My dad was in Law enforcement
But me being the qUEER rEBEL hEHEH lol
aNY QUESTIONS?????????????????????

Queer's aren't rebels, they're just misguided... Pray away the gay, buddy.

[erehwon]

Let's see how many times Priest uses that one this year. He really needs some new material.

[Scene missing]
[Cot returns stammering, somewhat freightened]

Um. Starting over. Does that work on crypto guys from the NSA, or the computer system forensic scientists, or the research people from the CIA? It might work on SS, FBI field workers, and the heavy boot, agent Smith style feds.

Umm, yes, knowing again there are NSA crypto guys attending Defcon that are the same ones planting semi-large listening devices just outside (for instance) the beautiful postcard cities of Sarajevo, Karbala, or Mogadishu, yelling GUN! will get those feds to pop up then drop down as a reflex.

Same goes for NCIS, (its not always like Mark Harmon just bouncing around Norfolk solving Navy/Marine Corps crimes) or AFOSI computer forensic people using Logicube hardware to image a drive in the Green Zone of Baghdad, and there are many CIA researchers that carry firearms for work for personal protection since their jobs require it, I can say without bullshitting you all, I have met these kind of people at Defcon's past, and that would work, but again I wouldn't recommend it because its like yelling FIRE in a large movie multiplex 7:00pm on a Friday night, when there isn't one.


edit: Little spelling error that bugged me... but someday I want to see TheCotMan freightened.

[TheCotMan]

Umm, yes...
[Good examples to support this chopped]

Excellent. I'll add it to the "Dangerous Things" section. :-)

[Adrenaline]

a good fed is one that cannot be spotted.

Not all fed's are trying not to be discovered or are undercover.

[lil_freak]

If he lies to you three times, then it becomes entrapment.

Um, maybe somewhere else but not here in the US. Police don't have to reveal their status, even when asked flat out. There's nothing in the law to prohibit law enforcement officers from lying in the course of performing their duties, no matter how many times they are asked this question. This is for both safety and GO/SOP's that must be mantained to fullfill undercover techniques

[erehwon]

Clique and Dagger



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr11.html

By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 12, 2005; Page C01

If he is confirmed this month as the first-ever director of national intelligence, John Negroponte will face many daunting challenges: courting foreign intelligence sources, for instance, and streamlining intelligence gathering to help prevent another massive terrorist attack.

But in the spy world these days another question dominates the discussions:

Where will Negroponte's office be?

If the president places him in CIA headquarters, says one former CIA official, that will send the message that he's the boss now. If instead he's detailed to an alternative site in Tysons Corner, that would send the message either that he's irrelevant, or that the CIA's irrelevant, depending on whom you talk to.

No one actually knows what the plan is, but the answer is beside the point. The real purpose of the Office Rumor is to keep alive the gossip and jockeying for power and endless squabbling that the new position was intended to end.

In its final report, the Sept. 11 commission called the system for sharing intelligence between agencies unacceptable, outmoded and excessively secretive. The DNI is intended to get the agencies to stop hoarding and start sharing. But the early reports do not look too hopeful. So far all the buzz has been about power struggles -- DNI up, CIA down, Pentagon nervous -- anything to give the 15 agencies Negroponte oversees an excuse to give each other the silent treatment.

The intelligence world is a "community" only in the same sense as any high school. From the outside they are united by a common rival. But from the inside they are fractured into finely subdivided cliques that wouldn't be caught in the same room together unless the principal (in this case, Negroponte) called them into his office.

Broadly speaking, Spy High is ruled by two warring factions: the Techno-Geeks and the 007s. Each side thinks the future of intelligence rests with them and the other side is for losers.

"It's cubicle city. Computer guys, cryptographers. A bunch of people listening to inane telephone chatter for 45 minutes at a time. My God, it really puts you to sleep. Believe me, they don't have very exciting lives."

This is the voice of the Football Jock of the 007s: Robert Baer, a retired CIA case officer in the Middle East for 21 years who writes books with breathless titles such as "See No Evil" and "Sleeping With the Devil." That's his take on the National Security Agency, that big top-secret fortress at Fort Meade that is the headquarters of the Techno-Geeks.

Here, now, is the Techno-Geeks' swift and haughty response:

"A CIA agent is someone who gets a lot of glory for intelligence collection, but 85 percent of intelligence comes from the NSA," says James Bamford, who wrote the two definitive books on the NSA. "Human intelligence never produced much useful information. And whatever they did produce was all compromised by Aldrich Ames and Bob Hanssen. They never penetrated al Qaeda, and their intelligence on Iraq was marginal at best."

When they are not rumbling with each other, the two sides are tamping down power struggles within their own ranks. Within the 007s the legendary spitting match between the CIA and the FBI continues to rage, ever more so now that the FBI is encroaching on foreign intelligence gathering. To the moviegoing public they are both guys with trench coats who rough up the bad guys. But to each other they are different species, night and day, Jekyll and Hyde.

As the old joke goes, the FBI guys catch the bank robbers and the CIA guys rob the banks. Both sides can laugh at that one, but beyond it they part.

A CIA case officer looks at the FBI agent and sees: a guy in Hush Puppies and a fake Burberry, clean-cut as a Mormon, never been to Paris or Morocco, never been far outside Fairfax. Every morning he gets in his Crown Vic and promptly clocks in. He's got some skills in hunting down bad guys, but he's also got a lawyer sitting on him all the time. Asking him to catch terrorists is like asking your kid's teacher to break up the local gangs.

The FBI guy looks at the CIA guy and thinks: With a slight tick and shift in his history he'd be stealing cars in the Bronx. Gosh, he looks like he's been up a lot of nights in a row. Doesn't he own a razor? And how does he afford that place in Georgetown, not to mention those shoes?

"Sometimes you read these old FBI files and wonder who the enemy was, the KGB or the CIA," says Athan Theoharis, an FBI expert at Marquette University.

Then there is the third wheel, the pesky hanger-on, the one they won't even bother to fight with. That's the various branches of military intelligence, meaning Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. What CIA and FBI guys say about them is almost too insulting to print. To them, the "buzzheads" are the Chihuahuas of the intelligence pack, the weenies who yap at you in their own little lingo.

On the other hand, "they are disciplined, they went through boot camp, and they don't just attract the same old white guys," Baer grudgingly admits, so maybe they do have a place in the club.

The Techno-Geeks have their own internal problems. Tensions run high in the corner of the computer lab where the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency guys hang out. NGA originated nine years ago, as a way to combine the imagery people, who read and interpret satellite photos, with the mapmakers. Many of you may have missed this marriage announcement but in spyland this was the equivalent of the prom king taking a math nerd as his date.

"The satellite imagery people were considered the big dogs, the holy of holies, the inner sanctum," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. They were visual, even artistic; in college they might have been scenery designers for the theater, he says.

The mapmakers, meanwhile, "were never really regarded as being intelligence. That was not dignified, it was just about as unsexy as it gets," Pike says.

In 2003, the agency adopted its current name, in an effort to better unify the two cultures. "They're trying to bring them together," Pike says. "But they all hate each other."

Then, off on the other side of campus, hidden behind the trees, sits a building called the National Security Agency. Nobody really goes there and the residents don't wander out. They have their own cafeteria, their own clubs, their own parties.

Everyone else suspects the NSA guys are the smartest, but they don't really know; even if you happened to meet one he wouldn't show you the fraternity ring. If somehow you were to manage to sneak over there and get through the million layers of security and then through one of the big bank vault doors, here's what you would see:

"Huge rooms full of nothing but cubicles," says Bamford. "Behind each one sits someone looking at a computer screen, or listening to a tape recorder. Then there's this one big room full of huge antennas where they test new data collection systems -- like something out of a sci-fi movie."

As the NSA guys see it, they do all of the work with none of the glamour. Thus, the deep resentment of the CIA, as articulated by Bamford above. When Bush picked Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the current NSA director, as Negroponte's deputy, this was seen as confirmation of their superiority, says Bamford, and much gloating ensued.

Presidents back to Gerald Ford have tried to gather the various intelligence branches into one big happy family. The Web site Intelligence.gov hails the power of cooperation and shows seemingly happy colleagues working shoulder-to-shoulder. But those who know better sigh, like the principal facing the same old boys in his office.

"It's not a problem that can be solved," says Pike. "It's just a process that has to be managed."

[TheCotMan]

From previous post:

someday I want to see TheCotMan freightened.

Oh that is easy to do to someone who is paranoid. :-)

Nice article. Several new questions jump out, but some items are too close to corporate employees.

[chop]
"... A bunch of people listening to inane telephone chatter for 45 minutes at a time...."

Q: Does part of your job require you to listen to conversation for which there was 'expectation for privacy' ? If so, how much time:

As the old joke goes, the FBI guys catch the bank robbers and the CIA guys rob the banks.

Q: Does (or has) part of your job include(ed) assist(ing) or work(ing) to subvert or overthrow foreign governments or destabilize foreign economies?

A CIA case officer looks at the FBI agent and sees: a guy in Hush Puppies and a fake Burberry, clean-cut as a Mormon, never been to Paris or Morocco, never been far outside Fairfax. Every morning he gets in his Crown Vic and promptly clocks in. He's got some skills in hunting down bad guys, but he's also got a lawyer sitting on him all the time.

We have the clothing syles and clean-cut, but can include "Burberry" as a style in questions.
Issues of travel vs not traveling have too many collisions in the corporate world.
I don't see an immediate question WRT the lawyer/law issue. Perhaps others have ideas that works only for feds, but not non-feds.
The car is a good one to consider in questions.

NGA originated nine years ago, as a way to combine the imagery people, who read and interpret satellite photos, with the mapmakers.

Do you create maps at your job that are used by employees of the federal government? (weak question. Someone from yahoo maps could say say.)

Does part of your job require careful examination of very high resolution satellite photos? (better, but not strong)

Then, off on the other side of campus, hidden behind the trees, sits a building called the National Security Agency. Nobody really goes there and the residents don't wander out. They have their own cafeteria, their own clubs, their own parties.

Consider a group in Redmond where you find a similar lifestyle and social system. You are not employed, you are adopted into a family.

"Huge rooms full of nothing but cubicles," says Bamford. "Behind each one sits someone looking at a computer screen, or listening to a tape recorder.

Describes much of corporate america.

Then there's this one big room full of huge antennas where they test new data collection systems -- like something out of a sci-fi movie."

There is a good question somewhere in here.

The Web site Intelligence.gov hails the power of cooperation and shows seemingly happy colleagues working shoulder-to-shoulder.

Q: If your organization/agency has a website, is its domain name's TLD ".gov"? .org? .com? .net?

Thanks for the article!
Will add some of these questions soon.

[erehwon]

Nice article. Several new questions jump out, but some items are too close to corporate employees.

This is going to be longer than planned, go make some popcorn if you want to read this and print it out for later, I might answer more questions, but this is probably the last core dump for me on "Spot the Fed".

All this information is personal experience, and open sourced intelligence, I am not spilling any national security secrets for the sake of winning a t-shirt, Nor do I not have nor currently want a Government security clearance, but headhunters, that is not a firm NO, I'll listen to your voicemails and read e-mail.

But I will likely still have a DHS JTTF white van parked out front and a Crown Vic with some of the information listed below, its all open source information!!!

So new questions... You've got that one right, I can and will give you plenty of for instances here, and this might help narrow things down, or add to the game of not knowing if someone clean cut, wearing a faded cDc NSF shirt bought off of eBay, and not knowing who or what the Cult of the Dead Cow is and it is or is not really a Fed, or someone wanting to be outted as a Fed til Brother Priest plays 20 questions like what your original MOS is, (I am clueless for what the USMC calls it.)

Q: Does part of your job require you to listen to conversation for which there was 'expectation for privacy' ? If so, how much time:

I am an information security professional with a packet sniffer outside of the company listening to VOIP traffic, the dorks in Accounts Payable don't know any better, they think they are talking on a POTS line. (Full disclosure, I have never done a telco VOIP audit, so I might be talking out of my ass, I only herded the cats and made sure they were't playing Doom II on Digex Satellite Internet when they should be scanning and taking notes.)

Now that could go either way, corporate in-house information security department, or RedCell Eligible Receiver like NSA/CIA Jack Ryan types testing a contracted NSA employee direct payroll company for industry standard compliance.

Q: Does (or has) part of your job include(ed) assist(ing) or work(ing) to subvert or overthrow foreign governments or destabilize foreign economies?

Heh, not at Defcon proper, but at other 'related' conferences, I have met guys like the late Michael Spann killed at the same compound as "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh was found. Capt. Michael Spann was in the United States Marine Corps and after 9/11/01 wanted to do more than be some of the first troops in a hot LZ with more of his fellow Marines, Spann joined the covert operations side of the CIA and was killed in action, the first American non-military casualty (I think, no more Redbull in the house) in Afghanistan during the prison uprising.

His buddy. Dave, who many say I resemble, was able to borrow a satellite phone from German journalists and call Langley, and Tampa to bring more Special Operations troops to fight diehard Al Qaeda fighters and to try to save a dying Mike Spann from those savages. Robert Young Pelton who writes the book 'The Worlds Most Dangerous Places" was there when this all went down and had a nice (read: graphic and blunt) documentary for National Geographic on what went really wrong there.

But....

I know of one party (for the sake of their opsec, I won't mention her/his name or handle!) I want working for me teaching defensive social engineering for my clients, s/he did it professionally for many years subverting, overthrowing and/or foreign governments or destabilize foreign economies for a private PsyOps company that made the headlines in other countries for all the bad reasons.

(Buy the UK 2600 guys/gals a round of beers at Defcon and ask them to explain the details of this kind person mentioned anonymously above, as s/he is a friend, and I don't want to say much more than that, since I don't know if s/he's still an operative with the same group, or other private military/security companies in the Sandbox or elsewhere currently conducting operations.)

And....

http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-9/...-speakers.html

Michael Wilson:
Hacker Doctrine in Information Warfare

It is now an accepted fact that computer hackers, crackers, hacktivists, virus writers, and other politically-aware individuals in the computer underground are 'taking matters into their own hands.' Whether through website defacementsor full-scale denial-of-service attacks, non-governmental, non-aligned individuals and groups are conducting what the military refers to as 'information operations' of increasing sophistication.

What is clearly missing in these independent operations, however, is a complete and thorough understanding of how to think about attacks, how to undertake'mission planning,' and how to be truly effective. Based on our own understanding of practical applications in information warfare, 7Pillars Partners will present educational material on information operations that canhelp fill in these 'gaps' in a hacker's comprehensive understanding.

-=-

Michael Wilson is the Managing Partner of 7Pillars Partners, with 20 years field experience in military and intelligence operations. He is an inventor, pioneer, and an acknowledged leader in infrastructural warfare, information operations, open source intelligence, and next-generation intelligence. He is the winner of the U.S. National Defense University's Sun Tzu Award in 1997, and the G2 Intelligence Professional Award in both 1997 and 1998. Mr. Wilson can be reached at partners@7pillars.com, and a number of his professional papers are available at http://www.7pillars.com/.

(Michael Wilson - 7pillars is now part of a large private open/closed?!? source intelligence group called Decision Support Systems, Inc which would be in competive business against C4I.org if I ever went commerical with private information operations products.)

We have the clothing syles and clean-cut, but can include "Burberry" as a style in questions.

Issues of travel vs not traveling have too many collisions in the corporate world.
I don't see an immediate question WRT the lawyer/law issue. Perhaps others have ideas that works only for feds, but not non-feds.
The car is a good one to consider in questions.

Well, heheheh, me personally I like to dress tactically sharp, I never worn polos until I had to be business casual and herd cats* for the suits (*infosec professionals and instructors.) I look at what the better looking FBI/CIA/DIA any other FUN three lettered agency ending with IA tends to wear outside of the office and maybe keeps their skill level with weekly trips to the gun range.

I really like the 5.11 Tactical Series clothing line. as I haven't blown out the crotch lifting up servers the wrong way and they are really tough if you are running an IPSC gun tourney, you won't skin your knees or get any of that gunk under your skin and blood, but guess what?

The pants and shorts from 5.11 are better known in law enforcement, military, private military contractors circles as THE stuff to wear, the FBI calls them the Academy Collection. Look at the front right pocket there is a 'cell phone pocket' for your Motorola V20 phone, but oddly enough the FBI noticed that its the same size to stick a spare .40 fullsized Glock magazine.

The car can go both ways, if I have a gig within 700 miles of my base of operations, instead of being told by the TSA/DHS what I can and can't bring on a plane, that my luggage unless watched over by a TSA (well dressed but overpaid burger flipper if there was no TSA) (locking my bag in their presence), agent that I have no prohibited items in my bag, as was the case with my sysadmin who never has carry on luggage but did this weekend for attending Notacon in Cleveland.

Froggy, you and your guys have me showing up for now on for Notacon's!, and for those of you that saw the posting elsewhere but didn't go, its your loss, my gain, there was a nice signal to noise ratio there, I learned alot.

But this time it was pleasure over business and to be there for only the weekend, flying was cheaper than gas, but I couldn't bring on any fun items as I also don't trust the airlines to send my bag on the same plane and flight as me.

So I need to buy a land yacht to drive my 700 mile radius of... 39.038053 N, 76.867180 W... :)

...so I don't have to rent cars after flying, but I want to arrive in one piece (and maybe in style, Essclaaade... ) sharing the roads with older drivers that will floor it through more than farmers markets, but my 1979 Mazada RX-7 would be flattened with their Olds Cuttlas 88's from 1996.

I found this company that gets Crown Vic's from Texas police departments with over 61K miles and with the Mad Max Police Interceptor engines, shocks and everything a modern day Boss Hogg would have Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane have in his car starting at $6700 for a totally refurbished cop car.

(If any of you think you want to buy one or a fleet of these refurbished Cop Crown Vic's, PM me and I will be happy to tell these guys who they are dealing with, because I love everyone to be happy!)

I figure if I am looking towards depreciation and wanting something only to get me from Chicago to Huntville in one day, and since its a 2003 which looks like a 2002 or 2004 Crown Vic and Grandma is in the left lane of a two lane highway (Tennesse) driving 45 in a 70mph zone, having a set of clear strobes in the grill (not red and blue, I am not a TLE agent) to get Grandma to floor it and get back up to 70, get in the other lane, or ideally stop for a liquid fiber break.

But working in Chicago with all the Federal, State, County and City buildings, cars like that are a dime a dozen, and as long as they are all one color, unless you really REALLY look, you can't tell if its the Chicago Health Inspector driving or its the DHS Critical Infrastucture JTTF goons.

Do you create maps at your job that are used by employees of the federal government? (weak question. Someone from yahoo maps could say say.)

No comment....

Does part of your job require careful examination of very high resolution satellite photos? (better, but not strong)

No comment again, I am not at liberty to say, and I can neither confirm or deny those people attend Defcon.

But me personally, I have the Google/Keyhole subscription and that is very cool looking at one meter resolution satellite imagery without having a TS/SCI clearance with a full scope poly to look at licence plate numbers from NGA bird in orbit.

Especially since I am considering the professional subscription, but I've signed a NDA and can't talk about it, its not FOUO, but its corporate sensitive.

Consider a group in Redmond where you find a similar lifestyle and social system. You are not employed, you are adopted into a family.

Describes much of corporate america.

There is a good question somewhere in here.

Q: If your organization/agency has a website, is its domain name's TLD ".gov"? .org? .com? .net?

Heh... .org like say MITRE.org or RAND.org???

I am the Executive Director of C4I.org, a private open-source intelligence clearinghouse covering information security, information operations, and information risk management based in Golf, Illinois as of January 2000. Yeah we have an ugly Frontpage (Ugh) mainpage, but that only scratches the surface of the work I/we do. (Pay no attention the man behind the curtain!!!)

Am I a Fed, maybe, I often get both the "I am the Fed" and the "I spotted the Fed" shirts every year or every other year but its only because I have an inside line and I dig wearing both shirts when I am doing government/ military security classes, but NOW its like shooting fish in a barrel, I should get a black badge for playing Spot the Fed, cause its no longer fun to play the game, I want others at Defcon to have a fighting chance in maybe or maybe not finding a Fed and wearing that shirt proudly.

But Priest if you are reading this, I still like getting both shirts, its oftentimes the only proof that I attend Defcon or hit the desert for the Defcon Shoot, which desert, I'm not saying...

Thanks for the article!
Will add some of these questions soon

No problem, glad to be of some help, or add more to the confusion and paranoia...

[TheCotMan]

This is going to be longer than planned...

The questions I pulled out were meant to be added to the list of questions people have offered to ask a potential fed. You did not need to answer them.

However, I am very glad you did. :-) The information you have included for each of the questions is excellent. It will really help to alter the scoring of each item, alter questions/observations, and is quite informative.

Thanks!!! :-D

But I will likely still have a DHS JTTF white van parked out front and a Crown Vic with some of the information listed below,

Ah yes. Details on vehicles. It needs to be refined in that to the list too. There was a movement ages ago to have feds only buy vehicles "Made mostly in the U.S." or "Primarily in the U.S." unless they had needs that were not met by available U.S. vehicles. (Don't know what became of this.)
I think the Crown Victoria is a well liked vehicle because of the space available to add extra equipment, larger engine options (to pull the extra weight of upgrades and keep accelleration) and the ability to hide bomb-resistant/bullet resistant armor upgrades without altering its factory appearance.
(later you offered good information that shows how kinds of vehicles can be unreliable. More clarification will be added to those questions/observations.)

...Brother Priest plays 20 questions like what your original MOS is...

This is a good point. I guess certain questions should be left off the list of questions so Priest has methods to more easily differentiate between the hackers who are not anything like a fed who just want a free tee shirt and the people who are considered feds, hackers or not.

I was given some questions last year that I did not include because those submitting questions requested the questions not be included for that reason.

blah blah .. subvert/overthrow foreign governments ... blah blah

I have met guys like the late Michael Spann killed at the same compound as "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh was found. Capt. Michael Spann was in the United States Marine Corps and after 9/11/01 wanted to do more than be some of the first troops in a hot LZ with more of his fellow Marines, Spann joined the covert operations side of the CIA and was killed in action

This is a good counter to that question. People who answer, "yes," could easily just be a G.I. type or a mechanic in armed services or a civillian who is training feds, or a civillian who is taking matters into their own hands, (all items you suggested later) instead of someone who is working with the CIA or doing something that would classify them as a fed in the DefCon game.

Well, heheheh, me personally I like to dress tactically sharp, I never worn polos until I had to be business casual

Clothing suggestions noted.

These questions and observations provide a heuristic approach to trying to detect a Fed through observation and interrogation. It is a difficult problem as you demonstrate. This is why the styles of clothing may count towards a person being like a fed, but generally do not count against how a person may look like a fed. Those feds in the polo shirts seem to be those who are managers and no longer do much field work.
As for the clothing site you mention, there are people who attend DefCon and visit the DC Shoot who might also wear similar clothing and not be feds. However, it is another data-point and something that can be added to the observations.

But me personally, I have the Google/Keyhole subscription and that is very cool looking at one meter resolution satellite imagery without having a TS/SCI clearance with a full scope poly to look at licence plate numbers from NGA bird in orbit.

Excellent point. I can clarify that question further on levels of resolution.

Heh... .org like say MITRE.org or RAND.org???

People in these groups have been discussed before, but I do not remember anyone from these groups being spotted as feds and getting tee shirts. In the early days when audience opinion drove the decision, they could easily be considered "Feds" but lately? I don't know..

IMO, they should count more than non-federal LEO, or people working in local LEO "cybercrime" divisions, but that's just me.

(about helping)

No problem, glad to be of some help, or add more to the confusion and paranoia...

I've chopped much of your post in this reply, but will still be using information from what was chopped too.

Thanks again!