back to article 'NATO RESTRICTED': The lowest possible classification

So the hacktivist collective Anonymous, parts of which have recently tangled with News International title The Sun and may have looted an explosive trove of emails from Rupert Murdoch's media empire, also say they have a big stash of classified material stolen from NATO. As evidence they have released two documents marked "NATO …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tut tut tut...

    BEADWINDOW there Lewis..

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Is The Reg safe ?

    Or will I soon need to find another news channel ?

  3. Charles Smith
    Pirate

    Unstated grading

    I used to work on classified stuff, some of the security classifications were unstated. One of the most carefully guarded documents were:

    Secret (Politically Embarassing)

    I could say more but I'd hate to be Kelly'd.

    1. Marty
      Coffee/keyboard

      Love it!!!

      I could say more but I'd hate to be Kelly'd.

      made me LOL for real.... I am glad I am not the only one who believes Kelly was "silenced"...

  4. John 136
    Coffee/keyboard

    Correction...

    Government data rules mean that RESTRICTED documents do have to be shredded.

    Holding NATO RESTRICTED on unaccredited information systems is still a breach of the Official Secrets Acts, even though anything marked as such is pretty openly shareable within the military community.....

    So the Sun and NI (not being in the military community) are breaking the official secrets act, and hence both people tracked to having them, reading them and their organisation's information owner can still be arrested and done from at most treason.....

    And the official government classification labels are actually:

    Unclassified

    Protect

    Restricted

    Confidential

    Secret

    Top Secret

    J

    1. Roger Stenning
      Trollface

      Wow.

      There's a classification level "J"? Who knew? ;-)

      1. Paratrooping Parrot
        Coat

        Does J stand for

        Juicy?

    2. Dysanovic

      I...

      ...want to get my hands on some documents with the 'J' classification!

      ;)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      @Correction...

      Having signed the Official Secrets Act myself, I am not convinced that holding documents in any form can breach it, as it is simply a reminder that you must not pass on sensitive information and that you can be prosecuted for it.

      Here is the truth about the Official Secrets Act: there is no such thing as "being bounce by signing the Official Secrets Act". Everyone in the UK is bound by it (whether they have seen it or not) and can be prosecuted under it. You are asked to formally sign it simply to ensure you cannot claim ignorance, and as a reminder of your (already existing) obligations under it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Black Helicopters

        "signing" the act

        Where I used to work, it was mainly used by the contractor to go after employees or ex-employees. The government didn't need anything as you say; they either flattened you in a court, or you parked your car in your garage with the engine running, or fell off the balcony that you never even went near because you were afraid of heights...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Quite right

      The funny thing about Restricted documents is that the only reason they are restricted is because they have "restricted" written on them. I knew someone would would trim that part off documents so that he could recycle the remainder, but the little strips that had "NATO Restricted" written on them would have to be shredded.

    5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      J?

      Jennifer Lopez?

      Jamaica?

      Israel?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        J for...

        'Jesus, I can't believe I was pissed enough to leave that on the train'?

  5. richard mullens

    NATO

    NATO is not an alliance. The HQ of NATO in Belgium is the administrative centre of the American army in Europe.

    NATO is an anachronism following the fall of the Berlin wall - and we would do well instead to support European defence initiatives.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Could you start by taking care of Afganistan?

      Perhaps NATO would go away if the Europeans would take care of the stuff nearby instead of leaving North America to shoulder the burden.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Taking care of Afganistan

        When you say this, what exactly is it you want?

        Do you want the Europeans to kick out the Americans who invaded the country?

      2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Facepalm

        "Europeans would take care of the stuff nearby"

        >Afghanistan

        >Stuff nearby

        The AfPak debacle is just proof that NATO is a tool for US foreign policy and finds compliant Europols that are not averse to present bodyparts for random access.

        Next up:

        1) Georgia in NATO

        2) Ukraine in NATO

        3) NATO in Africa (hold on, that's already occurring)

        4) NATO to pipe all its docs to Israel (as recently demanded by two retards in US Congress)

        5) NATO vs. Iran

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Richard Morris
      Mushroom

      European defence initiatives?

      Would they be surrender and collaborate?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Re :Richard Morris

        As apposed to the American military strategy of stubbornly refusing to admit that their military is having it's ass handed to it until thousands lay dead and the public demand the troops return home.

      2. Henry 4
        Trollface

        Title goes here...

        Ummmm..... The Brits are Europeans, and I don't remember us being successfully invaded since 1066.

        1. Gary Gleeson
          Boffin

          1066 and all that

          The Dutch invaded (successfully) in the 1680's.

          1. CD001

            Bloodless Revolution

            I don't think the bloodless revolution counts - we asked the Dutch to "invade" to keep a Catholic off the throne :P

        2. David Cantrell
          FAIL

          Pointless title, which must contain letters and/or digits.

          1689. HTH. HAND.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      really?

      Do you honestly need a lesson in the history, role and administration of NATO, which predates the fall of the Berlin wall?

      I assume your trying to make a smart arse comment

      And let me get this straight, you want a "European" army run by Europe as a whole protecting us, the same EU govenment that hasnt been able to balance its financial books for 16 years!

      16 years of our money going to an unelected govenment who dont know what they are spending money on. over 700million euros has gone missing, 109million in 2009 alone, due to missmangment and fraud. Im sorry but the UK may waste money left right and centre but at elast we can say we know about it and where it is more or less, the EU is so big money can just vanish and with the auditors refusing to fully sign off the books people are just picking the money off the trees with full knowledge that nothing will be done about it.

      you what them looking after your needs? then i suggest you move to Brussels

    4. Graham Dawson Silver badge

      Drop NATO!

      Support the Single European Tank!

    5. SkippyBing

      What?

      So you're saying NATO isn't an alliance because one of its members co-locates one of its army's sub-commands with the NATO HQ? Surely that just makes sense, you know saving costs and all or would you rather every NATO command had an HQ separate from any other military entity in the country it's in?

      Considering the main point of NATO for the first 50 odd years of its existence was to stop the Warsaw Pact walking into Western Europe putting the HQ of its biggest land formation at the same place as its main HQ actually makes some sense. Only some mind because ICBMs are cheap*.

      Vaguely on topic, NATO RESTRICTED was once explained to me as 'Italy has it so we can safely assume so does everyone else'.

      *Compared to a frontal assault obviously.

    6. llewton

      yes, but

      how about regaining some sanity and supporting national defense initiatives? the eu is collapsing anyway.

      of course nato is an anachronism. it's old and demented. does not even exhibit desired levels of reading comprehension when confronted with own statute.

      no wonder peeps steal stuff from them...

    7. PaulK
      FAIL

      This is just wrong on every point.

      Did you think of this all by yourself?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    no harm done

    they're only doing it for the lulz, afterall....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: no harm done

      Maybe LULZ is a classification level, too.

  7. Ian Stephenson
    Black Helicopters

    meh

    Pretty much everything marked "RESTRICTED" is available in the public domain - if you know where to look - anyway.

  8. Mark Thomas 3
    Alert

    IIRC...

    When I was a sparker in the Navy, the definition of restricted is "release of information would be undesirable to the host country" or something.

    Still hard not to type it "R E S T R I C T E D" (You had to be there)

  9. banjomike
    Thumb Down

    UK/US/AUS/CAN/NZ EYES ONLY

    Echelon is supposedly used by the US to spy on the other members of that list. Very friendly.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
      Devil

      A Can of Worms?

      "UK/US/AUS/CAN/NZ EYES ONLY ..... Echelon is supposedly used by the US to spy on the other members of that list. Very friendly." .... banjomike Posted Thursday 21st July 2011 15:37 GMT

      And maybe even ISrael too, banjomike, for this is odd tale from the antipodes ....... http://cryptogon.com/?p=23614

    2. laird cummings
      Black Helicopters

      And vice versa.

      In the days before 9/11, if the US Military wanted intelligence intercepts from inside the US, they'd just ask one of the UK/AUS/CAN/NZ members of that list for the intercept. That made it 'intelligence sharing in cooperation with our allies" instead of "illegal intelligence-gathering activities.'

      Of course, NSA already *had* the intelligence they were looking for, but still needed some plausible figleaf behind which to hide if ever it were caught out.

    3. Archie The Albatross
      Thumb Up

      No, it's OK...

      ECHELON is a mutual snooping structure, allowing us to spy on them, spying on us, spying on them, spying on us, spying on them.............. Et cetera, repeat until bored.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Nothing to see here

    I understand the IT Angle but really EL Reg is giving these jokers far too much publicity already, this is like the 3rd article we have of Lulzsec "planning to release" this stuff in so many days. Unless they actually grow a pair and finally DO release anything then its not worth getting all hyped up about.

    If they had anything it would have been splashed across TPB already, they had no qualms about doing so in the past so why would this be any different?

  11. Danny 14
    Go

    indeed

    I bet most ex squaddies have some training batco in their attics. The most classified stuff I ever used was the black crypto boxes in clansmen. That got you a really bad spell in the glasshouse if you lost that.

  12. SPimpernel

    There's a lower classification

    "Dutch Only" - means it will be on Dutch TV within the hour.

  13. BristolBachelor Gold badge

    NATO RESTRICTED

    I remember a very funny time when 1 expert working on a project was not allowed to see any of the documents because he was an Australian, and so not a part of NATO. In that project, every single word I wrote was "NATO RESTRICTED" but was of no use or interest to anyone.

    As for not needing to shred hard-copies, that was true where I was, although all hardcopies were securely collected and taken to the incinerator (together with type-writer ribbons!) for disposal. The more secret stuff was cross-shredded first, and then securly taken to be incinerated.

    The only way to get an electronic copy of something was to physically go into the secure VAX room and copy it off. The only way you could then read that information was to go into another secure VAX room and copy it onto another VAX; if you were lucky, one of those VAXs would be on a PC network, so then all you needed was to find a PC with a diskdrive in it that was permitted to connect to the "insecure" VAX... People these days could learn a thing or two!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Nope.

    "RESTRICTED information is so unimportant that hard copies don't even have to be shredded on disposal. Add a NATO prefix and you have something completely insignificant."

    Both of these sentences are wrong.

    Adding NATO actually restricts the number of people in the UK who can see the document. I'll leave you to work out why.

    Anon, because, well...

  15. koolholio
    FAIL

    Nato Classifications vs UK Classifications

    In order of LEAST detrimental first...

    NATO:

    1.NATO RESTRICTED (NR).

    2.NATO CONFIDENTIAL (NC), and

    3.NATO SECRET (NS),

    4.COSMIC TOP SECRET (CTS),

    UK Gov:

    UNCLASSIFIED, PROTECT, RESTRICTED, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET and TOP SECRET

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information#NATO_classifications

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      wrong

      "Protected" means "protective markings". In other words, it simpoly means that the document in question has been classified Restricted or higher.

      Restricted documents do not have to be shredded but they do go into a green Burn Bag.

  16. cashback
    Facepalm

    Meh

    As above, RESTRICTED docs do have to be shredded, mustn't be EMailed over an insecure networks, left out on desks overnight etc.

    RESTRICTED may be low down on the protective marking food chain but care is still required when dealing with the information. You'd think a DV cleared author would have known that.

  17. djm75
    Flame

    Top NATO classification level:

    CTSA

    or

    COSMIC TOP SECRET ATOMAL!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information

  18. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Huh?

    For someone who held DV, you don't half talk bollocks. There is a considerable amount of classified material generated by NATO (made up of civilian and military personnel within agencies such as NC3A, NETMA, NACMA etc.) itself. You're confusing this with national material which is classified according to that nation's security policy (JSP 440 in the case of the UK).

  19. Pat Volk
    Alien

    The US still uses Restricted?

    US classification, I thought they did away with RESTRICTED a long time ago. They replaced it with SUB (Sensitive, Unclassified, Burn), and even that they replaced with FOUO (For Official Use Only). FOUO isn't classified, but it's not public. They were trying to downgrade a lot of CONFIDENTIAL as well.

    The reason was to reduce the number of documents which had to be tracked I thought, and a lot of CONFIDENTIAL information was downgraded for saving money.

    It's simplified a lot since I've been in that stuff.

  20. John Savard

    Indeed

    One memento my father had of his wartime service with the Canadian merchant marine was a textbook on arithmetic - fractions, decimals, and even how to extract square roots. It was classified "restricted". Presumably, it might aid the enemy to know exactly what facts of basic arithmetic our troops were required to know... but, of course, the book contained nothing secret of itself.

  21. llewton

    just asking

    could it be that the point is that they managed to go where they needed to be in order to steal anything?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Never mind the classifications....

    We all know the only way two people can keep a secret......

  23. Bilby
    Headmaster

    @ Henry 4 - Thursday 21st July 2011 22:14 GMT:

    The Brits were successfully invaded by the Dutch in 1688.

    You may not have heard about this, as it is classified above TOP SECRET; in fact it is part of a large body of information so sensitive that HM Government has given it a TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS classification. TOP SECRET is only for those with a 'need to know', but with TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS material, most people don't even have a 'want to know'.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Anonymous, you don't get it.

    Anonymous, you don't get it. I'm very unpopular around these parts, as I occasionally sympathize with you guys...

    If you release information that actually means something, I sympathize. That HBGary stuff? That made you look like you had a reason to exist! If you release stuff that isn't important, no one cares. It just makes you look (even more) like unskilled kids.

  25. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    FAIL

    A short history lesson

    @Title goes here

    "...Ummmm..... The Brits are Europeans, and I don't remember us being successfully invaded since 1066..."

    Hmm... You don't remember 1688 very well, then? Perhaps you were asleep?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution refers...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Brits?

      Brits? Brits? I think it was the English who had their arses kicked in 1066, after that they would have been French by Conquest, so then the Dutch gave the Frenchies in England a good shoeing. You can leave the nations of Scotland and Ireland out of this.....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: A short history lesson

      if you want to be particularly pedantic, the british islands where invaded during WW2. (Chanel Islands)

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unclass

    It is a common misconception thet 'UNCLASS' is the lowest level of protective marking. UNCLASS means that a document has not yet been evaluated for protective marking.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      NPM

      Indeed, the correct term is the deliciously perverse "Not Protectively Marked" which of course it sort of is...not

  27. Martin 34
    Mushroom

    The view from my mountaintop bunker...

    "Firstly, it's important to understand that NATO, far from being some kind of remorseless international military force in its own right" - I doubt the Libyans see it in your glorious rose tinted light.

  28. AndrewCappo
    Joke

    Deja vu all over again.

    Dilbert comic from '96:

    http://dilbert.comhttp://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-12-21/

    Asok: I'm only an intern here, but can I make a suggestion?

    Asok: The Elbonian database system you're installing for our company will never work... unless I rewrite the entire thing with just six keystrokes.

    Asok: Done!

    Dog: I thought that sort of thing was only possible in bad movies.

    PUNCHLINE

    Asok: Hey, let's hack into NATO's system! I can guess their password in three tries!

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