Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • April 2, 2013 4:00 PM

One point that did come up was. the supposed inefficient use by the Russia’s of the leaked information from Fuchs (pleasse remember he was not thhe only source Russia had, they also had a secretary of a senior UK official).

The problem they had was the same one the Poles had with Enigma and the leaked documents they had on code settings etc.

That is do you just give it to your scientists / mathematicians and in effect make them dependent on the information sorce, or do you just give them occassional hints etc when they become stuck?

The former behaviour lthough faster makes the team almost totaly dependent, the second makes them independent and thus more able to come up with new ways and methods and test them and develop skill and resilience.

Compartmentalized security is not always about minimizing contact, it is also (occasionaly) about stoping “group think” and all the problems that involves.

This happened at Oak Ridge with runing several teams in parrellel on the seperation process. It actually turned out that each method was valid but worrked better at different levels of refinment. The result was that the methods were in effect used together to get the original fisile material.

NASA developed it’s independant teams process from knowing how other large projects had failed and showed that it realy does work and produce dividends in “time saved”.

Clive Robinson • April 3, 2013 2:48 PM

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In Stalin’s USSR, the issue would be further complicated by the inevitable politicking and purges of such a high profile operation

It undoubtedly was, however Stalin’s purges often happened in odd ways with sometimes strange results. That is there were from the top orders from Stalin etc against specific individuals and blanket purges actually carried out at a much lower level by what was in effect an administrative process.

The blanket purges happened where the workforce etc was fairly easily replaced and thus did not overly effect the overal function of that part of the plan/project.

If you look at the CCCP space race which like the nuclear project was critical, it appears that the personal purges from the top were mainly amied at administrators and those senior scientists and engineers who were in effect administrators.

That is the lower ranks of scientists and engineers were almost “invisable” to Stalin and Co and thus the version of purgatory they suffered was directed by the project administration. As such the administrators knew that the scientists and engineers could not be taken out and shot or sent off to the various prison camps because many of them were not easily replacable and the project would noticeably suffer and thus the administrators would be painting a target on their own back for the more personal treatment. Thus it was the families and the way they were treated that was used against the scientists and engineers.

That said the CCCP space program was surprisingly riddled with “in fighting” amongst the more senior engineers and scientists actualy vying for attention at the very top.

Much as the subject of both the Russian nuclear and space projects interests me (in many ways they did considerably more with considerably less than the US) not being able to read or speak Russian makes what little primary information there is available difficult to access because it tends to get “translated in a personal perspective” by those who do.