On Oct 29, 4:00*pm, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:
In message , a425couple
writes



"Paul J. Adam" wrote...
If you think worst-case, ditching or baling out offers the Chinese a
nasty *option. "We picked up nine of the crew, here they are. Mission
Supervisor *Snuffy, who knows all about what the aircraft can do and
what its mission *was? No, haven't found a trace of him, but we're
still searching..." And *who's to know different? Once the crew lose
sight of each other, there's *no way to know whether Supervisor Snuffy
died during the bailout, drowned *in the ocean, is on a slow fishing
boat with no comms on his way to port, *or is being forcibly persuaded
to be detailed and explicit about EP-3 *capabilities in a Beijing basement.

Very interesting valid point of view, thanks.

I certainly admit that I do not know what 'equipment' and
software was destroyed and what was still discoverable.
I'm also not sure how knowledgable the crew was!

They for sure knew enough to deal with "Drop everything, we've got the
Premier's private phone!" or similar prioritisation: they'd know what
they could and could not get, what they were tasked to receive, what
they'd been ordered to be alert to "just in case", and so on.

For example, in WWII it was policy that nobody who
had knowledge of important secrets should ever be allowed
in areas where it might be possible to be captured.

Depends on the compartments. You have to hit the balance between
protecting your secrets, and achieving the mission.

The crew are the real prize which could compromise the capability:

Are you really sure about that?

Utterly certain? No.

Pretty confident? Yes.

Knowing how to use a computer program, does not
at all mean, you know the program. *Or the equipment
that runs the program.

But you know what you're listening to, what can be cracked and
translated aboard, what has to be recorded for later analysis, what the
priorities and orders for the mission were, what the aircraft can and
can't achieve.

For a slightly forced armour analogy: the gunner doesn't know how the
code in the ballistic computer runs and couldn't rewrite it from memory.
But, with the computer properly trashed, the gunner is the person who
potentially could be made to say what he can and can't hit in various
circumstances, aided by whatever radar pixies dance inside the little
boxes. "How do we copy that?" is one risk: "Dear God, we never knew they
were that good" is another; and exposing "Is *that* the best they can
actually do?" a third.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam

Sometimes you keep things from people for this reason. Gunner knows he
can hit a target. Not told is limitations or that defensive systems
will keep things away. Or how the AWACS finds the targets for him.

Current example would be, get this package its a bomb. You don't need
to let out Saudis had an ex terrorist who went back then came in from
the cold and gave the plot up. Or how well the bomb was made. Now did
the bad guys know about the bomb, yeah. But going public let other bad
guys know if it was a decent bomb or not. That ex terrorist is not
'burned' as far as other terrorist groups are concerned.

Thing is, you can spin this stuff so much your head hurts.

I recall a secret missive a few decades ago, listing stuff that might
be compromised. One was something on a platform that was shot down in
Vietnam. Well, you either keep it secret, AND DO NOT USE IT, or you
put the secret do hickey out there and do use it and maybe kill
gomers. There is a risk using it against gomers, that gomers will find
it and usually send it out so somebody who does know about whatever it
was can figure things out. But keeping stuff in inventory sort of
negates the reason you built it.

Whining about it being lost pretty much is stupidity. But that's an
intell weenie for you.

In this case, burning key cards would be first priority. Stuff that
could compromise stuff elsewhere. Then you start going over the rest
of the paper stuff and maybe what you can whack inside the airframe.
Hopefully this has been thought out before hand.

In one case I worked on,it was paper and computer tapes. Set up a burn
pile, put the tapes on top and screw the environmental laws. Indians
are coming over the ridge, some things just aren't important. Rest was
take out your frustrations on pay, management, whatever. Get an axe
and have at it. Run stuff without cooling fans.