This showed up in my email the other day:
This is pretty neat -- special effects during the 1940s. I have never seen these pictures or knew that we had gone this far to protect us. During World War II, the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.
Before:
After:
Naturally, I thought about the amount of effort the nation put into hiding an important asset to protect it … and how little effort we put into hiding our information assets.
One example that has bothered me for some time is our telecom assets. Are all the wiring closets in all your buildings locked? And has everyone who has keys (including the LEC technicians) been investigated in the past three years? Ever?
Is your Virtual Private Network port advertised in every DNS in the world? Surely it is not part of the ".gov" hierarchy! If you can’t provide a regularly-changed fixed IP address without a DNS entry, at least you could try hiding behind the overhead netting of penningtonsoccer.org.
Are the addresses of your data centers in the phone book? Are your backup tapes carefully labeled with your agency name and helpful data labels like "sensitive?" How about your outside trash containers?
We should try not to make it easy for our enemies.
COMMENTS
Mr. Walfish:
Your comment is offbase. The Japanese thought the US would retreat based on what happened at Pearl Harbor. The US didn't and in the meantime had to protect itself because the Japanese thinking was not known. The capabilities of the Japanese armed forces were known inclduing the ability to launch airplanes from submarines. So, yes the airport complex was vulnerable and it was not out of line to try and hide it.
CS 09/15/08 09:19 am ET
During World War II, the government installed wood and cardboard (i.e., phony) artillery pieces on the tops of many Washington buildings. They were painted gray, so that from the air they looked real. My father participated in installing them, and told me about it.
Jim Kerrigan 09/13/08 10:47 am ET
Let's see, the Japenese never had a credible threat via air for the west coast. The closest they came was launching incendiary baloons which were unmanned. So the US government spent many thousands with a zero (pun intended) threat. Sounds just like many of the expenditures on the GWOT.
Jerry Walfish 09/09/08 08:20 am ET
One other thing: some of these same pictures are posted in the waiting areas of this same Burbank airport. That's where I first viewed them, and I, too, was amazed when I initially saw them. So pleased to see them posted here for wider dissemination.
Tim Mellin 09/08/08 09:19 pm ET
By way of further explanation: The pictures are not just the Lockheed manaufacturing plant (where they eventually planned the stealth bomber.) That is actually the Burbank airport, (which layout hasn't changed all that much since then.) Check the third picture....the slightly curved road is in front of the "main" terminal. That same basic vehicular and pedestrian airport layout exists today, albeit with different buildings. The Burbank airport existed side by side, next to the aircraft plant. The fake trees over the netting was over the airport, camouflaging it. The buildings of the "skunk works" aircraft plant are obvious in picture #1....parallel horizontal,in neat rows. To the right are the train tracks (still today.) To the left of the buildings (mostly out of picture #1) is the camouflaged airport. When Lockheed vacated their premises a few years ago, the little airport was supposed to expand into the former aircraft plant space. However, citizen resistance to a larger airport halted those plans. Today the plant is parking lots and new fast food courts. Tiny Burbank airport remains in its same basic configuration it's always had.
TIM MELLIN....Highland Park, Cal....timconsultme@hotmail.com 09/08/08 09:14 pm ET
Amazing photos!!
Thanks!
Randy 09/08/08 01:24 pm ET
As a former member of the U.S Marine Corps and a current Federal employee, it is hard to compare the military to any private or federal organizations. Especially the U.S military forces. I'm not suprise by your report and it actuall the norm when working in sensitive areas like the Pentagon and others.
That said, still interesting and we all need to do more.
Kenny 09/08/08 10:03 am ET
Great post and analogy to our current systems. I'm going to go check the server room right now...I do believe we keep it locked.
voice_in_dc 09/08/08 07:56 am ET