Information

A person, organization, or technical means that provides foreign intelligence or foreign counterintelligence and that, if its identity or capability is disclosed, is vulnerable to counteraction that could nullify or significantly reduce its effectiveness in providing foreign intelligence or foreign counterintelligence to the United States. An intelligence source also means a person or organization that provides foreign intelligence or foreign counterintelligence to the United States only on the condition that its identity remains undisclosed.
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Any information system (including any telecommunications system) used or operated by an agency or by a contractor of any agency, or other organization on behalf of an agency, the function, operation, or use of which: I. involves intelligence activities; II. Involves cryptologic activities related to national security; III. Involves command and control of military forces; IV. Involves equipment that is an integral part of a weapon or weapon system; or V. subject to subparagraph (B), is critical to the direct fulfillment of military or intelligence missions; or is protected at all times by procedures established for information that have been specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order or an Act of Congress to be kept classified in the interest of national defense or foreign policy. (B). Does not include a system that is to be used for routine administrative and business applications (including payroll, finance, logistics, and personnel management applications). (Title 44 U. S. Code Section 3542, Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. )Any information system (including any telecommunications system) used or operated by an organization or by a contractor of the organization, or by other organization on behalf of the organization: (1) the function, operation, or use of which involves intelligence activities; involves cryptologic activities related to national security; involves command and control of military forces; involves equipment that is an integral part of a weapon or weapons system; or is critical to the direct fulfillment of military or intelligence missions (excluding a system that is to be used for routine administrative and business applications, for example, payroll, finance, logistics, and personnel management applications); or (2) is protected at all times by procedures established for information that have been specifically authorized under criteria estab
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The method used to provide support to an intelligence source or operation, and that, if disclosed, is vulnerable to counteraction that could nullify or significantly reduce its effectiveness in supporting the foreign intelligence or foreign counterintelligence activities of the United States, or that would, if disclosed, reasonably lead to the disclosure of an intelligence source or operation.
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A system that hides the true meaning of a message. Ciphers use a variety of techniques to alter and/or rearrange the characters or words of a message to achieve confidentiality. Any cryptographic system in which arbitrary symbols or groups of symbols, represent units of plain text, or in which units of plain text are rearranged, or both.
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The malicious act of gathering proprietary, secret, private, sensitive, or confidential information about an organization for the express purpose of disclosing and often selling that data to a competitor or other interested organization (such as a foreign government). The practice or employment of spies; the practice of watching the words and conduct of others, to make discoveries, as spies or secret emissaries; secret watching. This category of computer crime includes international spies and their contractors who steal secrets from defense, academic, and laboratory research facility computer systems. It includes criminals who steal information and intelligence from law enforcement computers, and industrial espionage agents who operate for competitive companies or for foreign governments who are willing to pay for the information. What has generally been known as industrial espionage is now being called competitive intelligence. A lot of information can be gained through “open source” collection and analysis without ever having to break into a competitor’s computer. This information gathering is also competitive intelligence, although it is not as ethically questionable as other techniques.
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