Many years ago, I worked part-time for a small construction cost management contractor. They did some TS work for DoD/State (usually combo projects, where NSA/CIA/Army had a wing of a consulate that State managed).
I did not have a TS (or any other clearance) at the time. One day, I'm tasked with counting the windows and doors in an old hospital in Munich. All the room numbers are Sharpied out in one half of the building.
So, it's pretty obvious "men in black pajamas" are using that wing. I just don't know the room numbers.
Seemed super weird to me that only the numbers were considered secured info. I'm sure there was an explanation.
Years later, a friend-of-a-friend was moving to Munich to do "State Department" work (he was an HVAC contractor with a TS). Off hand, I said "oh, I bet you'll be in wing X, floor Y or Z in the old hospital". He about fell over that somebody in no way associated with his agency would know that. Got a chuckle from me.
Regardless, WikiLeaks already spilled the beans.
Yes and no.
CUI was created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Unclassified_Inform...
The number of SCIFs increased a ton, especially in contractors being allowed to have their own SCSI rooms. The number of clearances also went up a lot, and the cycle time on granting a clearance got much faster. Overall some things got relaxed, other things got stricter, scale increased everywhere.
IMO the biggest factor in the increase is just the ever-increasing DoD budget
Did he test it on any other items?
...and yet, Chelsea Manning walked in with nothing more than a CD player and a self labeled CD-RW and exfiltrated tons of data from a secured facility.
> and he never got that laptop back.
There are several morals to this story.
Tangental story about how serious the Gov takes OpSec. When I was in Iraq, a Marine in my unit found a roll of red Classified tape. He thought it would be cool to put a strip on his personal laptop, which was confiscated almost immediately. It was very clearly a personal machine, but policy is policy, and he never got that laptop back.