Similar. Two cases. First was taking charge of the entire Bases secure network upgrade because I was the only one who knew how the new devices worked. I ended up having to attend a meeting with a General and his staff and had to be chaperoned by an E5 because I was only an E3 at the time.
The second was my entire time working in White House Comms. Can't talk much about it but I'm sure you can imagine how out of place it would feel.
Keep in mind that part of the reason I think they've given up is because there's no reason to believe the promises made will ever be delivered. They may care about taxes, but you'd probably get more engagement by making an AI generated tiktok video of a dinner table splayed with food in the image of rich oligarchs. There just isn't much left but the jokes, it's not code - it's that if everything is going to be bullshit, it might as well be entertaining.
Everything has to be a meme. Lower taxes, healthcare, or racism isn't exciting. Couches, weird, eating pets and out of context outbursts get way more engagement. Mostly, because people have given up.
I was sitting at the doctor's office and overheard an old man claim Harris was so stupid that she couldn't figure out how to use a vacuum.
It broke MY brain trying to wrap my head around that one.
Let's not also forget the fleet of passenger aircraft for distinguished persons, maintained by the military, with everything custom made and embroidered with presidential seals and produced in the USA and run through vigorous inspection to prevent microphone or pagers or something inside your soap dispenser.
There's also no such thing as "Military Grade" Encryption. The government as a whole, as directed by NSA, uses the same encryption technology. If anything, one of the defining techniques is how said technology is implemented as a process. That means less about the algorithm and more about the hardware and handling. For example, when dealing with classified networking, one of the key differences is using dedicated hardware. These aren't PC's that can be hacked, they are devices whose specific role is to handle encryption, key loading, or key acquisition. They are hardened to prevent emissions from leaking and will dump keys, firmware, memory if tampered with. End devices can only accept keys with no way to retrieve them for reuse.
Advertisers that claim they are offering you "Military Grade" encryption just do regular NSA encryption methods in software, with no hardware component, and no handling process. Which would never be used in the military to secure classified data.
Also, most encryption used in these devices don't use one key, they use key generators. Each device talking to another generates a unique, temporary session key. These session keys do not last long, so if any one key is compromised it limits any potential unauthorized disclosures. Capturing encrypted data for later cracking would prove to be a time and resource exhausted process that would provide too little information, too late. At this point it would be easier to actually try to steal the keys and hardware, rather than crack them.
I feel like starfield is an experiment in user driven content (mods) to sell a game. The issue with Skyrim is that there is really only one map, and before any map extension mod came out, there were so many mods out there that competed for space on the map. Even today, large world overhaul mods are constantly stepping on the toes of other mods. City redesigns are also a problem unless you're really good at load orders and merging.
Starfield feels like each world is an open map, ready for people to start designing content: either a colony, a cave, or anything really. The story seems loose and open ended so that it won't interfere with large collaborative content. It's not a game they are selling, but a modding storefront. It's like Skyrim Creations, but putting the horse (armor sold separately) before the cart.
In it's early days? My nephew played that a long time ago. It filled his PC. I thought it was mods. As in, the entire game would clone itself when it created a mod profile. I don't think it does that anymore.
Pagers are not guaranteed to be 1 way comms and bringing them into secure locations is a security violation. Additionally, depending on the classification, no unauthorized and undisclosed devices of any kind would be permitted, including any electronics or electronic media such as tapes, CDs, discs, etc. Even when I was issued a verified 1-way pager, I was specifically briefed I was not permitted to bring it into a classified location. Most of the highly classified SCIFS are shielded anyways, you can't use it inside so it's safer to leave it out, along with all other devices.
If your organization allows it, then (if federal) they are breaking the law and should be reported/up-channeled. If it's corpo, you should bring up additional concerns with your security team.
Edit: Also, it goes without saying, current events are probably a good reason why pagers (and other devices) aren't allowed in classified areas. While most focus on disclosure (getting out), we must not forget the risk of data/operations getting destroyed.
All valid concerns, but the fact is if you accept the weapon and anything happens, you are at fault.
We've had people get issued, and immediately, check and clear their weapon in the presence of an armorer in the bucket, and get in trouble for it misfiring, despite the fact that it should have been checked and cleared prior to change of hands and in addition to the fact that you hadn't been issued ammo yet. It's dumb, but people die over this, so they are very strict, even when it sometimes seems unnecessary.
We've had similar incidents with weapon safety (and other things) in the past that were more serious than what was going on in that picture. It all depends on the circumstances, and I've seen it go both ways. The point I was making is if there was anything more substantial, it would not just be 'relieved of command'. No mention of an actual reprimand, which is more serious. I'm not saying it couldn't ultimately lead up to that, but we don't know that yet.
You might be interested to know that there are several hardcore modding scenes, where the point is to mod the game for fun. The mod guides are updated every month or so and includes thousands of mods. It takes days to install, and actually playing is optional. In most cases, a new save is required every update, so modders keep an additional playable state if they actually want to play the game.
Lexy's LOTD is my fav one, it's only over a thousand mods, has very detailed instructions, and a very friendly community.