SCP-2998 — SCP-2998 | Cost Breakdown

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $3.4B

Device Buyback And Recall Fund $2.0B

[#5] Targeted buyback/recall fund for unpatchable devices (mid-range targeted program estimate).

Vendor Compensation And Retooling $400.0M

[#3] Up-front compensation and contractual costs to SoC/module vendors to redesign or hard-disable target-band capabilities.

Equipment $317.0M

[#8, #9, #12, #13, #25, #11, #29] Space-based monitoring payloads/constellation, probe modification R&D/integration hardware, data infrastructure initial build, automated takedown platform development, initial hardware spares and instrumentation, and archival hardware.

Lobbying And Standards Campaign $200.0M

[#1] One-time program launch costs for legal/diplomatic/lobbying campaign to change international standards and seed influence efforts.

Manufacturing Retooling Incentives $200.0M

[#20] One-time subsidies/incentives to factories to retool and discard non-compliant stock.

Facilities $105.0M

[#2, #7, #11, #18] Construction and deployment of certification labs, regional ground monitoring sites, radio-array build or instrument installation, and secure Faraday/containment facilities.

Firmware Development And Distribution $50.0M

[#4] Initial development, integration and distribution programs to remove receiver capability via firmware on existing devices.

Emergency Contingency Reserve $50.0M

[#17] Initial contingency/reserve allocation for rapid response events.

Compensation And Litigation Escrow Initial $50.0M

[#21] Initial escrow for settlements, compensation and potential legal liabilities.

Insurance And Financial Reserves Initial $50.0M

[#26] Initial insurance reserves and financial instruments to underwrite operations and liabilities.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $10.0M

[#10, #22] Initial lab fit-out and one-time research grants for long-range/theoretical initiatives.

Contingency Global Retrofit Reserve $0

[#30] Contingent worst-case global retrofit/replacement costs are effectively prohibitive and are not pre-budgeted here; modeled in scenarios.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $380.9M/yr

Staff Wages $120.0M/yr

[#10, #15, #16, #19, #23, #27, #13, #2] Salaries, clearances, benefits and overhead for researchers, field teams, liaison officers, red teams, human analysts, and operational staff (program-level personnel budget).

Cover Story And Legal $30.0M/yr

[#6, #21, #28] Ongoing legal teams, PR operations, cover projects and settlement/compensation maintenance.

Field Containment Operations $30.0M/yr

[#15] Travel, gear, clandestine logistics and safehouses for seizure/interdiction teams (non-wage ops costs).

Firmware Update Operations $25.0M/yr

[#4] Ongoing campaign operations to push and verify firmware remediation across device fleets.

Lobbying Operations $20.0M/yr

[#1] Annual costs for standards working groups, memberships, travel and continued influence/lobbying.

Probe Modification Program Ops $20.0M/yr

[#9] Ongoing integration/coordination costs to ensure future probes carry monitoring instrumentation.

Facilities Maintenance $16.0M/yr

[#2, #7, #18, #11] Maintenance and upkeep for certification labs, ground monitoring sites, secure Faraday rooms and radio instrumentation.

Logistics And Transport $15.0M/yr

[#4, #3, #15] Transport, distribution and logistical costs for firmware campaigns, vendor engagements and field containment deployments (excl. wages).

Automated Takedown Operations $15.0M/yr

[#13] Operation of ML takedown systems, human review teams and legal takedown workflows.

Research And Monitoring $14.2M/yr

[#10, #11, #12, #22, #29, #8] Ongoing research grants, observing time, data handling/compute operations, long-range research cooperation and archival preservation operations.

Vendor Validation And Testing $10.0M/yr

[#3] Ongoing validation, testing and QA to ensure vendors maintain disabled/blocked receiver capability.

Diplomatic Liaison Cells $10.0M/yr

[#16] Embedded liaison officers and operating expenses in foreign ministries and agencies.

Emergency Readiness Maintenance $10.0M/yr

[#17] Maintenance of rapid-response capability, mobile labs and readiness exercises.

Certification And Audit Operations $8.0M/yr

[#2] Operation of Foundation-controlled certification regime: regional labs, auditors and accreditation teams.

Global Monitoring Ops Ground $6.0M/yr

[#7] Staff, comms and maintenance for distributed ground RF monitoring nodes.

Space Based Monitoring Ops $5.0M/yr

[#8] Operations for hosted payloads / dedicated satellite RF monitoring.

Compensation Fund Recurring $5.0M/yr

[#21] Ongoing reserve for settlements, compensations and litigation-related expenses.

Insurance Premiums $5.0M/yr

[#26] Recurring insurance premiums and financial service fees.

Cultural Monitoring $5.0M/yr

[#27] Human analysts, translators and moderators for global cultural/linguistic review.

Outreach And Cover Projects $5.0M/yr

[#28] Funding ongoing public-facing projects to plausibly cover standards and modifications.

Print Media Monitoring $2.0M/yr

[#14] Scanning and removal/replacement campaigns for problematic print media.

Long Range Research Recurring $2.0M/yr

[#22] Recurring grants and partnerships for theoretical/astrobiology/SETI cooperation.

Red Team Budget $1.0M/yr

[#19] Continuous penetration testing and compliance verification budget.

Energy And Communications $1.0M/yr

[#24] Power and high-throughput communications for monitoring infrastructure and data center energy.

Supplies And Consumables $500K/yr

[#25] Consumables, spares, SDR replacements and disposal of contaminated hardware.

Archival Refresh $200K/yr

[#29] Refresh, audit and cross-jurisdictional backups for long-term archives.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $380.9M/yr

85.9% probability / year

Normal year with standard monitoring, standards work and operations; no major breaches or mass recalls.

steady_operations routine_audits no_major_exposure

🚨 Minor Incident $580.9M/yr

12.0% probability / year +$200.0M vs baseline

Localized exposure or device activations requiring targeted recalls, legal response and increased field activity.

localized_device_activation targeted_public_exposure small-scale_recall

🚨 Major Breach $5.4B/yr

2.0% probability / year +$5.0B vs baseline

Widespread exposure/media coverage and failure of voluntary controls leading to mass recalls and international crisis response.

widespread_signal_change national_media_exposure mass_device_failures

🚨 Global Retrofit $100.4B/yr

0.1% probability / year +$100.0B vs baseline

Failure of voluntary compliance results in mandated global retrofitting/replacement of electronic devices.

mandatory_global_retrofit failed_voluntary_compliance massive_recall_required

👥 Personnel 380 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	60	[#10,#22] Radio astronomers, signal analysts and specialized researchers (included in staff wages).
Security Officer / MTF Agent	60	[#15,#23] Field containment and seizure teams; personnel wages included in staff_wages.
Engineer / Technician	80	[#8,#11,#12,#25] Instrumentation, satellite payload integration, data center and monitoring node technicians.
Field Ops / Seizure Team	50	[#15] Mobile interdiction teams and regional operational staff (personnel portion in staff_wages).
Legal / PR / Lobbyists	30	[#1,#6,#21,#28] Legal teams, PR, standards lobbyists and cover project managers.
Administrative Staff / IT	40	[#2,#12,#26] Admin, accreditation coordinators, IT and support staff.
Analysts / Moderators	50	[#13,#27] Human reviewers, translators and cultural analysts for content monitoring.
Site Director / Executive Staff	10	[#23] Program leadership, executive coordination and high-level liaisons.

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates are anchored to analyst-provided ranges but many items (international lobbying outcomes, vendor cooperation, extent of recalls, satellite costs) have wide ranges and geopolitical uncertainty; therefore medium confidence.