SCP-335 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-335
Expected annual
$193K
One-time setup
$646K
Annual recurring
$180K
Personnel
2.5
Initial containment and tooling require moderate one-time expenditure (~$647k) driven by research startup and contingency reserves; recurring yearly costs are dominated by personnel and legal/IT maintenance (~$180k/yr).
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $646K
Initial Research And Lab Setup $400K
[#10, #26] Controlled imaging & sampling experimental program initial budget and initial budget for a longer-term research program / scale-up study.
Incident Response Contingency $100K
[#21] Contingency reserve for rapid containment upgrades, isolation equipment, and emergency procurement if anomalous behavior occurs.
Equipment $66K
[#2, #3, #4, #6, #7, #8, #9, #22, #23] Environmental cabinet/dehumidifier, access-control hardware, CCTV/NVR, forensic workstation(s) and write-blockers, retro imaging hardware, initial forensic software licenses (one-time), secure metadata hardware, IT/isolation hardware, backup/destruction tooling.
Facilities $25K
[#1, #5] Secure physical storage vault and Faraday/hardened air-gapped bench/room; includes vault grade and room shielding modifications.
Legal Review $25K
[#15] Initial legal fees and specialist consultation for review of illicit/prohibited content handling and protocols.
Policy And Training Development $10K
[#16] Development of handling policies, chain-of-custody procedures, and initial staff training materials.
Moderation Setup $10K
[#17] Setup of secure viewing booths, redaction tools, controlled displays and two-person-rule infrastructure for content moderation.
Public Relations $5K
[#25] As-needed public relations / secrecy-maintenance expenditures for potential leaks or external inquiries (initial/one-time).
Background Checks And Clearances $4K
[#14] Initial background checks, clearances, and psychological screening for staff (estimated per-person initial costs aggregated).
Destruction And Quarantine $1K
[#27] Cost for a single controlled disposal action (incineration/demagnetization/shredding) and required documentation/environmental compliance (per-action estimate held as reserve).
Archival Supplies $500
[#19] Initial archival sleeves, boxes, labels and inert storage materials for floppy disks.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $180K/yr
Staff Wages $120K/yr
[#11, #12, #13, #17] Salary burden for containment archivist(s), digital forensics analyst(s), security guard(s), and content reviewers (steady-state part-time mix).
Research And Monitoring $22K/yr
[#7, #8, #9] Annual costs for spare parts for retro hardware/imaging, forensic software subscriptions/updates, and metadata/indexing server maintenance and backups.
Cover Story And Legal $10K/yr
[#15] Annual legal retainer / liaison costs for compliance and coordination with external agencies.
Insurance And Liability $10K/yr
[#24] Annual insurance and liability coverage against data breaches, legal claims, and employee issues.
It Isolation Tools $3K/yr
[#22] Host-based monitoring, IDS/IDS logs, and maintenance for lab machine isolation tools.
Psychological Support $3K/yr
[#18] Counseling services and exposure-limiting program management for staff working with pornographic or upsetting material.
Facilities Maintenance $2K/yr
[#2, #3, #4, #1] Ongoing maintenance and monitoring for environmental controls, access-control/audit systems, CCTV/storage, and basic vault upkeep.
Logistics And Transport $2K/yr
[#20] Secure courier/transport average for occasional transfers to specialized labs or storage.
Background Checks And Clearances $2K/yr
[#14] Ongoing monitoring, periodic re-checks, and counseling follow-ups for cleared staff.
Backup And Destruction $2K/yr
[#23] Annual secure disposal services, key-management/HSM maintenance, and approved destruction chain costs for any authorized copies.
Policy And Training $2K/yr
[#16] Annual refresher training and policy updates for handling prohibited content and chain-of-custody procedures.
Supplies And Consumables $1K/yr
[#19, #28] Consumables and archival replacements (sleeves, desiccants, labels) and misc small tools (gloves, anti-static mats).
Long Term Research Program $0/yr
[#26] Recurring budget for an expanded long-term research program if/when it is activated; set to 0 in baseline (program not active).
Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $180K/yr
94.5% probability / year
Normal year with no major incidents; routine containment, periodic analysis, and maintenance only.
no incidents routine maintenance periodic analysis
🚨 Minor Incident $255K/yr
4.0% probability / year +$75K vs baseline
Small containment/technical incident (hardware failure, limited unauthorized access attempt, or localized data propagation) requiring emergency response and limited legal/forensic work.
hardware failure limited unauthorized access localized contamination
🚨 Major Breach $1.2M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline
Significant containment failure or public/legal exposure (data exfiltration, evidence of illegal content leaked, or required coordinated external response) with major remediation and legal costs.
public exposure large-scale data propagation legal action
🚨 Research Breakthrough Requiring Scale Up $680K/yr
1.0% probability / year +$500K vs baseline
Decision or discovery that justifies large-scale research into the anomalous 'infinite' storage property, triggering multi-year program expansion and significant annual research spend.
research breakthrough program funding approved ethical/legal review permits scale-up
👥 Personnel 2.5 total
Role Count Notes
Containment Officer / Archivist 0.5 [#11] Part-time archivist/containment officer to log access, perform inspections, and maintain the physical item (salary burden included in staff_wages).
Research Scientist / Digital Forensics 0.5 [#12] Part-time digital forensics/research staff to image, triage, and analyze content and run controlled experiments (salary burden included in staff_wages).
Content Reviewer / Moderator 0.5 [#17] Part-time human reviewer for classification and moderation tasks under two-person rule (salary burden included in staff_wages).
Security Officer / MTF Agent 1 [#13] Shared onsite security coverage / rapid-response guard allocation (salary burden included in staff_wages).
📋 Confidence Notes
Baseline and routine costs are well-anchored to provided line-item ranges, but the anomalous 'effectively infinite' property and legal/external-risk exposures introduce significant tail risk and uncertainty for high-impact scenarios.
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