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SCP-4082 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-4082
Expected annual
$2.1M
One-time setup
$1.9M
Annual recurring
$2.1M
Personnel
14
Initial one-time capital/setup costs are approximately $1.86M driven by site fit-out, node buildout, instrumentation, vehicles and an incident-response reserve; ongoing annual operations are about $2.05M/yr driven by personnel, security, research contracts, monitoring/suppression and covert operations.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.9M
Equipment $635K
[#2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #11, #12] Core capture hardware, regional receiver nodes hardware & installation, remote power/environmental hardware, communications hardware, central storage hardware, vehicle purchases (2 vans), and direction-finding hardware.
Incident Response Reserve $500K
[#20] One-time reserve fund to enable rapid scale-up for incident response, surge staffing and emergency logistics.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $350K
[#8, #21] One-time experimental equipment/setup for propagation/ionospheric experiments and shared scientific instrumentation purchases/contracts.
Facilities $280K
[#1, #24] Recording/archival suite fit-out at Site-64 and physical off-site vault setup; includes RF-shielding, climate control, secure cabinets and vault build.
Software Development $40K
[#7] Custom continuous monitoring and capture software development (detection, trigger capture, timestamping, cataloguing, integrity checks).
Public Monitoring Development $30K
[#16] Initial development of custom crawlers/social monitoring tooling to detect civilian discussion of broadcasts.
Cybersecurity Hardening $15K
[#15] Initial hardening, encryption, air-gap setup and audits for secure data handling.
Amnestic Initial Training $10K
[#17] Initial training and stock for amnestic program (medical staff training, supplies, secure storage).
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $2.1M/yr
Staff Wages $1.4M/yr
[#9, #10, #23] Core operations & analysis team payroll (PI, analysts, techs, archivists, admin), security personnel wages and dedicated transcription/curation FTEs; includes stated benefits where specified.
Research And Monitoring $170K/yr
[#8, #7, #6] Ongoing signal analysis and contracted research ($150k/yr), software maintenance ($8k/yr) and off-site backup operations ($12k/yr).
Covert Operations $115K/yr
[#18] Covert domestic/cross-border operations fund ($100k/yr) and site-host lease payments (~$500/site/yr × 30 ≈ $15k/yr).
Cover Story And Legal $94K/yr
[#16, #19, #25] Public-monitoring subscriptions and human review ($24k/yr), legal/PR retainer ($50k/yr) and regulatory/spectrum liaison/legal retainer ($20k/yr).
Replacement Reserve $60K/yr
[#27] Long-term replacement/depreciation reserve for SDRs, batteries, storage arrays on multi-year lifecycles.
Cybersecurity $40K/yr
[#15] Ongoing cybersecurity, audits, encryption management and insider-threat mitigation.
Amnestic Program $38K/yr
[#17] Baseline small-scale amnestic administration budget (assumed 5 administrations/year; $25k–$50k range; midpoint used here).
Training And Certification $25K/yr
[#22] Annual training and certification for signal analysts and field technicians (DF, chain-of-custody, clandestine tradecraft).
Logistics And Transport $20K/yr
[#11] Recurring fuel, insurance and routine maintenance for two field vans and on-call field deployments.
Audit And Oversight $15K/yr
[#26] Periodic internal audits, external technical peer review and compliance checks.
Facilities Maintenance $14K/yr
[#14, #24] Generator maintenance/fuel and physical off-site vault storage fees.
Communications Airtime $11K/yr
[#5] Cellular/satellite airtime for remote node telemetry and limited audio transfer (~$900/month).
Supplies And Consumables $10K/yr
[#13] Consumables, spare parts, replacement antennas, batteries, coax/connectors and field consumables.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $2.1M/yr
83.0% probability / year
Normal year with routine operations, monitoring and no major incidents or public exposure.
routine_capture_and_analysis no_widespread_public_disclosure
🚨 Minor Incident $2.2M/yr
15.0% probability / year +$150K vs baseline
Localized equipment failures, a handful of remote node losses or a small public leak requiring targeted response.
single-node_failure localized_public_detection hardware_damage_or_theft
🚨 Major Breach $3.6M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$1.5M vs baseline
Widespread public dissemination or cross-border incident requiring mass response, surge amnestics, major PR and international liaison.
widespread_civilian_sharing cross_border_publicity simultaneous_multi-node_detections
👥 Personnel 14 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist (PI) 1 [#9] Lead researcher/PI included in core personnel payroll.
Research Scientist / Signal Analyst 2 [#9] Signal analysts for capture and analysis tasks.
Engineer / Radio Technician 2 [#9] Field and site radio technicians for maintenance and node work.
Archival Monitor / Audio Archivist 2 [#9] On-site archival monitoring and evidence handling.
Administrative Staff 1 [#9] Site administrative support.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 4 [#10] Physical security for Site-64 archival suite and patrols.
Transcription / Curation 2 [#23] Dedicated transcription and metadata curation FTEs (2 FTE).
📋 Confidence Notes
Line-item estimates are detailed in analyst notes and map to concrete hardware/staffing needs; uncertainties remain around amnestic use rates, breach frequency/severity and cross-border legal costs, so overall confidence is medium.
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