Lion Cipher Lab
Grade every source with the Admiralty System: rate reliability and credibility on two separate axes
- Threat Intel Analyst
- Beginner
- ~40 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
Analysts drown in inputs of wildly different quality — a breathless tweet, a polished vendor PDF, a trusted partner's phone tip, an anonymous paste, a news write-up, a hit from your own sensor — and the fatal move is to treat them all the same, or to let one loud source carry a judgment it hasn't earned. The Admiralty System (the NATO 6x6 code) is the oldest, simplest fix: rate two things separately for every piece of information — how reliable the SOURCE is (a letter, A-F) and how credible the INFORMATION is (a number, 1-6) — and attach a two-character grade like B2 to each input. Keeping…
What you'll learn
- the Admiralty (NATO) 6x6 source-grading code
- rating source reliability (A-F) independently of information credibility (1-6)
- keeping the two axes separate (e.g. reading B6 vs F1)
- spotting circular reporting (single-origin 'corroboration')
- letting source grades drive confidence language in an assessment
- writing down grade criteria and the WHY, not just the code
Steps in this lab
- The one idea: grade the source and the information separately
- The reliability scale (the LETTER): A to F
- The credibility scale (the NUMBER): 1 to 6
- Why the axes are independent — B6, F1, and the whole point
- Collect ~5-6 mixed inputs for ONE scenario
- Grade each input on both axes, with a one-line justification
- Catch the trap: circular reporting is NOT corroboration
- Carry the grades into the assessment's confidence language
- WHEN / WHY / BETTER: grade at collection, write your criteria, record the why