A word in the information label, sensitivity label, or clearance sections whose specified compartment or marking bits include all of the bits of one or more words above in the encodings is called an alias. The simplest case of an alias is a word that duplicates the compartment and marking bit specifications of the word above it. Such an alias—in effect—simply adds more names to the word above it. The word WARNING in Appendix B, Annotated Sample Encodings is such an alias for the word WNINTEL. Using an input name (iname=) is the preferred method of associating more than two names with a word. See The Iname= Keyword in Chapter 4, Information Label Encodings.
A more complex type of alias is a word whose compartment and/or marking bits includes bits specified in multiple words that appear above it. The word SYSHI in Appendix B, Annotated Sample Encodings is an example of this type of alias. Entering SYSHI is the same as entering the following words from Appendix B, Annotated Sample Encodings: CC SB bravo1 bravo3 SA alpha1 project X/project Y LIMDIS ORCON org x/org Y D/E all eyes NOFORN.
Aliases can be used while entering labels or adding to labels (e.g., by entering +alias to add alias to an existing label), but cannot be used for removing words from labels (e.g., by entering -alias to remove alias from an existing label) and will never appear in output labels (assuming the alias and the words being aliased have the same flags= specification). For example, given the above alias WARNING for the word WNINTEL, the following table shows how the label TOP SECRET can and cannot be modified using the alias.
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Alias words can be combined with flags to produce aliases that can optionally be used in output labels. The system does not use the flags feature, but applications can be specifically written to use this feature. As an example, consider the case where you have a word that normally appears as NORMAL NAME, but that must, under certain conditions, appear in labels as ALTERNATE NAME. This could be accomplished with the following encodings:
name= NORMAL NAME; markings= 34; name= ALTERNATE NAME; markings= 34; flags= 1;
Under normal circumstances NORMAL NAME would appear in labels, but if the translation software is explicitly told to use only words with flag 1, then ALTERNATE NAME would appear in labels. See [DDS-2600-6215-91] for information on how applications can use the flags feature in this manner.