SL relationships

One SL (L1) is said to dominate another (L2) only if both of the following conditions are true:

• The classification in L1 equals or exceeds the classification in L2
• The set of compartments in L1 completely contains the set of compartments in L2

For example, if we assume one SL L1 of top secret information on the compartments A and B (TS A B), and another SL L2 of secret information on the compartment A but not B (S A), then TS A B would dominate S A because the classification TS dominates classification S and the set of compartments in L1 completely contains the set of compartments in L2. L2 would not dominate L1 in this example.

One SL (L1) is said to equal another SL (L2) only if both of the following conditions are true:

• The classification in L1 equals the classification in L2
• The set of compartments in L1 is identical to the set of compartments in L2

If two labels are equal, then each label dominates the other. For example, if we assume the SL for a file with top secret information on compartment A (TS A) and another file with top secret information on the compartment A (also TS A), then the SLs would be equal and would dominate each other.

Two SLs can be disjoint (L1 is not equal to L2, L1 does not dominate L2, and L2 does not dominate L1). One SL (L1) is said to be non-comparable to another (L2) only if the following condition is true:

• The set of compartments in L1 does not completely contain the set in L2 and L2 does not completely contain the set in L1. Therefore, L1 and L2 are considered disjoint

For example, if we assume that a file with label L1 has top secret information on the compartments A and B (TS A B), and L2 is the label for a file with classified information on the compartment C (C C), then L1 is non-comparable to L2.