Agent 49903 initiated the tripwire program, inspiring other agents—usually with little budget remaining and close to submitting—to set up tripwires and investigate how they worked.

“Oh, one thing that I think is interesting about the tripwire program is this program was kicked off by an agent called 49903 that first had the idea to do this. And it inspired a number of other agents, usually ones with small budget left that we're about to submit anyway,”

“to set up tripwires and start figuring out how this works when its own run was coming close to the end.”