> Sure, but that's a lack of ability rather than intention.
I don't believe that is true. Every secret under the sun could be leaked tomorrow morning. The fact that that isn't the case is not because of ability but because people tend to self-select into job slots where they are dealing with things that they support.
The times when things are leaked are when people find themselves operating in slots supporting a system that they can no longer support (because of ethics or some other overriding concern). That's when you have leaks.
So the best way to avoid leaks is to operate within parameter that will guarantee that you have extremely wide support amongst the people that you are working with. Stay away from killing innocents, don't break in to your political opponents offices and so on.
Leaks are infrequent for a good reason: most people believe in the causes they work for. Leaks by themselves are symptomatic of problems in an organization.
> People on HN like to make idealistic arguments that governments should never hold secrets.
I think that 'people on HN' are smart enough to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis and to avoid generalizations like that.
> Well, there are many documented cases where that wouldn't have worked out very well for a lot of people.
But there are almost no documented cases where that that did not work out well for anybody. You'd really have to dig to find evidence of a case where purposefully leaked information by a whistleblower led to something bad.
Ok, from Nixons point of view Watergate was bad, so it's relative to the viewpoint of the persons involved but if we look at the 'greater good' then the whistleblowers find themselves on that side much more often than not.
> The times when things are leaked are when people find themselves operating in slots supporting a system that they can no longer support (because of ethics or some other overriding concern). That's when you have leaks.
If simply trusting in the moral intuitions of ordinary people was any way of solving social problems, we wouldn't have social problems.
> I think that 'people on HN' are smart enough to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis and to avoid generalizations like that.
I've read the exact argument, in exactly so many words, on HN, that governments should never hold secrets.
> You'd really have to dig to find evidence of a case where purposefully leaked information by a whistleblower led to something bad.
Given the connotation of the term "whistleblower", that's pretty much a tautology. You would not have called anyone "whistleblowers" for exposing the plans for Normandy.
I don't believe that is true. Every secret under the sun could be leaked tomorrow morning. The fact that that isn't the case is not because of ability but because people tend to self-select into job slots where they are dealing with things that they support.
The times when things are leaked are when people find themselves operating in slots supporting a system that they can no longer support (because of ethics or some other overriding concern). That's when you have leaks.
So the best way to avoid leaks is to operate within parameter that will guarantee that you have extremely wide support amongst the people that you are working with. Stay away from killing innocents, don't break in to your political opponents offices and so on.
Leaks are infrequent for a good reason: most people believe in the causes they work for. Leaks by themselves are symptomatic of problems in an organization.
> People on HN like to make idealistic arguments that governments should never hold secrets.
I think that 'people on HN' are smart enough to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis and to avoid generalizations like that.
> Well, there are many documented cases where that wouldn't have worked out very well for a lot of people.
But there are almost no documented cases where that that did not work out well for anybody. You'd really have to dig to find evidence of a case where purposefully leaked information by a whistleblower led to something bad.
Ok, from Nixons point of view Watergate was bad, so it's relative to the viewpoint of the persons involved but if we look at the 'greater good' then the whistleblowers find themselves on that side much more often than not.