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Transparency trumps piracy
I’ve been saying (and writing) lately that piracy is the consequence of a bad API. That thought came to mind last week, when I was drawn into a discussion of the U.S. government’s responses to Wikileaks.
I look at classification as the government’s analog version of DRM, which (as we have seen in publishing) can block casual piracy but is pretty ineffective against intentional theft of content.
In the discussion, I used my experience studying piracy to make a point about the difficulty and escalating cost of trying to reliably wrap something in a protective layer.
In this era, strengthening the current rules and emphasizing enforcement at the cost of the Constitution are popular options, but I have another idea. Maybe we could work on having fewer secrets.
If government were more open, it might also cost less (speaking of bad APIs ...)
Posted by Nick Ruffilo
Some secrets are good. While there is a huge grey area here, I think I can demonstrate a need for some form of secrecy.
During idea generation, some people will toss out BAD ideas to get people to think. In fact, some of the ideas are utterly horrific, but its necessary to get people to think outside the box.
Since its impossible for everyone to read everything, they will let people of the press boil things down, and what was a brainstorming idea, may get taken out of context and ruin a career (or even a society).
For example, lets say a democrat sends an e-mail (classified) saying: “What if we fixed this whole tax problem by instating a flat 50% tax. Many EU nations do this and they manage to fund all of their social services and the people are happy.” Its not bill, its not law, heck, the politician may not have even thought it was a great idea, just wanted to toss it out so a compromise could be made. BUT, they would now be labeled a socialist…
Ok, before that gets out of hand, there are some things that the greater society cannot handle (partially because we have for-profit news networks that need to make things interesting).
I see your point, and openness is good, but for the greater security of individuals, I think secrets are a very good thing.
BTW - I avoided talking about how military secrets being revealed pose a security risk as I think enough people have talked about that lately.
Posted by Brian O'Leary
My primary point is this: the less transparent you are, the more likely it is that your secrets will be pirated. My secondary, related point is this: the more you try to protect your secrets, the more expensive that protection becomes. It’s not free.
I may not be capturing you intent, but your example seems to suggest classifying party-line discussions. I would have to fall on the other side of that argument.
The notion that there are “some things that the greater society cannot handle” echoes the cloak used to try to suppress the Pentagon Papers. The government leaks every day; it just likes to leak the stories that it favors and favor it.
Judith Miller was a willing participant in a (false) leak to justify invading Iraq. Valerie Plame was a victim of a leak used to get back at her husband for views the government wanted to suppress. Secrets are cool things when you hold the rights to them.
It does strike me as funny that I’m expected to give up all expectations of privacy for the opportunity to fly to Boston, but cables that reveal we think the Afghani government is corrupt, that we pressured Spain to adopt stringent anti-piracy laws, and that we think the Russians like the Italians must be kept secret at all costs.
If we spent no time classifying these exchanges, I think we’d spend less money and develop greater clarity about those things that do matter.
Posted by Nick Ruffilo
Brian,
You make some great points, and I think your follow up captures your intent better than your original post. Its a sticky subject and I don’t think there is a right solution. I think perfect clarity provides quite a bit of problems (I do believe there are people in this world who cannot handle certain facts) as well as I believe that secrecy has its downsides.
As for I believe the heart of your note, that privacy costs more and more money, that is true. Also - it requires training and intelligence (not CIA type of intelligence, but intelligence of the individuals communicating). Knowing what shouldn’t be said over e-mail, etc.
I think your follow up well demonstrates your points and enjoyed this mini-debate 
-Nick