Is Secrecy Futile?

[littleblackduck]

By serendippity I picked up a science fiction novel by Bob Tucker The Time Masters (1954, revised 1970's) in which a character mocks the Government Man's obsession with secrecy by pointing out that the nuclear secrets the United States and other Governments were so busy trying to keep were to be found by any patient person with access to public libraries, scientific journals. For example "critical mass" isn't critical if you want to build a nuclear bomb and even if it was, a high school student cold easily figure out a workable approximation.

It occured to me that the "Dirty Bomb" is a prime example: sure, if you want to build the latest model of bomb, you need plenty of high technology, scientific know-how and expertise, not to mention money, but all you need to build a dirty bomb is a little radioactive material and lots of explosive.

The more you pulverize the radioactive material, the better it spreads, and even if it doesn't actually kill anybody directly, the panic and economic and political consequences would be horrendous.

In other words, any country or organization big enough to care is big enough to work around even the best kept secrets.

 

[littleblackduck]

No, Secrecy is Not Futile

A paper-back book on cryptography which you can buy almost anywhere in the English-speaking world points out that the objective of the cryptographer is to delay, not prevent the decypherment of the hidden message.

So even if a ten year old can crack your code, it is worth while to encrypt nonetheless--all you have to do is keep your secret until it is stale and no longer worth keeping.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, no secrecy is not futile, though it is hard to achieve.

Arguable examples are extant.
You could argue the the Voynich manuscript is best piece of cryptography in the world.

You could also argue that the certain events, such as the Katynn Massacre, show that secrecy, up to a point is always possible.

LD

 

[Anonymous]

In other words, any country or organization big enough to care is big enough to work around even the best kept secrets.

I guess that it depends on the nature of the secret.

The example that you quote is one were the secret is in the engineering. The physics is fairly straightforward, and most of it was in the open literature. The tricky bit is how to put the physics together into something that works. Whilst eventually other countries could (and have) figure it out, it would still require a lot of effort and expertise to do it. For example, "how do you machine part X?", or "How do you bond part Y to part Z?", or "How do you get part A to go off exactly 1 picosecond after part B does?"

Now it was pretty obvious after the end of the war in Japan that it was possible to build a nuclear weapon. In a sense that is part of the battle. It is easier to do something once you know that someone else has managed to do it. Not in some sort of Sheldrake-like effect, but it is easier to persuade governments to fund it, and people to work on it.

On the other hand, if you are also hiding the fact that you can do something, then it is much harder for others to catch up. Imagine if some government has secretly discovered how to travel in time, using simple inexpensive equipment, then it is far less likely that someone else would stumble across the method than if they knew it could be done. Hence that secret could be well protected for a long time.

Finally, the last type of secret is not related to science and technology. I have one of those. Do you want to know what it is? Can't say 'cos it's a secret!

 

[evilsprout]

When discussing secrets, of course, it has to be remembered that we'll have absolutely no knowledge of the most successful ones!

 

[Anonymous]

Secrecy paradoxes

Then again, think of all the things we DON'T know..

Remember Rumsfeld's glorious quote about 'known knowns' etc:

> Known Knowns-- that we know we know

> Known Unknowns-- that we know we don't know

> Unknown Knowns-- that we don't know that we know

> Unknown Unknowns-- that we don't know that we don't know

Think of all the unknown unknowns that we don't know...because we have no idea about them!

As Socrates almost said, ''One cannot enquire of that of which one knows nothing''...if you don't know ANYTHING about something, then you don't even know that it exists, and so cannot ever come to know of it (without help, of course, and this is where supersecrecy comes in!)

So there are things we don't know we don't know!

 

[littleblackduck]

A case in point

New Zealander building Cruise Missile

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-12336510,00.html

ROCKET BUILT IN SHED

A New Zealand man is building a cruise missile in his garage using parts bought over the internet.


Bruce Simpson says he wants to prove how easy it is for terrorists to build a bomb for less than £1,800.

He has bought most of the hi-tech components for the missile from internet auction house eBay.

The military version of "Junkyard Wars", as he describes it, began when the 49-year-old wrote a piece on his own website boasting of how easy it would be to build a Raytheon Tomahawk.

Web surfers claimed he could not do it.

So "In order to prove my case, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and build a cruise missile in my own garage, on a budget of just US$5,000," he writes.

The internet site engineer will provide "detailed documentation" on his pet project to "those who qualify" and who pay a subscription.

He says he will also tell the New Zealand airforce of his plans to fire the rocket.

"Obviously the goal of this Web site is not to provide terrorists or other nefarious types with the plans for a working cruise missile but to prove the point that nations need to be prepared for this type of sophisticated attack from within their own borders," Simpson writes.

A police spokesman said: "It's not something we recommend people try at home."

 

[Anonymous]

The Secret

We sit round in a ring and suppose
but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
- Carl Sandburg