Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Nah, my suspicion is that 99% of classified information would not directly place people in harm's way if released to the public. What it might do is cause the country concerned varying degrees of disadvantage and embarassment (economically, politically, diplomatically etc).
Note close refutation under "purpose":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information
It's not about expressions of suspicion by random, unvetted members of the general public. It's about what professionals have determined will be a likely outcome of the enemy's acquisition of the data.
In some cases, as I said, there are politicized examples of overclassified data, but the security bureaucracy is tasked with ensuring that this is minimized. I'm all for making sure that information that should be free is free. I'm totally against making sure that information that should be secret is published.
Whether the standards are different in different countries isn't relevant.
Someone might die if Wikipedia has such info online. And at least two people have continued arguing as though Wikipedia policy should be to err on the side of plodding deliberation instead of quick prophylaxis.
I repeat my assertion that this is sad and scary.
--Blair
Blair P. Houghton wrote:
I repeat my assertion that this is sad and scary.
And I repeat that it's entirely moot, because the only stuff that's going to stay on Wikipedia if someone complains about it is stuff thats _verifiable_. If a classified "secret" is verifiable by members of the general public from other sources, then it's already well past being a secret and there's not anything Wikipedia could do about it anyway. The genie is out of the bottle.
If you come across a classified secret in Wikipedia that was leaked here first and is published nowhere else (assuming you're able to recognize it somehow), just ask for references and when none are forthcoming it'll go away. What else should we do other than that?