Endangering National Security:

Humanity's Salvation

Once one shares information, one shares his or her power and is thus lessened.  This is the message, occasionally spoken but usually not, that the citizenry of the United States (and probably the world) learns throughout one's life.  A secret is powerful but, once revealed it is nothing.  Not just powerful, but empowering in a childish "I know something you don't know" sort of way.  Is it not time we all grow up, just a little, and learn how to share our toys?

"Information = Power"

Trade secrets -- from McDonald's "secret sauce" to McDonnell Douglas' feats of aerospace engineering -- are kept to prevent the competition from gaining an edge.  If Company Y could produce everything that Company X does and were willing to charge less for it, then Company X would either lose sales or be forced to suffer a shrinking profit margin.  The working man's wages would suffer because the executives' paychecks and bonuses won't be.  At any rate, the revealing of "trade secrets" would level the playing field and "nobody" wants that.  Imagine if any monkey wrencher could build a Ferrari in his garage or small-time entrepreneur could offer a Big Mac for a dollar or less.  Even worse, imagine some amateur improving upon flaws in the design of the Boeing 747...

The situation is far worse the higher one goes. Should "national secrets" get out, other countries might produce their own Space Shuttles.  It would probably result in the end of American society.  It is probably a good thing that the sharing of information is an act of treason and punishable by death during a time of war (like right now).  From a certain perspective, it is always a time of war, as the United States has dropped bombs on at least one country or another every year from the Vietnam War, on. Good thing, too, because if we weren't pounding those other countries to dust, they might develop. God forbid.

...And the Truth shall set us free

In accessing this document, you, the reader (or somebody you know) have or have had access to the Internet.  Born in the United States of America and originally the private computer network of the US Government, the Internet is the result of what happens when people share.  Had all the government agencies, universities, and corporate interests that built the network taken their toys and gone home, there would be no Google, no Yahoo, no World Wide Web.  It was through individual contribution and creativity combined with freedom and the abolition of secrecy that the Internet was born.  Had all those institutions withheld their knowledge, experience and source code; instead of a globe-spanning open network, we would be trapped within small, proprietary, local networks that might, or might not, communicate with any other such network.  The Internet has grown far beyond the creators' inspired vision and is governed by itself.  As an open network, anyone in the world may access its services for their own use, and anyone in the world may access its switches and routers in order to provide services of their own.

Such freedom has a price, however.  There are a great many unscrupulous individuals that have provided very questionable services.  As the ultimate experiment in capitalism, however, such things could not be viable where no market exists.  In other words:  nobody would sell illicit pornographic images over the Internet, for instance, if nobody was buying them.  Such is the Law of Supply and Demand and one of the reasons capitalism is not the answer (but that is a rant for a different day).  It is difficult to dam a river with one's hands, as the water may simply flow around them.

Changes are in the air, however, and the public will be made to feel good about them, but they will encouraged not to consider the possible ramifications.  Currently, service providers are seeking to control the traffic across the network, the equivalent of the Post Office opening every piece of one's mail to ensure there is nothing illegal inside.  The invasion of privacy is unfortunate enough a turn of events to warrant serious worry in the hearts and minds of those who consider both security and privacy to be of paramount importance.  An email to or from one's psychiatrist, for example, could be examined to ensure that no copyrighted material is contained within.  Making a bad situation worse is the fact that the methods being employed by major telecommunications providers are secret, proprietary solutions.  Not only are the affected customers forced to use those networks allowed no say in such policies, they are not even allowed to know how they are implemented.

File-sharing is closely monitored, occasionally blocked, and almost universally given very low bandwidth consideration.  This is an unfortunate turn of events for the open source community because it hurts legitimate sharing of free software because it has also become a primary way to exchange copyrighted material -- a practice commonly known as "piracy".  While, in theory, no different from making a mix-tape a generation ago, copying music has become a very hazardous affair.  There are systems in place to ensure that such violations do not occur.  These systems are prone to false positives and can make media for which one has exchanged legal tender and later copies for one's own use grounds for "copyright violation".  Under Micro$haft Winblows Vista, with its hard-coded Digital Restrictions Management system, one may find him- or herself locked out of his or her own computer.  Apple has implemented similar misfeatures in their own software and hardware.

The keeping of secrets, the control systems implemented to unfailingly ensure that one has to share, ever, and the policies instituted by both corporations and governments around the world do not make anyone safe.  They do not protect the individual.  These all must pass away.  The artist is not the benefactor of copyright enforcement, the publishing corporation is.  The citizen is not protected by national secrets, the government is.

The Bottom Line

This jealous hoarding of secrets leads only to strife.  Instead of sharing with our neighbors, we feud with them.  Instead of loving our brothers, we spite them.  Knowledge is the only gift one may give and be enriched by the giving.  When one teaches another to read, one does not become illiterate but, instead, one gains a potential companion with whom one might share in the joys of the written word.  When one shares his or her discoveries with the world, it allows another to build upon them and, together, they may make something beautiful.

This human world will not last forever.  Many, many times in the past, almost all life on Earth has been annihilated.  Someday, sooner or later, humanity will face a threat so great that it will be unlikely any of us will survive, unless...

Working as one, there is nothing humanity cannot accomplish.  United, we stand. Otherwise its fall, baby, fall.

Today may be our last chance to tell the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but.  Anything less and we are surely doomed.