

Game Theory and Why Diplomatic Transparency is a Good Thing - sfard
http://sfard.posterous.com/game-theory-and-why-diplomatic-transparency-i

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bertil
The author misses the key point of WikiLeaks: Assange doesn't which to make
diplomacy public: he empowers any member of an organization to denounce its
contradiction. According to a alarming report by the Washington Post, the
current US Intelligence community employs more then two millions people — some
who disagree with it and are ready to take risks like Manning. Countries with
limited, empowered civil servants don't have anything to fear.

For instance, no nuclear engineer will even leak secret launch codes: why
sabotage a project that your support? They might leak information about secret
deals with nations that he believes his government shouldn't secretly
associate with.

The goal of WikiLeaks (and this is why I commented here and not on the post
itself) is communities like Zappos, where every worker is independent,
criticizes freely, but agrees enough with the direction to remain loyal. What
this prevents is having frustrated people like Manning approached by actual
enemies, and have a similar access used for harm.

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kragen
The nuclear launch codes actually were leaked a while back. It turns out they
were all zeroes, and always had been. The folks in charge of choosing the
launch codes didn't agree with the policy decision to have launch codes, and
the folks who made the policy decision (McNamara I think) weren't authorized
to know what they were.

But you're probably right that that leak wasn't by a nuclear engineer, since I
doubt any of them were authorized to know the launch codes either.

I'm pretty sure that none of this is still classified.

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skorgu
You're talking about the PAL codes[0] which were, indeed, 00000000 for a long
time. That's entirely separate from another set of 'launch codes' that the
Commander in Chief is never far from[1].

[0]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Permissive_Ac...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link)
[1]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_footb...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_football)

~~~
kragen
Thank you for clarifying!

