Edmund Storms wrote:
Jed, I think you and Steve miss the main issue here. The discussions held on CMNS are not secret, but are private. Suppose I invite a group to my house to discuss cold fusion with the understanding that the discussion would not be made public. Would it be right for an uninvited person to learn what was said and print this in the newspaper?
It would be impolite, or ungentlemanly, as McKubre puts it. But not morally wrong.
As long as the "uninvited" person is not trespassing, or wiretapping your house, he has done nothing wrong. If you don't want uninvited people to eavesdrop on your conversations, you should throw them out of the house. In this case, you should expel people from the CMNS list if you feel that strongly about it. I don't know how you would track them down, but that's your problem. The classic method in intelligence work (and Washington politics) is to spread different versions of the story and see which one surfaces.
If one of your guests discusses the conversation with Krivit and he publishes it, Krivit is annoying but less at fault. Your guest is the main culprit. If I read what Krivit wrote, I discuss it with yet another person I am several times removed and not at fault.
Privacy is valued and respected in this country as much as freedom of the press. How does a person protect privacy on the internet?
You can't. Don't put things on the Internet that you want to keep private. It is like posting them on a billboard in Times Square. Never tell dozens of people something that you want to keep confidential. Don't tell anyone! As they say in the Mafia, two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
We are not setting or implementing policy. Our intent is to discuss science that is still poorly understood and perhaps wrong without having the ideas taken out of context, as would be the case if the information were made public. Is not this effort worth protecting?
I see absolutely no reason to protect it -- no benefit whatever. Keeping it secret runs counter to the traditions of academic science. On the contrary it seems to me that the more people you bring into the conversation, the better. However if you want to protect it that is certainly your right. It is also your right to expel whoever it was that leaked the info to Krivit, if you can find them. I think that would be a big fat waste of time, and a tempest in a teacup, but it is your right to do it.
- Jed
