Doesn’t have to be a state secret. Just any Information to which access is restricted or it’d be dangerous or undesired if it were just handed out to the public.
Edit: Don’t reveal any secrets here. This is a public forum. Proceed with caution when answering this question.
I think the internet (especially the clear web) is not the place to generally share such things, so I encourage caution in this post.
However, one thing I found to be impressively easy to find (not sure if it qualifies as restricted information), is how to make various high-explosives. It makes me think we don’t have that many severely mentally ill and capable people in our societies (still too many, ofc).
Thanks. I’ve added your warning to the post.
And yes, old chemistry books and some specific books on resistance are very detailed. Fortunately it requires some skill and knowledge, so people need some amount of sanity to succeed with that. And the severe mentally ill can always buy an axe or a knife, in some countries even a gun, and that’s enough if they bring that to a crowded public space.
Or just someone who is sufficiently crazy lol - C4 is not particularly advanced, but the cooking process is extremely volatile, which is probably a big deterrent by itself.
Which is fortunately usually as far as they ever go. Then every now and then you have people like Breivik and Unabomber.
In some ways, I’m glad societies have evolved in a direction where we can intercept and take care of people who potentially follow these people’s footsteps, but as many privacy advocates will emphasize, is that it’s a fine line between this and authoritarianism.
What is your stance on withholding information that you’re basically asking for in this post? Usually information is restricted because it is sensitive and could easily be used for malicious intents.
My stance is: It’s complicated. I’m usually for transparency. Until I’m not. There are valid use-cases for secrets. And it really depends on specific circumstances. Information in general can be used as a weapon or to help. There isn’t a simple answer to that question.
Indeed. Do you have any examples of transparency you’re against? I imagine state-secrets like the access to governmental/military facilities is a given for many, but let’s use explosives-making as an example: Is the fact that the explosive terrorism is so far-and-few in between a result of the people being trustworthy with this accessible information? And furthermore, what makes it so?
Well first of all I already said, there are more accessible options to kill people. Explosives are more for proper terrorists. And it’s an extreme. Criminals shouldn’t have access to anything (including information) which assists them in injuring people. And I think generally humans are born with empathy and feelings. And lots of them have ethics. In a working society and without being faced with existential threats, they’re the exception.
More mundane and everyday scenarios are something like doxxing, ratting out people or leaking their secrets. Or you’re the admin of a service and protect your users. Or you’re and employee and protect the company.
I don’t think it’s any big issue that I (and some other people) read the old chemistry books. And we can make things moderately difficult by removing them from the shelves, so it at least takes some effort to get there. That should already help. It’s the same idea like putting a small fence somewhere. With enough dedication and effort it can be circumvented, but it gets you somewhere. Of course that still doesn’t address the criminals. So we need other ways to filter them out.
Edit: And I forgot safe-spaces. Some issues are better discussed in private. And it helps opening up when there isn’t the general public and stereotypes involved. I guess that applies to science to some degree as well. Some studies and achievements are turned into misinformation or could be weaponized, so they might better stay within the scientific community. But that’s not ideal.