Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

NPR fucks up but the real bad guys are those bloggers!

First, it is essential to report on government documents. But in this case, publishing the unedited report (albeit unintentionally) could have -- and could yet -- threaten peoples' lives. There are times when editors have to make a difficult choice between the public's right to know and the risk of endangering lives. But this was not one of those instances. NPR was right to remove the documents from its Web site once it became clear that the full version could be accessed.

Second, the blogosphere has proven once again to be an amoral place with few rules. The consequences for misbehavior are still vague. The possibility of civic responsibility remains remote. It is a place where the philosophy of "who posts first, wins" predominates.

Yeah, because the the rest of the media doesn't live by "who prints first, wins". Whatever.

This isn't a question of morality, it is a question of practicality. You can't re-establish a "secret". "Information want's to be free" may be a battle cry for certain people who any right minded person would consider to be dipshits, but there is still an axiomatic if not physical law truth to it. "Everthing wants to fall apart," would be a similar way to express a similar truth. To pontificate mangnanimously that (a) every single person on the internet should somehow accept your moral judgement about what information that is available, shouldn't be, and then (b) every single person on the internet should go back and cover up your own fuck up that precipitated the exact situation you have such moral outrage about is frankly unbelievable.

We in the software world have generally come to the conclusion that security through obscurity is a myth anyway. Maybe NPR should hire some people who have a god damned clue about computers before they take it on themselves to publish sensitive information.