Weasel: date=March 2009 Secrecy or furtiveness is the practice of sharing information among a group of people, which can be as small as one person, while hiding it from all others. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Welcome to CWAnswers
CWAnswers is your guide to the sprawling world wide web. The directory aims to provide a useful guide made by users. You can share your knowledge as well - simply sign up and edit your first entry. For questions just contact the team at support - at - cwanswers.com.
Weblinks for Secret
Top 10 for Secret
Things about Secret you find nowhere else.
Select content modules
Weasel: date=March 2009 Secrecy or furtiveness is the practice of sharing information among a group of people, which can be as small as one person, while hiding it from all others. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Secrecy is often controversial, depending on the content of the secret, the group or people keeping the secret, and the motivation for secrecy. Secrecy by government entities is often decried as excessive or in promotion of poor operation; excessive revelation of information on individuals can conflict with virtues of privacy and confidentiality.
Natural and sociological secrecy
Secrecy is built into biology. One reason for sexual reproduction and speciation may be to allow members of a species to share genetic improvements without those improvements becoming available to competitors. Animals, including humans (in some cases), conceal the location of their den or nest from predators. Humans attempt to consciously conceal aspects of themselves from others due to shame, or from fear of rejection, loss of acceptance, or loss of employment. On a deeper level, humans attempt to conceal aspects of their own self which they are not capable of incorporating psychologically into their conscious being. Families sometimes maintain "family secrets", obliging family members never discuss disagreeable issues concerning the family, either with those outside the family and sometimes even within the family. Many "family secrets" are maintained by using a mutually agreed-upon construct (an official family story) when speaking with outside members. Agreement to maintain the secret is often coerced through "shaming" and reference to family honor. The information may even be something as trivial as a recipe.
Keeping one's strategy secret is important in many aspects of game theory.
Secret sharing (anthropology)
In anthropology secret sharing is one way for men to establish traditional relations with other men. A commonly used Academic narrative that describes this kind of behavior is Joseph Conrad's short story "The Secret Sharer".
Government secrecy
Governments often attempt to conceal information from other governments and the public. These state secrets can include weapon designs, military plans, diplomatic negotiation tactics, and secrets obtained illicitly from others ("intelligence"). Most nations have some form of Official Secrets Act (the Espionage Act in the U.S.) and classify material according to the level of protection needed (hence the term "classified information"). An individual needs a security clearance for access and other protection methods, such as keeping documents in a safe, are stipulated.
Few people dispute the desirability of keeping Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information secret, but many believe government secrecy to be excessive and too often employed for political purposes. Many countries have laws that attempt to limit government secrecy, such as the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and sunshine laws. Government officials sometimes leak information they are supposed to keep secret. (For a recent (2005) example, see Plame affair.)
