Secrecy

This article traces the idea of neo-Gnosticism in a series of occult and new religious movements from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Specifically, the article examines the links between two controversial groups that both described themselves as modern forms of Gnosticism: first, the European esoteric group, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and second, the American new religion, the Church of Scientology. Founded by Theodor Reuss in Germany in the 1890s, the O.T.O. described itself as a form of "Gnostic Neo-Christian Templar" religion, with sexual magic as its primary ritual secret. Its most infamous leader, British occultist Aleister Crowley, also developed a full scale "Gnostic Mass" for the group. Many elements of the O.T.O. and Crowley's work were later picked up by none other than L. Ron Hubbard, the eclectic founder of Scientology, who also called his new church a "Gnostic religion," since it is the "knowing of knowing" (scientia + logos). To conclude, I will discuss the ways in which these Gnostic and occult elements within Scientology later became a source of embarrassment for the church and were eventually either obscured or denied altogether-in effect, obfuscated by still further layers of secrecy and concealment.

While media and scholarly attention on the ‘clandestinity’ of migrants is commonplace, and while ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ feature prominently in the vocabulary of migration scholars, it seems researchers rarely interrogate borders and migration from the angle of sociologies, anthropologies and geographies of secrecy. We use the analytics of secrecy when we debate the covert activities of spies, diplomats, bankers, conspirators,  not to mention the transgressive acts of whistleblowers, but arguably less so when we theorize migration control. In this essay I want to explore some connections between the politics of secrecy and the politics of migration control. My main argument is that it is fruitful to bring theoretical and empirical reflections on secrecy into the debate about borders and migration. I call this the secretization of migration.

This essay analyzes the collective mnemonics embedded in the statistical discourse of Planned Parenthood’s 1955 conference, _Abortion in the United States_. Conferees recalled a culture that was diseased, remembered both through social data on abortion pathology and epidemiology. The essay conceptualizes how to think of social data as a collective memory of secrets that is incumbent to biopower, particularly regarding statistical anonymity as a form of strategic amnesia. Although primarily a study of this conference, the essay notes the broader importance of collective memory and secrecy for the study of biopower.

Il senso del segreto si compone di approfondimenti tematici su cinque filosofi che hanno indagato la questione del segreto e della segretezza, attraverso un confronto – spesso esplicito, talvolta latente – con l’opera di Marcel Proust. Da Walter Benjamin a Georges Bataille, da Maurice Blanchot a Jacques Derrida, passando per Gilles Deleuze, il volume mette in chiaro l’influenza che la Recherche ha esercitato sulla filosofia del Novecento, disegnando anche un affresco sul rapporto tra filosofia e letteratura, due discipline che indagano lo stesso ordine di questioni con voci e consistenze irriducibilmente diverse.

Pay secrecy or the human resources practice of concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the practice has also been widely criticized. Besides demonstrating that it reduces employee motivation, productivity and organizational effectiveness, human resources scholars and organizational psychologists have also argued that pay secrecy is morally wrong. Applied ethicists and moral philosophers have been relatively silent on the ethical status of pay secrecy practices. This paper aims to correct this lacuna in the literature. In a previous paper I offered a philosophical analysis of whether pay secrecy constitutes lying and deception. In this paper the most commonly given reason for sustaining the practice is examined: namely, that pay is private, the personal business of the employee him- or herself.

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the intelligence democratization process in new democracies comparing three South American countries: Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina. With a background of authoritarian legacies(‘political police’style intelligence agencies controlled by the military) under particular political circumstances and changing strategic environments, these countries experienced disparate trajectories, prescriptions, and outcomes in their efforts to reform their intelligence communities. Drawing on new institutionalism, historical moments and relevant events shaping the dynamics of intelligence democratization are highlighted for each case, depicting failures and successes, and identifying drivers of change.

The amount of new semantic content circulated in a society is limited by implicit norms and explicit rules. Belonging to a community means knowing, mastering, and even interiorizing such restrictions. Some of them are imposed by economy, as in the case of copyright, some by moral, as with pornography, and some for political reasons. In times of international tension such restrictions are tightened, giving rise to state ideologies and rhetorics of taciturnity. The essay explores those that came about in Italy, German, and Japan during World War II but also those that were circulated in their democratic opposers, USA and UK. The study seeks to show the relevance of a semiotic analysis of this corpus of propaganda materials not only for the sake of historical knowledge but also so as to cast new light on urgent present-day issues concerning both private and public conversation.

How has secrecy shaped the collective memory of Bletchley Park? Collective memory helps to form our collective identity, an ideal that we should conform to. It gives us belonging, a sense of right and wrong and is what motivates us to action. 1 Collective memory is therefore extremely powerful, but importantly is vulnerable to modification by inaccuracy, duplicity and omission. Intentional silence or suppression of information is therefore of great consequence to collective memory, and Bletchley Park functions as a stark demonstration of the consequence of enduring secrecy. The Second World War is perhaps the most defining instance in recent history that crafted a contextual identity that is still currently adhered to; Brexit, the 'War on Terrorism' and the Falkland war all revoke memories of WWII, either through " fighting tyranny " or facing up to a threat that demanded the British people evoke the " Blitz mentality " of uniting against a common enemy. 2 As a subject, history by its very nature, is almost assumed by non-historians to be an un-altering account of forgone conclusions, actions and results. While research occasionally uncovers novel treasures giving an alternative perspective on an historical event, it may be difficult to transform an identity previously forged in the collective memory to reflect this new information. 3 Monuments, memorials, remembrances, TV, film and media are examples of how, presently, we typically preserve a shared consciousness of historic events. Inclusion in these various media entrenches an individual or an event, whether fact or fiction, into the collective memory, and exclusion of a subject is commensurate to it never having occurred. The secrecy imperative to Bletchley Park and the work undertaken therein has inevitably led to an initially absent, though subsequently emerging, position in the collective memory of WWII. While government intelligence dates back millennia, the necessity for government secrecy was observed on a previously unprecedented scale during the course of WWII. 4 Bletchley was Britain's fortress of secrets and much of the information processed within its walls either remains under 1 For further works on the theory of collective memory see J.K. Olick The Collective Memory Reader, S. Freud Totem and

This article introduces the reader to the houses and sculptures of Eastern Pende chiefs from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Who sees what? The text discusses the restricted viewing conditions in relation to the literature on secrecy initiated by Georg Simmel.

The expression “Reason of State” belongs to the language and the political culture of the late Renaissance period. Still today this expression is commonly used to mean recourse to force or, at any rate, to exceptional instruments on the part of a subject of political power who acts out of the need to keep personal command and to guarantee law and order within society. Beginning from the early 1980s a wide number of studies questioned the conceptual associa-tion between Machiavelli and reason of state as well as Friedrich Meinecke’s interpretation of ratio status as machtpolitik. This new scholarship described reason of state as an art of government expressing a specific sensibility toward the state and aimed at defining the techniques for its management and preservation. By following this new line of study, the essay examines the relations between de-mocracy and reason of state in order to further an interpretation of contemporary democracies as “emergency democracies”. Demo-cratic reason of state will not be interpreted as the constitutional ex-ercise of exceptional powers in extreme necessity but as the re-course to emergency policies in recurrent and enduring crisis. The article also discusses the relations between reason of state, demo-cratic institutions and global governance in order to debate the role of democratic reason of state within the broader framework offered by security governance international programs.

Drawing on a theoretical sample from my on-going fieldwork on religious creativity, I will offer a psychological perspective on the issue of secrecy in contemporary initiatory Wicca. Secrecy is understood here to exist in those relationships where a supposed inequality of knowledge is actively maintained by managing access to the surplus of that knowledge. First, a descriptive account of the various etic narratives of secrecy is offered, successively relating the topic to mythistory, oath keeping, magical practice, and mysteries. Second, moving from the manifest level to the latent level of these narratives, I will then offer an explanation and interpretation of the functions secrecy in terms of the maintenance of ownership, appeal, and association. The latter is explained as ritual hygiene and shown to be the functional opposite of secrecy. In the concluding chapter two implications of the institutionalization of secrecy are discussed: misrepresentation of knowledge and religious development are shown to be detrimental side-effects of upholding secrecy in contemporary Paganism.

This article opens a special section on the politics of opacity and openness. The rise of transparency as a political and cultural ideal has left secrecy to accumulate negative connotations. But the moral discourse that condemns secrecy and rewards transparency may cause us to misread the symbiotic relationship between these terms. After providing a historical account of transparency in public and political life, this article therefore makes the case for working with the tension between these terms rather than responding to the dyad as a choice. We need to find different ways of staying with the aporia of transparency-as-secrecy and secrecy-as- transparency. Despite common demands to support either transparency or secrecy in political and moral terms, we live with the tension between these terms and its inherent contradictions daily. The theoretical questions posed by this material reality need to be asked and responded to. This article and the special section as a whole begin such an enterprise.

www.cybercrimeclues.com/it/download-scripta-volant/

In 1992 the first SMS was sent from a computer to a mobile phone. Since then, text messages have changed our communications. Instant messaging applications (such as WhatsApp and Telegram) are their heirs and are widespread worldwide. Yet, the possibility of tracking them with extensive surveillance led to privacy issues, only partially solved with cryptography. Indeed, the writing is losing its sacrality.

The ebook is in Italian.

This study evaluates the claim that all three branches of the U.S. federal government are producing secret law.  It conducts an empirical analysis of the classified legislative addenda through which Congress regulates classified intelligence programs.  It distinguishes secret law from secret fact, constructs normative options, and recommends principles for governing secret law, starting with the cardinal principle of public law’s supremacy over secret law.

Este diccionario, el más completo en el campo de la inteligencia y de la seguridad, cuenta con 1.500 términos definidos en español y con sus correspondientes traducciones al inglés, francés y portugués. Incluye también unos prácticos diccionarios inversos del inglés, francés y portugués al español, además de gráficos y tablas de uso frecuente. Un equipo multidisciplinar de una veintena de especialistas en activo ha definido cada concepto de forma sencilla y fácil de entender, cubriendo los términos especializados de estructuras de inteligencia, fuentes, análisis, diseminación y operaciones encubiertas, inteligencia económica, inteligencia competitiva, inteligencia militar, diplomacia, espionaje, terrorismo, seguridad, ética, guerra fría, recursos humanos, aspectos legales, criptografía y criptología.

Over the last decade, public and private clouds emerged as de facto platforms for big-data analytical workloads. Outsourcing one’s data to the cloud, however, comes with multiple security and privacy challenges. In a world where service providers can be located anywhere in the world, fall under varying legal jurisdictions, i.e., be a subject of different laws governing privacy and confidentiality of one’s data, and be a target of well-sponsored (sometimes even government-sponsored) security attacks protecting data in a cloud is far from trivial. This tutorial focuses on two principal lines of research (cryptographic- and hardware-based) aimed to provide secure processing of big-data in a modern cloud. First, we focus on cryptographic (encryption- and secret- sharing-based) techniques developed over the last two decades and specifically compare them based on efficiency and information leakage. We demonstrate that despite extensive research on cryptography, secure query processing over outsourced data remains an open challenge. We then survey the landscape of emerging secure hardware, i.e., recent hardware extensions like Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX) aimed to secure third-party computations in the cloud. Unfortunately, despite being designed to provide a secure execution environment, existing SGX implementations suffer from a range of side-channel attacks that require careful software techniques to make them practically secure. Taking SGX as an example, we will discuss representative classes of side-channel attacks, and security challenges involved in the construction of hardware-based data processing systems. We conclude that neither cryptographic techniques nor secure hardware are sufficient alone. To provide efficient and secure large-scale data processing at the cloud, a new line of work that combines software and hardware mechanisms is required. We discuss an orthogonal approach designed around the concept of data partitioning, i.e., splitting the data processing into cryptographically secure and non-secure parts. Finally, we will discuss some open questions in designing secure cryptographic techniques that can process large-sized data efficiently.

"The Nazi party had a secret flying disc already off of the drawing board and flying
and it was capable of 1200 miles an hour. Vertical take-off, 90ƒ changes, much like a
helicopter, and of course was far superior to anything the Allies powers had at that
time. Secondly they also had another craft about to be up and going it was capable of
doing 2500 miles per hours, which was double the original. Not only did it have the
characteristics of the original craft, but it also had a laser weapon aboard it which
capable of penetrating four inches of armour. Needless to say that really spooked the
allied forces into making a redemptive attempt against Von Braun and bringing him
… into a state of capitulation."

Like Clement of Alexandria and other Eastern Fathers, Evagrius of Pontus clearly states in several of his works that there are things that must be keep in secret and not be written. These agrapha doctrines are of two types: those related to certain stages of the spiritual life of the gnostic or the man proficient in the way of perfection, and those related to certain temptations or attacks inflicted by demons on those who venture into monastic life. In the words of Origen, it «would be an impiety to reveal them, it would represent a betrayal of the secret oracles of the wisdom of God» (Contra Celsum V, 29). The purpose of this paper is to explore the various nuances of Evagrius' secret doctrines, particularly those that deal with the development of the spiritual life as he proposes it, in order to establish some evidence tracing a continuity or resemblance to later teachings in medieval authors. Indeed, considering that Evagrius can be considered one of the main forerunners of the spirituality of the Western Middle Ages, it is interesting to enquire how his esoteric teachings were transmitted and how much of the secrets was discovered or disclosed to the medieval profane man. Resumen Tal como Clemente de Alejandría y otros Padres orientales, Evagrio Póntico es explícito al afirmar en varias de sus obras que hay ciertas cosas que es mejor silenciar y no dar a conocer a través de un texto escrito. En general, estas doctrinas ágrapha son de dos tipos: aquellas © Mediaevalia. Textos e estudos, 32 (2013) pp. 15-28.

The study examined attachment-related predispositions and patterns of cognition and emotion that contribute to
different secret-keeping experiences. Participants (n=380) reported on their secret keeping, rumination, attachment
anxiety, and attachment avoidance via online questionnaires. Results showed that both anxiety and avoidance were
positively associated with keeping a secret from a romantic partner, while only avoidance was associated with a greater
total number of secrets kept. The association between avoidance and rumination was partially mediated by perceptions
of a partner’s ownership rights to the secret and guilt for keeping the secret, such that those who were highly avoidant
were less likely to perceive a partner’s ownership rights. Finally, highly anxious participants reported higher levels of
rumination, which were mediated by feelings of guilt for keeping a secret. The study extends research on the link
between secrecy and rumination by offering a theoretical account based on attachment for why some people are more
likely to ruminate about their secrecy than others.

Despite its reputation for the toughest anti-money laundering (AML) enforcement in the world, the United States remains the leading jurisdiction for the incorporation of anonymous shell companies used in grand corruption schemes. States like Delaware and Nevada have become notorious secrecy jurisdictions, frequently used by criminals and kleptocrats for money laundering. This thesis investigates why some U.S. states and not others have become the most secretive incorporation jurisdictions in the world. By employing the metrics from corporate secrecy scholars and NGOs and never-before-collected cross-sectional data on U.S. state incorporation fee revenue, this work reveals the correlates of U.S. state corporate secrecy. Moreover, through an interest group analysis of the corporate policymaking of two states (Delaware and Nevada) it posits a causal logic behind corporate secrecy in the most secretive U.S. states. It highlights how pro-secrecy interests in the United States have gained control over incorporation policymaking in Delaware and Nevada.

Chapter 1 outlines an interesting example from the history of the polygraph’s use in criminal investigations, briefly reports on how the device has long suffered from contestation regarding its validity and reliability, before reviewing some key philosophical starting points in understanding lying, and taking some tentative footsteps towards a sociological approach.

Chapter 2 explores the use of torture as a form of lie detection in practices of ‘trial by ordeal’ and in the Elizabethan period before outlining the literature on the emergence of the polygraph machine and the trial by jury in the United States. Together, these threads help describe how conceptualisations of the body and its relation to truth have been invested in lie detection technologies.

Chapter 3 provides an overview of a heuristic often used to explain the legal status of the polygraph machine in US criminal courts, that it is either: inadmissible; admissible with prior-stipulation; or admissible even without prior-stipulation. It then argues that although this is useful, there is a need for greater detail, exploring the tensions and complexity involved in characterising the socio-legal status of the polygraph, which is followed-up in Chapters 4 and 5.

Chapter 4 begins to provide a more detailed picture of how the polygraph machine is challenged and managed within US State Supreme Courts, outlining the ‘exclusionary toolkit’ and how this is used to highlight uncertainties in lie detection research and application.

Chapter 5 extends this analysis by examining how ontological uncertainties in polygraph science and interrogation practices are negotiated in trial settings by reference to broader techno-political currents in the United States. It shows that the ontological connections between body, truth and lying are enacted differently over time in a case study of the Massachusetts State Supreme Court.

Chapter 6 explains how the polygraph machine is used in police interrogations of criminal suspects and witnesses. It describes in detail the deceptive techniques used by polygraph interrogators to manipulate subjects into confession. The chapter evaluates these techniques in light of the tragic case of Peter Reilly, showing how lie detection practices can bring about false confessions.

Chapter 7 explores the use of the polygraph in the socio-legal periphery of the criminal trial, namely in probation and treatment programmes of sex offenders. It describes the emergence of sex offender polygraph testing in USA and UK, setting this against a background of moral panics in both countries, but also linking it to a longer history of socio-technical practices through which certain groups have been made into subjects of suspicion.

Chapter 8 reviews the ways in which uncertainty in lie detection has figured in its techno-legal configurations within socio-legal situations. It explores the implications of this account for developing a sociological approach to lying, drawing on key insights from Georg Simmel and others, and indicates why these need to be revised to reflect today’s biopolitical schemes of social order, and to address the complex struggles over information and truth in contemporary sociotechnical systems and ‘post-truth’ politics.

Debtera are Ethiopian Orthodox ritual specialists known for their advanced religious education, as well as for engaging in illicit magic. This article traces how their secret magical knowledge and practices emerge from the official Orthodox tradition. Yet, while drawing on this tradition, the debtera’s ritual repertoire also transgresses some of its central proscriptions. Transgression, in this context, does not abolish the boundaries it violates, but reinstates their legitimacy. This dynamic prompts debtera to engage in imaginative ethical reassessments of the unstable relationship between illicit knowledge and official tenets. Through their transgressive performances, debtera enable their clients to secretly address and actualise sinful desires that otherwise remain unacknowledged or are suppressed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. By examining this ritual management of covert desires, I conclude that the study of debtera’s secrecy illuminates fundamental complexities and contradictions in Ethiopian Orthodox sociality which operate beneath the surface of public moral discourse.

Cryptography and magic are often associated. Ciphers—as means of secrecy —seem to find their natural place in magic texts. In traditional historiogra-phy, magic and alchemy were often represented as secretive, whereas modern science was portrayed to be open. According to this view, openness is a positive value that supports academic research. In contrast, secrecy, which is held rather to be historically characteristic of technology, magic, and alchemy, has been abandoned by modern science. This old understanding has obviously been challenged, as many scholars have shown how secrecy in science became not only a tool of protecting knowledge from intellectual competitors , but also a dynamic social practice, a force that creates and organizes groups, and influences the mechanisms of exclusion-inclusion. The contents of secrets are often not relevant for the study of the dynamics of secrecy; the ability to withhold or share information in itself becomes a power enabling social control, regardless of the object of secrecy. The role of secretive practices is not much simpler in the case of magical manuscripts, either. The focus of this article is on how one major means of secrecy, cryptography, was used in magical texts and handbooks. It argues that late medieval and early modern magic texts frequently included ciphers; however, these do not seem to be tools for hiding the message. Their encryption made no content inaccessible. The function of ciphers was, rather, to invite engagement with the text, which can be described as a special maneuver in the rhetoric of secrecy. SECRETS AND SECRECY The issue of secrecy has become a crucial research topic in recent decades in various fields of intellectual history as well as the historiography of science.

This paper offers a re-reading of the works of Umberto Eco, be they
academic, journalistic or literary, with a pseudologic tone: his desire to investigate the mechanisms of lying, and their relation with fiction, falsification, error, secrecy, and conspiracy. The study will review some of his main academic texts in the fields of semiotics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and will make some references to his recent novels and essay compilations, as well as offer an explanation of how the evolution of his thoughts takes a pessimistic turn. The face of the lie, which initially was aesthetic consolation and consumerist delusion, and then a game of intelligence, a creative stimulus and an interpretive challenge, changes when serves the purpose of extortion, manipulation, and war. In short, it could be argued that Eco became increasingly disappointed by deceptions, and lost faith in fakes and forgeries.

Occultic rhetoric, according to Joshua Gunn, is a genre of discourse concerned with the study and practice of secret communications. The strategic sharing of secret messages involves a host of methods and conventions designed for the selective disclosure of hidden knowledge, thus controlling the boundaries of (and accessibility to power between) insider and outsider groups. Occultic rhetoric has its uses in everyday encounters, but the abuse of such manipulative strategies, especially by those in the academy and other positions of power and trust, calls for an ethical response. This dissertation submits occultic rhetoric to moral investigation by incorporating the works of Sissela Bok who examined the ethics of both secrecy and lying. By applying her principles to case studies of deliberately disguised or distorted messages in academic settings, this project suggests an approach for the moral exercise of secret communications, otherwise known as an ethics of occultic rhetoric.