Here is a sample response in a useful form:


%%No-secrets 1.0:
Name:      Eric S. Raymond
Email:     esr@thyrsus.com
Version:   System V Release 1
When:      June 1986
Where:     Rabbit Software
Who:       co-worker
Public:    Yes
Affidavit: Yes
Have-Copy: Yes
%%

If there are special circumstances you think I should know about, feel free to include a text explanation afterwards.

Here is an explanation of the fields:

  1. Name: Your full legal name. Reports under an alias or handle will be ignored.
  2. Email: A valid return email address.
  3. Version: The OS name, version, and release.
  4. When: The date you gained access. Year is good; year and month is better.
  5. Where: Where it happened. You may omit this information if you believe some person could be placed at legal risk by it.
  6. Who: Your relationship to the person who gave you access, or to the institution where you got it. Were you a student, an employee, a colleague, a friend?
  7. Public: Whether you are willing to have your report be public.

  8. Affadavit: Whether you are willing to sign an affidavit to the effect that you had this access.

  9. Have-copy: Do you still have access to a copy?

You may think your story is too typical to need reporting, but don't let that stop you. I want to be able to show dozens, hundreds or even thousands of examples of disclosure — a pervasive and continuing pattern of failure to do what is required to maintain trade secrecy under the law. The privacy of individual whistleblowers will be respected.

Please consider copying the above, changing the response to describe your access, and sending it back to me. I expect to receive hundreds or perhaps even thousands or responses; getting them in a form easy for analysis scripts to process would be a good thing.

Mail all responses to me. Please use the subject line "No secrets".