[rocqua]

Diplomatic communications about how you plan / succeed at undermining allies. Or communications about atrocities you knew were happening, but decided to ignore.

There is plenty of reason to want to keep diplomatic and military communications secret for a long time.

[bawolff]

> Diplomatic communications about how you plan / succeed at undermining allies. Or communications about atrocities you knew were happening, but decided to ignore.

>There is plenty of reason to want to keep diplomatic and military communications secret for a long time.

I don't think that makes sense. Why would you want to keep implicating communications around for 100 years? Wouldn't you just destroy them?

Cryptography isn't useful for secrets you want nobody to know. Its useful for secrets you want some people to know but not others.

That said it also seems questionable how much people care about atrocities hundred years after the fact. For example, nobody is boycotting IBM today for their role in the holocaust.

[mannykannot]

News of these things does come out from time to time, usually over a shorter time period, and these create embarrassment, shock, pain and anger, but has any had significant substantive consequences? Here is a hypothetical one to consider: FDR secretly informed Hitler that the US would support an invasion of the USSR - how far would be the consequences of such a revelation reach, if it were revealed today?

[rocqua]

It's not so much about the impact of the secrets leaking. Instead, its about the impact on communications if diplomats need to worry about their communications leaking.