John Henry

I was looking through my obsidian notes and ran across the blurb below. I vaguely remember writing that out. I was very likely baked and/or tired. On the re-read, John Henry's quote after being captured really jumped out:

"Big secrets hurt everyone, little secrets save us."

I really feel this is true. Information wants to be free (as in freedom). 

I am not going to argue against operational security, or even IP in a lot of situations. It's a fucking nuanced issue.

We should only keep secrets as long as they are necessary. Try not to do or endorse things that are directly exploitative or destructive in nature, and accept that people make mistakes, or do not understand the consequences of their decisions or actions. Be open and empathetic.

Why do we need secrets?

We need secrets because people are assholes. We need secrets because people are afraid someone else, somewhere, is going to do something that will take away something we hold dear, like human rights. In the current state of software, or anything digital (from the web to your centrifuge or furnace) relies on secrets to maintain identity. We need secrets because individuals or groups will persecute those who think differently than they do.

What really sucks, is that the same folks who are working to undermine the little secrets are usually sitting on big secrets.

Here's your prompt:

John Henry as a cyberpunk story. Him against the AI's. his rule based systems and generated black box weapons against a borg-like attrition attack, like Russia in Ukraine. A US corporation was enlisted to track him down however possible, and they were itching to try their new adaptive penetration learning system (APLS (everyone calls it Alps, like the mountains, because that would have been a better acronym)).
They came at John Henry with everything they had. Alps learning to penetrate all systems until they had him cornered. When they brought him out he said. They can get at anything you store. "Big secrets hurt everyone, little secrets save us." He had referred to things like pass codes and primary keys as small secrets. It's up to interpretation what qualifies as a big secret. He was a big advocate of printed media and analog techniques. Use the tools of the digital age to build tools that help with our digital life, but also bleed into the analog world. He would advocate for public discussions about policy