I just watched zero days, a great documentary about stuxnet. It is important to realize-- and this seems to be the films thesis, that secrecy is extremely damaging. It took 20-30 years for bioweapons, nuclear weapons, and chemical weapons treaties to be enacted and this process hasn't been started with cyber.

Attacking whistleblowers is damaging because it is postponing inevitable discussions that need to happen and interfering with discourse nations need to have within themselves and with other counter-parties.