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Comment by krisoft | Hacker News Reader

The traditional model of psychological factors behind leaks is called MICE. Each letter describes a potential reason why one would leak secret information. M stands for money, I stands for ideology, C stands for coercion, and E stands for ego or excitement.

I believe this last one, the E covers what you are talking about. People who know something special can share it and thus appear in the specific circumstanc as special themselves. This strokes their ego which motivates them to share more.

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What about accident?

In this case the person just shared a work anecdote that was relevant to the discussion, arguably.

Well, why were they sharing a work anecdote? I'd say that's also because of ego or excitement.

Maybe in rare cases a leak can be by accident -- AMICE then?

It sounds like you are knowledgeable about this topic. Where might I be able to read more?

In every intro book on espionage. MICE is the short-hand for why people become traitors / how to turn people into assets.

Very surprised that they never added one that started with R so that the acronym could be CRIME.

"Coercion, Reddit-karma, Ideology, Money, Ego"

religion? revenge?

That's just ideology.

Money is a social construct, it's ideological too. Let's call it ICE.

Money is not ideology

Being a "social construct" is not the same as being ideology.

Revenge isn't typically an ideology. It can be under certain circumstances (e.g. we will make the filthy Americans pay for all they've done!) but often people want revenge for a specific transgression with no underlying general belief (e.g. Bob banged my wife, now I'll destroy his career, fuck you Bob!).

MICE has a nice sound to it, because it's what makes people rat.

so a traitor is one that doesn't share another one's ideology :-)

No, you can share an idealogy but be motivated by money, or coerced. A traitor is a label for actions, not motivations.

Can you please recommend which book should I read about this topic? Don’t remember if I’ve seen any.

Thank you, but I’m not. I just play a knowledgeable person for internet points. (Yes :) that is the same Ego we are talking about.)

This is the document I was using: https://cyberwar.nl/d/fromCIA.gov/Burkett-MICE%20to%20RASCAL...

I guess in this classification, whistleblowing is idealogoical.

Not sure am fully comfortable with that idea. Not all whistleblowing is idealogoical, some just expose straight up illegal activities or corruption

But the last two are ideological.

> Not all whistleblowing is idealogoical

Is it true that not all whistleblowing is idealogoical? In order to be idaealogoical, it must be motivated by idaealeogoy. Whistleblowing is definitionally motivated by opposition to the leaked activities, making it ipso facto idaealogoiacal. Why do you think it's not idaealaogoiacal?

The ideological opposite to corruption is the set of all correct behaviours. This is like a opposition to law and order being seen as a political stance, meanwhile its a society per-requisit.

Many requirements for society are political stances; they just aren’t interesting ones because basically everyone agrees with them.

At the most basic level maybe, but at some point they're not worth talking about at the same level. Saying that someone thinks we should exterminate a race of people may be a "political stance" by the most strict definition of the word, but calling it that casually elevates it out of the heinous area in which it belongs to something similar to people arguing about infrastructure spending priorities.

There are certain "political stances" which cannot coexist with a peaceful, modern society.

I was mostly writing this comment just so I could continue the comical tendency for 'ideological' to get more and more misspelt every time it was used.

That said, I don't think I agree with this idea that the dominant ideology is no ideology at all. It seems a bit like the tendency to think that one's own accent is no accent at all.

Everything is ideological if you frame it in that context. By your logic, following the law is ideological.

Not whistle blowing on illegal activities in some jurisdictions is in itself illegal and makes you accessory to the crimes being committed. I wouldn't think that kind of whistle-blowing as ideological.

P.S. Yes, I made a spelling mistake while typing a comment on the phone, I regret that and happy to learn when pointed out.

Do keep in mind not everyone's first language is English, making fun of that is not a good way to encourage people to learn the language better, if new speakers stop putting in the effort to improve because the feedback is negative you( and we) don't get to interact with speakers from distant lands , learn new and interesting ideas.

The belief that laws ought to be followed is an ideology. There are also plenty of people who refuse to obey laws for ideological reasons.

There are non-ideological reasons to follow laws as well, such as avoiding punishment, but that would presumably fall under coercion.

If refusing to obey laws for ideological reasons they are doing some form of civil disobedience, that is still obeying the "law"[1]. Even when refusing to follow a specific law you still follow the Law, the point is that you willingly accept the consequence of your (in)action as per that law, i.e. that usually means go to jail. Thoreau's seminal essay or Gandhi or King's(and many others) writings talk about the topic in length . King actually frames civil disobedience as the expression of highest respect for the law.

All behavior is motivated by either seeking gratification/pleasure or for avoiding pain, however such a reductive mental model is not useful work with in this context. Coercion in the context of leak (MICE) usually is understood as unwilling participant who is being blackmailed to leak. Money, Ideology and Ego are voluntary, Coercion is forced is the idea i believe.

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[1] I am talking about the conventionally held definition of Civil Disobedience, non-violent and public are generally accepted qualifiers . It is not really required under many definitions.

Ellmann states that covert lawbreaking is just valid way of expressing your morality ( ideology ) as public disobedience. There are similar arguments for revolutionary and violent variations as well. It boils down does common(yours) morality allow deceit or violence under this situation. Morality being more subjective( you may agree violence is justified someone else will not) most popular commentators try to stick to non-violent and public conditions to make their case stronger and widely supported. Whether that public or non-violent is a component or not it doesn't matter.

The point I am trying to make is: if is ideological then consequences will be readily accepted, otherwise it just common crime.

I meant more like people smoking a bowl in their own home despite the fact it's technically illegal because they don't really give a shit. Maybe you jaywalk to stick it to the man, but most do it to get across the street faster. Many, I'd wager in fact most people won't do things or avoid doing things simply because it's the law. Consider Kohlberg's stages of moral development[0].

I would say if you're only doing something to avoid being imprisoned or killed, you're an unwilling participant being forced to perform the action. Even if the entity threatening to imprison or kill you has a monopoly on force, it's still a gun to your head. I don't know how it could be called money, ideology, or ego.

[0] https://courses.lumenlearning.com/teachereducationx92x1/chap...

> Everything is ideological

Pizza isn't ideological. Birds aren't ideological. Things that are explicitly in the domain of ideology are, yes, ideological.

There's no such thing as 'no accent' just because you have the dominant accent, and no such thing as 'no ideology' just because you follow the dominant ideology. Your rationale is a bit like people who consider climate change protests to be 'political', but themselves, and their desire to ignore them and go to work, to be ... well, just, normal. Or something like that.

> Do keep in mind not everyone's first language is English

This is fair enough. I wasn't intending to mock your English, I just thought it was a funny accidental property of your message. I've absolutely made the same mistakes myself in the past!

"Don't do crimes" or "see something, say something" is a good ideology that should be encouraged, but still an ideology. Companies that don't want whistleblowers to leak stuff should consider not doing crimes.

Keeping silent when seeing a crime commited, could make you accessory to it as well. It is not just about what feels right, it also about following the law.

> could make you accessory to it as well

Wouldn't this fall under C, Coercion: the state threatens with prison, unless you "leak" info about the crimes?

(Could be a good kind of coercion? How unusual)

Saying it whistle-blowing is coercion is also an uncomfortable classification !

Could add 'F' for frustration ! Either because:

1) Lack of service delivery

2) Lack of corrective action (i.e ignoring for months or years reported security holes)

Sure there are many more examples.

That's I...

That doesn't seem how people usually understand I.

Some people put profit over ethics. This is an ideology.

"investors are counting on us", "people will lose their jobs", are examples of how people fit this ideological stance, into their morals, their ethics.

That still doesn't seem to be how people usually understand I.

Well, it is how I have always understood, I... and others I know. I do not see a discontinuity, when looking at the dictionary either.

Maybe your local area / country has co-opted it, to only mean a subset?

If you look at the dictionary, I think you'll see that it is not defined as 'radical' or 'extremist' only.

What is your objection to my usage? How do you see it misused?

Well, when I try to imagine the mindset of the military people who coined the MICE acronym, and I imagine what they see as "ideology", I don't think that "commercialization" would be in there. Hence why "money" is a separate entry. I'd assume they mean "I" to stand for "religion and things like religions", preachers, holy texts, deep convictions. In my model, they'd understand profit maximization as "just sensible behavior" and "I" as a set of deviations from such behavior.

They could have used a more restrictive term if they desired, yet did not.

And frankly, political stances have caused more losses to state secrets than religion. EG, "commies!", or alternatively state ideological "long live the king, for the kingdom!".

Democracy, and capitalism are alternative ideologies. The means for profit is on the list, and all the nuances in between.

Take profit over health (cigarettes companies), profit over culture/society (facebook), this is an ideological stance.

Profit above all else.

Also, if the above looks like I'm stomping on your def, I'm not, just trying to get across why I see it as more generic...

You miss the possibility that it being leaked professionally, on purpose by the "victim".

This would fall under the "money" part of the abbreviation.

Or "ideology," depending on the motivation.

I mean it is released as part of a counterintelligence operation. While it is done professionally (for money), MICE refers to why someone would be lured to do the "wrong" thing.

Then it is not a leak, it is an authorized counterintelligence operation.

Common usage of leak includes deliberate action by the owner of the information, not just misappropriation.

So what? MICE is meant to help with listing the reasons why someone would betray the confidence of the organization, not to match your idea of common usage. You can leak information by mistake and this is also a valid case, but it is not included, because we are talking human resources management, not operational security or counterintelligence practices.

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