It seems that the original paper didn't consider participants' incentives to keep the secret.
> All three are based in the United States, two in law enforcement or security services where secrecy is part of the job description and the cost of breaking it is extreme.
There must be differences between conspiracies where the conspirators agree that the secrecy is proper or beneficial, and conspiracies where people are forced into it or simply become aware of the secret by chance or as part of a job. For that matter, there must be differences between conspiracies where people are trying to unmask them (for example, national security reporters who have heard a rumor about the existence of a secret program and are investigating to follow up on it) and conspiracies whose existence hasn't been hypothesized by outsiders.
Just today the Washington Post reported on internal CIA use of deception against its own staff:
> Senior CIA officials have for years intentionally deceived parts of the agency workforce by transmitting internal memos that contain false information about operations and sources overseas, according to current and former U.S. officials who said the practice is known by the term “eyewash.”
In this case, there could be hundreds of people who think they know the truth about something, but really only a handful do. (The Post explicitly says this.) So even if one of those hundreds of people reveals what they know, the conspiracy won't really be revealed.
> All three are based in the United States, two in law enforcement or security services where secrecy is part of the job description and the cost of breaking it is extreme.
There must be differences between conspiracies where the conspirators agree that the secrecy is proper or beneficial, and conspiracies where people are forced into it or simply become aware of the secret by chance or as part of a job. For that matter, there must be differences between conspiracies where people are trying to unmask them (for example, national security reporters who have heard a rumor about the existence of a secret program and are investigating to follow up on it) and conspiracies whose existence hasn't been hypothesized by outsiders.
Just today the Washington Post reported on internal CIA use of deception against its own staff:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/eyewa...
> Senior CIA officials have for years intentionally deceived parts of the agency workforce by transmitting internal memos that contain false information about operations and sources overseas, according to current and former U.S. officials who said the practice is known by the term “eyewash.”
In this case, there could be hundreds of people who think they know the truth about something, but really only a handful do. (The Post explicitly says this.) So even if one of those hundreds of people reveals what they know, the conspiracy won't really be revealed.