i first encountered this attitude while chatting with an environmental studies grad student at the local university, while i was an undergrad, doing tech support.
he disclosed some ideas that, to me, seemed promising, and i recall encouraging him to talk about them. but he refused, saying the ideas needed further development, before publishing, and then asked me not to tell anyone.
i was annoyed, but respected his wishes. i don’t know whether he took these ideas further.
about a decade later, a hardcover notebook of mine mysteriously went missing from my backpack, at work; not finding it, i had assumed that i must have left it at home, that day. imagine my surprise, when, some number of hours later, i looked again, and it had been returned. this made me edgy, because, at the time, i was participating in a patent process for a commercial venture. i felt violated, and disappointed that it was probably someone close to me, who had taken it away to be copied, but i had no evidence linking any of my co-workers to it. the list of suspects included about 8 people, two of whom i could imagine having a motive.
earlier this year, i found that some of my recent work had been plagiarized. the person who did this claimed to be a doctor. i never found satisfactory recourse. if the dispute were to make it to a hearing, who would be believed?
we learn to mitigate these occurrences after we’ve been burned. but if the cost is, someone else gets the funding, or, someone files a blocking patent, then the damage is done.
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