Read Online (Free) relies on page scans, which are not currently available to screen readers. To access this article, please contact JSTOR User Support . We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader. With a personal account, you can read up to 100 articles each month for free. Show Already have an account? Log in journal article Telling the TruthJournal of Medical Ethics Vol. 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1991) , pp. 5-9 (5 pages) Published By: BMJ https://www.jstor.org/stable/27716989 Read and download Log in through your school or library Read Online Read 100 articles/month free Abstract Are doctors and nurses bound by just the same constraints as everyone else in regard to honesty? What, anyway, does honesty require? Telling no lies? Avoiding intentional deception by whatever means? From a utilitarian standpoint lying would seem to be on the same footing as other forms of intentional deception: yielding the same consequences. But utilitarianism fails to explain the wrongness of lying. Doctors and nurses, like everyone else, have a "prima facie" duty not to lie – but again like everyone else, they are not duty-bound to avoid intentional deception, lying apart; except where it would involve a breach of trust. Journal Information Journal of Medical Ethics is a leading international journal that reflects the whole field of medical ethics. The journal seeks to promote ethical reflection and conduct in scientific research and medical practice. It features original, full length articles on ethical aspects of health care, as well as brief reports, responses, editorials, and other relevant material. To ensure international relevance JME has an Editorial Advisory Board from all around the world. Publisher Information Vision – To be the world's leading and most trusted provider of information and services that will make a real difference in clinical practice and improve outcomes for patients. Mission – To lead the debate on healthcare and to deliver innovative, useful evidence based knowledge, best practice and learning to doctors, other health professionals, researchers and patients when and where they need it. We publish a number of journals covering major specialties and a growing number of online products for doctors and patients. Continuous product development ensures that our products and services are of constant importance to the medical profession. The BMJ Publishing Group Ltd (BMJPG) is the innovative publishing division of the British Medical Association (BMA) and is one of the world leaders in medical publishing. The BMJ Group complements the activities of the BMA. Rights & Usage This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent usually is connoted), and is accomplished with circumlocution (talking around the subject), the use of jargon (technical language of a profession), and the use of an argot (ingroup language) of limited communicative value to outsiders.[1] In expository writing, unintentional obfuscation usually occurs in draft documents, at the beginning of composition; such obfuscation is illuminated with critical thinking and editorial revision, either by the writer or by an editor. Etymologically, the word obfuscation derives from the Latin obfuscatio, from obfuscāre (to darken); synonyms include the words beclouding and abstrusity. Background[edit]Doctors are faulted for using jargon to conceal unpleasant facts from a patient; the American author and physician Michael Crichton said that medical writing is a "highly skilled, calculated attempt to confuse the reader". The psychologist B. F. Skinner said that medical notation is a form of multiple audience control, which allows the doctor to communicate to the pharmacist things which the patient might oppose if they could understand medical jargon.[2] Eschew[edit]"Eschew obfuscation", also stated as "eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation", is a humorous fumblerule used by English teachers and professors when lecturing about proper writing techniques. Literally, the phrase means "avoid being unclear" or "avoid being unclear, support being clear", but the use of relatively uncommon words causes confusion in much of the audience (those lacking the vocabulary), making the statement an example of irony, and more precisely a heterological phrase. The phrase has appeared in print at least as early as 1959, when it was used as a section heading in a NASA document.[3] An earlier similar phrase appears in Mark Twain's Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, where he lists rule fourteen of good writing as "eschew surplusage". Secure communication[edit]Obfuscation of oral or written communication achieves a degree of secure communication without a need to rely upon technology. This technique is sometimes referred to as "talking around" and is a form of security through obscurity. A notable example of obfuscation of written communication is a message sent by September 11 attacks ringleader Mohamed Atta to other conspirators prior to the attacks occurring:[4]
In this obfuscated message, the following code words are believed to exist:[5]
Within the illegal drug trade, obfuscation is commonly used in communication to hide the occurrence of drug trafficking. A common spoken example is "420", used as a code word for cannabis, a drug which, despite some recent prominent decriminalization changes, remains illegal in most places. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported in July 2018 a total of 353 different code words used for cannabis.[6] White box cryptography[edit]In white-box cryptography, obfuscation refers to the protection of cryptographic keys from extraction when they are under the control of the adversary, e.g., as part of a DRM scheme.[7] Network security[edit]In network security, obfuscation refers to methods used to obscure an attack payload from inspection by network protection systems. In popular culture[edit]
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External links[edit] Look up obfuscation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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