Mafia families deliberately restrict information flow even between bosses and members

Evidence

The flow of information was restricted not only between families but also within them, that is, between bosses and members. Salvatore Contorno, for instance, knows a lot about some families but nothing about others, and knows only some members of certain families. Asked about specific mafiosi, he replied: “I do not know to which families [they] belong because nobody ever told me, and in general one asks only when it is strictly necessary to know” (TC: 17-18). The way in which information is, or is not, exchanged is described by Buscetta: “When a man of honor needs to get in touch with the boss or some member of another family, he asks his own boss, who then sends him to a member of the family who knows both sides. In this way one can guarantee a very effective system for safeguarding the secrecy of mafia families, as contacts are limited to the essential, and one knows very little about other families” (TB: I, 123). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 320

Categorization

• XREF: Buscetta’s routing protocol — ask your own boss, who sends you to a member who knows both sides — is essentially a decentralized hop-based information system; directly relevant to the reader’s framework of private intermediaries substituting for direct knowledge.