It seems clear that no conspiracy involving more than a handful of people can endure for long. This compelling argument is rooted in common sense.
Anyone involved in a conspiracy needs an incentive not to reveal it. Yet a low-level operative in a large conspiracy might, for example, expose it to get rid of his direct rivals—his superiors or his peers. Could the same phenomenon be behind the leaks at a certain well-known Duck?
Clear though this idea may be, it still needs a proof… or a mathematical model describing the probability, as a function of time t, that a conspiracy will be exposed.
The available data come from conspiracies that have come to light. They can be plotted on a graph, with the number of participants on the horizontal axis and the length of time the conspiracy managed to remain secret on the vertical axis. The resulting curve should tend toward zero as the number of participants approaches infinity. Unfortunately, no convincing model has yet been proposed.
Calling all enthusiasts!
