My comment was specifically in reply to whether it should be illegal. Obviously trade secrets are protected by law. My response is that indeed that law is bad,

My comment was specifically in reply to whether it should be illegal. Obviously trade secrets are protected by law. My response is that indeed that law is bad, and society has no reason to protect trade secrets by law, and good reason not to (other than some limited protection through contracts maybe, but that should be a civil matter). The patent system exists to incentivize sharing information through a limited time monopoly. Giving trade secrets an unlimited time monopoly protection by criminalizing someone sharing them undermines that, and means that patents will only be used for low-value ideas that are obvious/easy to independently reinvent or reverse engineer.