Are private members really more “secure” in Java?

Question

Learning Java I was sometimes taught to use the private access modifier so as not to expose \"sensitive information\" to other classes, as if this could open a legi

Answer 1

Obviously the principles of making everything private where possible only apply if you adhere to the open-closed principle otherwise if people get used to the idea of editing the internals of existing classes instead of extending them they may well change the encapsulation of private member variables be it through making them accessible through mutators and accessors or changing the access modifier.