I think that the whole reason that there is such tabboo in discussing salaries is to keep pay rates different between employees. I believe that it is more of a benefit to employers to not have employee's salaries be made public than it is to employees. I have heard stories (not in IT) where someone worked for a company for several years and was one of their best employees only to find out later that new hires were being hired on at a higher pay grade then what she was receiving. She quit almost immediately after she found that out. It seems the point is to get each worker at the lowest cost and keep them happy about it and productive by saying it is against policy to discuss salaries.

Also, by making this information publicly available, it allows you to know which firms do not pay as much for the same positions and allow you to focus on interviews that have a higher potential rate of return. After all, why hold salary information to be the last thing discussed? If the salary isn't right, let me know up front ahead of time and we can both save ourselves a bunch of time. In fact, I won't even waste their time even applying and avoid wasting good ink on a resume.