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Bazaars in the Government Cathedral
guanxi writes: "This article by James Fallows in The Atlantic is one of the most interesting I've read all year. It describes how innovators in government are applying the concept of the Bazaar: The many eyes of 'Open-Source Intelligence' movement that provides better intelligence than classified sources, and a b2b-like marketplace created by World Bank employees that distributes aid more efficiently than the bureaucratic process."
From the article: ... The coordinates of restricted areas and important buildings could be entered into the new guidance system, which could thwart a pilot's
[the] GuideStar controls could be programmed to prevent any airplane from ever going someplace it should not
I've read about this panacea repeatedly since 9/11. The existence of an irrevocable fly-by-wire lockout mode such as this gives hijackers a new physical location (the control room) or software/protocol system to target. I believe the Risks inherent here are great.
Having trained, experienced humans local and ready to override compromised Guidestar-like devices is crucial. The 9/11 hijackers gained easy access to a plane's most valuable assets -- pilots in the cockpit -- due to a lack of Sky Marshals, security doors, and cameras. That was a tragic case of cost cutting by the airlines.
I'd hate to think that similar cost cutting measures could lead to adoption of this automatic flying device with an intention to deskill or replace pilots. The implementation of such a device requires careful human factor analysis. Perhaps a periodic, probabilistically triggered interrogation of pilot credentials (created for one-time-use during a single flight) according to flying patterns and location?
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I got the sense from the article that the whole point is still a "we are better than them" pat on the back. Look at all the freedom we have, we can make a self powered balancing unicycle, and then use it to control weapons. We have the freedom of email to communicate information that is publicly available to another group of people to get their ideas on it.
Yes, it is amazing what some freedom of speech can do for a country, imagine what would happen if there was more. Because, most of the sources listed in there are all centered around either war or business. Both things our country seems to be good at. It makes no mention of any protesters or activists showing up at the world bank's Bazaar. Did they? Did they get money, or were they just ignored.
It touches on the fact that in an open society, it is really hard to keep secrets (the fact that Boston was/is a no fly zone, hmmmm, maybe because of the big dig, any terrorist setting off a biochemical weapon would be extremely successful because of the cities horribly transportation system. And the boston T could be a wicked way to spread it).
If having an open society is so key to our ability as a nation to defend itself, wouldn't that mean that anything that inhibits the free flow of information (the basis of an open society in the article, the idea of the AI email list) should be considered a threat to open society? Of course, that shouldn't be a problem as long as the media conglomerates and mega corporations are on our side. But wait! Didn't the author mention that news one person wouldn't think as important, another person would be able to get some vital information from? So they are still a problem, even if they are on our side, they could be ignoring information that is vital to our survival!
Something to chew on.
Being that open source information is relatively easier to acquire, more of it can be gathered and pieced together to make a more complete picture than scattered pieces of classified information.
In the Bazaar, as I read it, alot of open source information is being shared. I'm a little apprehensive, especially after that seminar, that if the wrong people are allowed to acquire alot of this information, they can eventually piece together and learn an awful lot about the future systems, processes, etc. of our government.
In light of the current conflict abroad and at home, I don't think making all this information available is necessarily a Good Thing (tm).
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
they can't trust the sources. Having performed collection missions it's obvious to me that the AI list is a misinformation magnet. Since _anyone_ can submit, people who were interested in subverting the collection effort would be anxious to post erroneous or misleading information. The quality of the various sources would be completely random (even among the truthful sources), and there would be no guarantee that further information on any of the posts would be available (you can't give assignments to the submitters and they might not give important updates on their own).
Even assuming that all of the reports were factual (ie. actually came from a newspaper or witnessed first hand) it would take a great deal of analyst time to separate the signal from the noise (s/n in the media being quite low), which is why "open source" intelligence is generally viewed with skepticism even after analysis. Trusted networks are already in place for watching CNN and the various newspapers, and there are teams dedicated to their analysis, so an untrusted network doing the same thing isn't likely to get a lot of respect.
I'm very skeptical of the professionalism of anyone who would brief one of the posts on the AI list to a general. Generals usually want summaries and analysis of collected data, not the raw data itself - especially if it's of potentially dubious origin. It would be appropriate to attach the post to an information report, describe its source, and forward it to analysts; but to present it as final, analyzed intelligence is misleading and dangerous.
Further, in the big scheme of things, open source intelligence counts as one "discipline" in the minds of the analysts, just as all data derived from imagery collection platforms are lumped into the "image intelligence" discipline. Giving it undue credit (especially to the detriment of other intelligence disciplines) would be bad policy, even in a perfect world.
Open source intelligence doesn't "[appear] less valuable than classified information because it does not carry the classification mystique", it is generally less valuable because of its unpredictability, poor information quality, and high susceptibility to subversion.
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Well, yes, but I think any presentation from the NSA will get these terms mixed up, due to no fault of their own.
From http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/faq.html:
By default, an NSA person would hear their own definition, not the programming community's definition. Related, but not the same thing.You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)