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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."
not really on topic but-most of the people from asia that i have spoken with dont really like the world bank that much. the y equate them to loan sharks on a global scale. is there anyone here who would care to comment on this? i'm just curious.
-- john
Every tool has its application. Obviously, some secrets are worth keeping: for example, the code for the President's briefcase that launches the nukes is something best kept off Slashdot, or the open-source intelligence listserv. At the same time, I think this intelligence listserv shows how much of our gov't secrecy may be counter-productive. It's long been asserted, and not with tongue-in-cheek, that better intelligence is available from the newspaper than the CIA. There is a significant cost to our government keeping secrets (besides the obvious one that it prevents citizens from monitoring gov't behavior): A very prominent former Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a book called Secrecy ,where he describes classification by the gov't as counter-productive on the whole, and nothing more than another form of regulation. He says it impedes the flow of valuable info, and allows ridiculous ideas to take hold in the intelligence community because only a few people ever know about them -- i.e. they never get exposed to the 'many eyes' of public debate.
A significant source of secrecy was explained by a well-known sociologist, I think Max Weber (can someone confirm/correct?), who said the main occupation of bureaucrats in a large organization is to keep to themselves as much information as possible and trade it with other bureaucrats, like currency. It's a natural consequence of humans working in bureaucracies.
I've also read that it's a status thing in D.C., to have higher security clearance than the other guy. And of course, people keep secrets to cover their a**'s. Overall, I think democratic gov't is the most important place to utilize open, free information.
Pfhor said: 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 should be considered a threat to open society? [...] 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? My wife once said "the Atlantic doesn't actually care what you think, they care that you think". I think Mr. Fallows had done a very good job for his slightly unusual magazine (as usual!) --dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Open source in the intelligence community means getting intelligence from sources that everyone knows about instead of from someone that had just gone through some ``tactical interrogation.'' I can give examples to make this open source intelligence clear.
During the second world war, allied planes would bomb railways in France in order to interdict German supply lines. Now this was before the era of Key Hole Satellites --- the only way to know if the bombing did distroy the railway is to send somebody to look it over.
It is reported that scores of lives were sacrificed to obtain and send information about the state of the targeted rail line to headquarters. Most of the intelligence is gathered by French patriots. But when the information gets to headquarters it is thrown away because HQ already knows what the reports are saying. It turns out that the effectiveness of the bombing is easily gauged the next morning from the prices of basic goods on the Paris market.
Allied intelligence never told French Resistance about the redundancy of the intelligence-gathering the patriots are engaging in because HQ doesn't want to make it obvious that their efforts were unneeded.
Also during the second world war, intelligence about the affectiveness of bombing raids on Hitlers factories can be determined from the length of the German womens skirts.
Everyone seems to forget that using a gun in a plane is a very bad idea.
I've noticed the reverse, everyone keeps repeating that it's a bad idea without making it clear why. I mean, what happens, the gun (maybe) puts a hole in the plane, which will (eventually) depressurize the plane, forcing the pilots to bring the plane down to a reasonable altitude (15,000 ft?) and make an emergency landing... Which is, I imagine, exactly what they were going to do anyway if there's trouble on the plane.
Or maybe there's something I'm missing, and firing a gun on a plane would cause a certain crash, which, of course, is not exactly the worst-case scenario.
--
Benjamin Coates
Firing a gun in a plane will almost certainly cause decompression, but the problem is the rate of decompression. A bullet will only cause a small hole on its own, but the pressure of the air trying to escape through the whole will make the hole much much larger, possibly ripping off a huge section of the skin of the aircraft and causing explosive decompression and a crash.
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
I'm a subscriber to AI and have to disagree with the post above - the only folks on the list are vetted (approved) by pre-existing members and it's not a "public" list where anyone can sign up to promote an agenda or publish propaganda.
In fact, there have been times where this information has been MORE useful for us (I work in a military intel shop) because it's 80% reliable and I have it NOW - and don't need to lug it around in a safe with armed guards - than the stuff I get from 'sources and methods' that are classified and not as portable. Do I brief from AI material only? No way - but it sure helps support what I get from other sources, and helps monitor trends in areas where MY approved 'sources and methods' don't, or I can't get the appropriate system where it's needed.
I've rarely seen anything that was 'dubious' of 'subversive' on the list - what we do see that is such types of material (eg, some of the Middle East radical stuff in the weekly newsletters of various organizations) is clearly marked by the AI subscriber posting it, and such information is taken in that context, not as 'news' or 'gospel.' In this case, it's good to at least be aware of what the other person (eg, the 'bad guys') are thinking, doing, and saying to their peoples.
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.
the following thoughts came to mind (in the following order)....
1. Who decides which of the little pieces is the key piece that the wrong people are not allowed to see ?
2. Who decides who the wrong people are ?
3. Who audits the people who make decisions one and two ?
Tasers. Mace. Glubombs.
Useless. Useless. Useless.
Remember Rodney King? Specifically, do you remember the couple of minutes of video that the TV news 'forgot' to air? It features King being shot several times with a taser, and getting up to attack the officers after each one.
And I've had plenty of failures with defense sprays like Mace and pepper. If the subject has any meaningful amount of alcohol in his system, the sprays are about fifty-fifty.
And batons have their failings. I'm about 6'2", 220 pounds, mostly muscle. There was one fine night where I got called to deal with a scrawny 15-year-old girl who had been mixing meth, PCP, and alcohol at once. As the contact evolved, I ended up hitting her on a nerve cluster on her leg, hoping to shut down that nerve temporarily so I could settle her down without having to shoot her. Nope. One strike will work, in theory. In practice, the fourth one broke a metal expandible baton. How we got control of her, I'll never quite understand.
In other words, I would never trust my own life to OC or taser. And I'm not comfortable trusting it to a baton either, not on an airplane. I do, however, have a great deal of faith in overpriced German handguns. And where the mission is to keep an airliner from becoming a missle, I'm not exactly willing to take unnecessary chances.
Sometimes I've been thinking, it's actually a pity that I'm too old to apply for the air marshal's program.
To an extent, but not when the information presented can be used by an adversary's (generic term). I can't tell you specifics (the whole "I'd have to kill you" thing) but you would be amazed what people have been able to piece together from open source information, and more amazing still is how it was exploited.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy