Slashdot Mirror
Fiber-Optic Map: A Classified Dissertation?
An anonymous reader writes "So you spent all that time researching, compiling and formatting your dissertation ... now what if it became classified information? That's exactly what may end up happening to Sean Gorman's dissertation.
He's compiled a detailed map of American companies and the networks that bind it all together, right down to the very last fibre connection.
The government wants it classified in the interest of national security. Large financial institutions want it classified/destroyed in the interest of economic security. But terrorists would love for this to be published ... it would make their job so much easier." If Gorman can map the fiber network though, doesn't that mean someone else could do the same? Update: 07/09 13:06 GMT by T : Sorry, I blinked past the story as posted yesterday.
Secrecy is a double-edged sword. If it's public knowledge that a certain building contains critical infrastructure, then the public will be watchful of it. Maybe what we should do is keep the sensitive info away from the military so guys like Tim McVeigh can't get ahold of it.
The thing that really gets my goat is the Bush administration's extreme knee-jerk reaction to anything they see as even a slight risk. And they do it in the name of post-9/11 security (and all that is holy) when the fact of the matter is that if they had just taken care of the basic stuff (student visas, closed cockpit doors, air patrols, etc.), the WTC would probably still be standing.
Bush has hijacked this country and he's on a mission from God (and Exxon). But watch his popularity numbers plummet just like Senior's did as the public discovers the lies he has been feeding them.