***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org *****
I've been holding back... but I'll toss in my two cents. First, a
little background. I started a company about six years ago to analyze
electronic communities. My first investor and business partner was a
former NSA intelligence analyst. We applied traffic and SNA analysis to
find opinion leaders, trends, etc. We raised $7 million and turned my
prototype into a bunch of tools for gathering, analyzing and reporting
on communities. The technology I had invented was eventually acquired
by Intelliseek, which is funded by, among others, the CIA venture
capital fund. I am told that it is now used by U.S. government agencies
to monitor terrorist "buzz."
What bothers me about this technology in the hands of the powerful is
that politicians easily misinterpret (to be kind) intelligence data. I
suspect that anyone who is on this list knows how incredibly easy it is
to see trends where there really aren't any, how to misuse the kind of
statistics upon which we rely. As researchers and practitioners, I
think we have a duty beyond the pursuit of knowledge -- to warn of how
our technology can be misused and educate as many smart people as
possible about how to use it well. I think there is great potential
freedom latent in networks... but plenty of opportunity for abuse.
I probably feel the consequences of poor intelligence more than most of
you. Our nation's decision to go to war in Iraq, based on intelligence
that we now know was in error, cost our family dearly. Lance Corporal
Wes Canning, killed in action in Fallujah, November 10, 2004, was my
niece's husband.
Nick
_____________________________________________________________________
SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social
network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send
an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line
UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.
|