Mar
17
2005
random roundup
Stories that have caught my eye in the past few days…
- In Wired, an Army analyst suggests new ways of sharing intelligence information, including blogs.
The intelligence community does a terrible job of looking outside itself for information. From journalists to academics and even educated amateurs - there are thousands of people who would be interested and willing to help. Imagine how much traffic an official CIA Iraq blog would attract. If intelligence organizations built a collaborative environment through blogs, they could quickly identify credible sources, develop a deep backfield of contributing analysts, and engage the world as a whole. How cool would it be to gain “trusted user” status on a CIA blog?
(“We Need Spy Blogs” - 03/2005)
- Universities experiment with wikis as an educational collaborative tool. (Washington Post: “Blogging Clicks With Colleges” - 03/11/05)
- George Atkinson, who founded the first video rental store in 1979, died recently. (Hacking Netflix: “Video Store Inventor George Atkinson Dies” - 03/14/05)
- Slate’s Daniel Engber explains where those sky-high damages figures come from when people are sued for illegal music downloading. (“How Much Is Your Stolen Music Worth?” - 03/08/05)
- Salon.com’s Thomas Bartlett looks into the origins of one of the gospel voices sampled by Moby on the album Play. (Audiofile: “Singing the praises of an unsung folk/blues great” - 03/15/05)
- Randall Stross of the New York Times contrasts Sony’s success with the Walkman against Apple’s success (and Sony’s lack of recent success) with the iPod and iTunes Music Store. (“How the iPod Ran Circles Around the Walkman” - 03/13/05)
![[Photo]](http://photos.morethanthis.net/images/2008-09-13/thumbs/IMG_0272.jpg)
Comments
The CIA blog thing sounds like a tall order….hard for people to gather information on things that you’re not really supposed to let the world know you’re looking into, which seems like the CIA’s most difficult task. It’s an interesting idea, though.
How would one build a community of investigators that didn’t just rely on Google? How would one keep this community from falling into motivated hands, and using the questions posed to gather intelligence about the CIA?
This is the third such challenge I’ve seen presented this week. I wonder if there’s some class or institute or whatever devoted to the dynamics of controlling and channeling the efforts of a community.
PERHAPS I’LL GOOGLE IT.