Dissertation Could Be Security Threat (Freedom vs. Security)

The Washington Post ^ | Tuesday, July 8, 2003 | Laura Blumenfeld

[Arthalion]

Dissertation Could Be Security Threat

Student's Maps Illustrate Concerns About Public Information

By Laura Blumenfeld Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, July 8, 2003; Page A01

Sean Gorman's professor called his dissertation "tedious and unimportant." Gorman didn't talk about it when he went on dates because "it was so boring they'd start staring up at the ceiling." But since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Gorman's work has become so compelling that companies want to seize it, government officials want to suppress it, and al Qaeda operatives -- if they could get their hands on it -- would find a terrorist treasure map.

--snip--

He can click on a bank in Manhattan and see who has communication lines running into it and where. He can zoom in on Baltimore and find the choke point for trucking warehouses. He can drill into a cable trench between Kansas and Colorado and determine how to create the most havoc with a hedge clipper. Using mathematical formulas, he probes for critical links, trying to answer the question: "If I were Osama bin Laden, where would I want to attack?" In the background, he plays the Beastie Boys.

--snip--

Gorman compiled his mega-map using publicly available material he found on the Internet. None of it was classified. His interest in maps evolved from his childhood, he said, because he "grew up all over the place." Hunched in the back seat of the family car, he would puzzle over maps, trying to figure out where they should turn. Five years ago, he began work on a master's degree in geography. His original intention was to map the physical infrastructure of the Internet, to see who was connected, who was not, and to measure its economic impact.

"We just had this research idea, and thought, 'Okay,' " said his research partner, Laurie Schintler, an assistant professor at GMU. "I wasn't even thinking about implications."

The implications, however, in the post-Sept. 11 world, were enough to knock the wind out of John M. Derrick Jr., chairman of the board of Pepco Holdings Inc., which provides power to 1.8 million customers. When a reporter showed him sample pages of Gorman's findings, he exhaled sharply.

"This is why CEOs of major power companies don't sleep well these days," Derrick said, flattening the pages with his fist. "Why in the world have we been so stupid as a country to have all this information in the public domain? Does that openness still make sense? It sure as hell doesn't to me."

[Arthalion]

Sorry for the excerpting, but it's a long article. Personally, I don't know where I fall on this one. IMO, freedom should always trump security, but it seems like some of this information needs protection to keep the Islamo-fascists at bay. The solution may be as simple as requiring that people offer up some form of legal identification before turning over the data, and requiring that they be citizens or something to see it. Freedom vs. Security.

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[spokeshave]

Security threat....the thesis....now I know why Shrillaries thesis is under wraps.......

[Question_Assumptions]

His Christmas lights are still up in July;

One of my room mates in college almost killed a maintenance guy re-staining the siding on our apartment when he plugged in our Christmas tree for him in April. He was sitting there and saw the guy pointing at the tree and talking to a co-worker so he went over an plugged it in. The guy was laughing so hard he almost fell off of his ladder.

[thoughtomator]

The solution is to kill the Islamokazis, not to become like them.

[Physicist]

"This is why CEOs of major power companies don't sleep well these days," Derrick said, flattening the pages with his fist. "Why in the world have we been so stupid as a country to have all this information in the public domain? Does that openness still make sense? It sure as hell doesn't to me."

Maybe you could fix the problem, instead, Mr. Derrick. Maybe instead of suppressing information about single points of failure, we could discover them ourselves and eliminate them. Then we won't have to worry about whether they're hidden deeply enough to be invulnerable...because the sleeper terrorist on your staff knows all about them, anyway.

[taxcontrol]

Actions are threats - not ideas, not information, not thoughts. Yes this disertation has show one (of many) ways to identify security risks. It should be viewed as a tool for identifying important areas to protect.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

One ordinary guy with a laptop figures out the entire national communications/energy infrastructure grid, while the IRS spends billions on computer networks that never work.

There's a lesson there, somewhere.

[sourcery]

There's a lesson there, somewhere.

Yeah: government and bureaucracy don't work very well.

[larryjohnson]

It seems to me that GMU(of Walt Williams fame) and this student are trying to do the right thing. Nothing new about classified research at Universities. I am a bit troubled of how Wash Post got involved. It doesn't hurt to let the enemy know that we are working the problem, though.

[Publius6961]

BUMP

[cynwoody]

One ordinary guy with a laptop figures out the entire national communications/energy infrastructure grid

With a little help from these guys, no doubt. Probably with an academic discount, as well.

Before GMU, Mr Gorman was at UFL, it seems.