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> Notably, his research was partly funded by the Department of Homeland Security and can be accessed only by D.H.S.-approved researchers. Glad to see the NY Ti
by tatterdemalion 11y ago
> Notably, his research was partly funded by the Department of Homeland Security and can be accessed only by D.H.S.-approved researchers.
Glad to see the NY Times is uncritically supportive of denying to the public knowledge of our information infrastructure.
- wtbob 11y agoI posit that there need to be some secrets. Would it make sense to broadcast to everyone in the world, 'I had surgery on my head years ago, and if you hit me right here, I'll die'? Of course not. Communications maps, I think, are legitimately one of those secrets, for so long as they offer a significant advantage to an adversary.
- dctoedt 11y ago1. It's unclear how the quotation signifies the Times's support for the access restrictions. 2. The next sentence in the piece had an explanation: "'What we’re trying to avoid is giving bad guys a map to do bad things,' Professor Barford said. 'Now that we can see the possible pinch points in the U.S., we are looking at ways to mitigate them.'"
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoIt seems plausible that this work would have been entirely impossible without government endorsement and government-guaranteed access restrictions. Some of the data he used was public record, but some of it was "cajoled" from commercial broadband providers; I can't imagine those guys making that information available to public researchers.