Can Information Theory Beat Terrorists?

Ramblings

from the our-secret-weapon? dept

Thomas Stewart has a long article in the latest Business 2.0 discussing whether or not the theories behind social networks can be used to defeat terrorist networks. The theory, which mostly had been used as a management theory, explains how groups link and work together – and where their weaknesses are. There are some interesting ideas there, but it reads like a bit of a stretch. It’s not really clear how these theories can help (not that they can’t – but even the explanations are a little thin on details of how to put this stuff into practice). However, it did get me thinking about such things, and there are some valuable points in the article about ways to fight back against a terrorist network through social engineering. At the very least, it’s a different way to think about things, since it’s unclear if the old way is doing us any good right now.