Its mission would be to decentralize intelligence. Intelligence could mean anything from information to knowledge to knowhow. It would be a non-governmental and non-business entity. The methodology of this entity would be what I'll call "overt operations". It would make as much use of technology as it can afford to without selling out and becoming a business or government entity. It would take on projects in areas such as business intelligence, technology, research in the social sciences and economic data of strategic interest to workers and consumers. All this stuff would be published under open license (if any license) for the sake of decentralization. Since duplication of existing services is pointless, there would be no need for such an agency to study specific individuals. I personally could care less whether they take an interest in me, but I don't see anything especially productive in doing so. The initials DIA are already in use, so the task remains to come up with some novel name or arconym. Any takers?
-- LoriZ, Dec 09 2001

Google http://www.google.com
I think this might be closer to the product description. [bookworm, Dec 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Stratfor - Personal Intelligence http://www.stratfor.com
Not quite free, but fairly close. Stratfor knows quite a lot. [danilom, Dec 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Globalisation as if people mattered. http://www.gpm-inte...sh/english_page.htm
No content, but a nice slogan. [LoriZ, Dec 15 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Open Source Intelligence http://slashdot.org...id=02/03/05/1544237
OSINT includes stuff on the Internet and in various newspapers and periodicals, as well as "gray literature"... [LoriZ, Mar 09 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Open Source Intelligence http://firstmonday..../stalder/index.html
The application of collaborative principles developed by the Open Source Software movement to the gathering and analysis of information. [LoriZ, Jun 19 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Is National Intelligence an Oxymoron? http://www.wired.co.../idees.fortes2.html
everyone is a producer and a consumer of "intelligence." [LoriZ, Oct 23 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Kathryn Cramer blog http://www.kathrync...edia_shutdown_.html
Overt Intelligence Operations & Wildcat Cartography [LoriZ, May 31 2006]

Information wants to be free, but plenty of people who have information don't want it to be free. Try getting customer lists out of a corporation, for example: that information isn't usually secret (any of the customers will be willing to tell you) but the corporation considers it to their advantage that it's hard to get that information.
-- wiml, Jun 19 2002


Hence we try getting information (voluntarily, of course) out of customers. Some barriers are: privacy as an end in itself, no likelihood of direct compensation for time and effort, nondisclosure agreements. The latter can't be tackled without enormous PR and other damage to the copyleftist movement. Hopefully, people can be persuaded to question the other two for long enough to release some small and (to the individual releasing them) strategically inconsequential informational test balloons. My own contention is that the average worker/consumer would be better off viewing privacy as a means to the end of informational symmetry (parity), rather than an end in itself. In some cases I believe it to be an impediment to symmetry, as things that are bad for transparency seem also to be bad for symmetry. People can be motivated (albeit probably not in large enough numbers) to volunteer substantial amounts of time, money and effort toward the goal of making things better for people who are clients of the nonprophet sector, often one individual at a time. The practice I describe as "volunteering information" is fast, cheap and easy in comparison. Given motivation, coordination remains a possible concern.
-- LoriZ, Jun 20 2002


I am all for decentralization of everything (well almost). But there already is, or rather, are, a bunch of information-dissemination agencies. Collectively, they are called The Media, and they tell as many people as possible everything they want as many people as possible to know/believe. And meanwhile, there is Secret Information, which most people don't have time for anyway, and which in its turn is of two categories: that which is bought and sold for high prices, and that which is shared only locally, by direct person-to-person channels. I wouldn't want the latter to be controlled by any agency. As for the former, that is what hackers should be for, to open it up and share it around and neutralize it, but I haven't seen any signs.
And yes, I subscribe to Stratfor, but they have a certain political agenda, which is not the same as mine.
-- rabbit, Oct 24 2002


non-government / non-business entity.. so... is this a farm?
-- epicproblem, May 31 2006



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