Information Operations (IO) – Page 774 – Public Intelligence Blog

Collaboration for the common good — what open source is all about

It seems everywhere I look, I see another example of government adopting open source.

Earlier this month, a consortium of public and non-profit organizations launched Civic Commons, a public-private partnership that will help governments share software they have developed. It's a terrific idea that will foster innovation, eliminate duplicate effort, and save money. And it's another great example of the growing adoption of open source software in governments.

Examples of open source in the U.S. government abound. The Smithsonian and Search.USA.gov use Solr/Lucene open source enterprise search. The White House re-launched whitehouse.gov using Drupal. The DoD and the Intelligence Community have proposed an Open Technology Development roadmap “to increase technical efficiency and reduce software lifecycle costs within DoD,” and the DoD has developed forge.mil to “enable continuous collaboration among all stakeholders including project managers, developers, testers, certifiers, operators, and users.” In fact, my own company, Lucid Imagination, is funded in part by In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, further evidence that open source and government are going hand in hand.

Examples of open source abroad is equally as evident. The EU's Open Source Observatory and Repository provides public administrations with access to more than two thousand free and open source applications and the open source CASPAR (Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval) research project is making mounds of data stored in EU archives accessible.

Read Balance of Posting

Tip of the hat to Bob Gourley at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: While good news, the above is over-stated. Free/Open Source Softwaare (F/OSS) needs a champion with weight, such as Microsoft or IBM or one of the telecommunications giants who sees that the value chain has moved from connectivity to content. There are eight tribes of intelligence, the government is the least important.

2010/09/202010/09/20

Worth a Look: Price of Weed Crowd Sourcing

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, IO Mapping

The map does not copy but is worth a look. Anonymity is not at all assured, but the concept is important.

http://www.priceofweed.com

2010/09/202010/09/20

Journal: Norwegians Smack Down Quantum Crypto

08 Wild Cards, Government, IO Secrets, Officers Call

Quantum Cryptography Breached With Lasers

Using lasers to blind quantum cryptography photon detectors, Norwegian computer scientists were able to obtain a copy of a secure key without leaving any trace of their presence.

By Mathew J. Schwartz
InformationWeek
September 8, 2010 07:00 AM

Norwegian computer scientists have perfected a laser-based attack against quantum cryptography systems that allows them to eavesdrop on communications without revealing their presence.

Phi Beta Iota: Clever Norwegians. We have zero sympathy. The US secret community, at $75 billion a year and climbin, is beyond waste, fraud, and abuse and heavily into betrayal of the public trust as well as high crimes and misdemeanors. It should be scaled back to $25 billion or less and the savings redirected to education & research. The reality is that what the US taxpayer–and all other citizens everywhere need–are transparent governments that create trust, enjoy legitimacy, and can deliver value.

2010/09/192010/09/19

Journal: 20th Century Clunkers vs 21st Century Slims

ICT-IT, IO Sense-Making

Visualizing the difference between 20th and 21st Century management

I wrote last month about the biggest difference between 20th and 21st Century management. I said there that management in the 20^th Century was about achieving a finite goal: delivering goods and services, to make money. Management in the 21^st Century by contrast is about the infinite goal of delighting customers; the firm makes money, yes, but as a consequence of the delight that it creates for customers, not as the goal.

That’s a fairly abstract account of the difference. What does it mean in practice? Let’s bring that down to earth with a visual embodiment of it.

denning handhelds — Network On Call Not In Hand

Read the entire Blog Post

Phi Beta Iota: It's not just about functionality and ease of use–it is about what the handheld allows you to access, leverage, exploit, share, and made sense of. The handheld is a key, nothing more. That is why smart phones are history. It is the collective intelligence of all humans that is smart, first one with a dumb device and a full range of M4IS2 services in the cloud wins. Google is math hashing digital garbage–we are not betting on them.

2010/09/172010/09/17

Reference: The Next Revolution in Productivity

Articles & Chapters, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process

Productivity Small Footprint — Full Source Free Online

2010/09/162011/02/21

Journal: Tim Berners-Lee Says “Free Internet for All”

About the Idea, Autonomous Internet, Collaboration Zones, Communities of Practice, Historic Contributions, IO Sense-Making, Key Players, Mobile, Policies, Real Time, Threats, Topics (All Other)

tim — Tim Berners-Lee Calls for Free Internet for All -- Full Story Online

BBC 15 September 2010 Last updated at 05:58 ET

Tim Berners-Lee calls for free internet worldwide

The inventor of the Web has called for everyone to have access to his creation for free.

Tim Berners-Lee said that he would like to see everybody given a low-bandwidth connection “by default”.

He said the web could be instrumental in giving people access to critical services such as healthcare.

Currently, he said, just one-fifth of the world's population has access to the web.

“What about the other 80%?” he asked the audience at the Nokia World conference in London.

Tip of the Hat to Pierre Levy at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: Sir Tim is on target but misses the critical point, which is that the Internet is already free, what is NOT free is the handheld device needed to access it. Earth Intelligence Network and its 24 co-founders are committed to the idea of free cell phones for the five billion poor, along with national call centers that educate them “one cell call at a time” while also providing access to the kinds of Internet application that the Grameen AppLab is creating.

2010/09/152011/02/21

Reference: OpenBTS Open Access Cellular Ham Hack

Autonomous Internet, IO Multinational, Methods & Process, Technologies, Tools

The OpenBTS project was by ‘Camp Papa Legba', named after the Haitian Loa.

“In Haitian Vodou, Papa Legba is the intermediary between the loa and humanity. He stands at a spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits of Guinee, and is believed to speak all human languages. He is always the first and last spirit invoked in any ceremony, because his permission is needed for any communication between mortals and the loa – he opens and closes the doorway. In Haiti, he is the great elocution, the voice of God, as it were. Legba facilitates communication, speech and understanding.”

GNU Radio Not Google Overview

Learn about Papa Legba (Wikipedia)
Learn About the Burning Man 2010 Implementation
Learn About the Technology
Appreciate the FCC License
Niue Pilot System, Spring 2010
Last year's Burning Man GNU Radio FAQ
This Year's Notice

From Todd Huffman to Dave Warner to Phi Beta Iota.

Category: Information Operations (IO)

Journal: Open Source Software Gains in Government

Uncle Sam meets open source with open arms