MemeMachineGo!

A grad student mapped the U.S.’s fiber optic infrastructure :

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.

What I find most striking is this:

Invariably, he said, they [the gov’t officials he’s been talking with] suggest his work be classified. […] “He should turn it in to his professor, get his grade — and then they both should burn it,” said Richard Clarke, who until recently was the White House cyberterrorism chief. […] Gorman compiled his mega-map using publicly available material he found on the Internet. None of it was classified.

What we’re dealing with here is a far more general problem of life in an open society. Classifying his dissertation is shutting the barn door after the cow’s gone. It’d no doubt make people feel better; I imagine so would their sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “la la la! I can’t hear you!” if one tried to point out that what one grad student can do, so can another.

(Thanks, Dad)