Interesting article about a graduate student's project on the national fiber optic network.

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.

Tinkering on a laptop, wearing a rumpled T-shirt and a soul patch goatee, this George Mason University graduate student has mapped every business and industrial sector in the American economy, layering on top the fiber-optic network that connects them.

An old military term is EEFI (essential elements of friendly information) as defined here:

BEADWINDOW procedures deal with Essential Elements of Friendly Information (EEFIs). EEFIs are established by operational commanders. EEFIs identify specific items of information which, if revealed and correlated with other information, would degrade the security of military operations, projects, or missions in the applicable areas. EEFIs can, therefore, vary from operation to operation or from area to area. Table 2-3 contains an EEFI key number and key word definition list.

The concept is simple - multiple pieces of seemingly harmless info can be assembled to reveal classified info. When Tom Clancey published "The Hunt for Red October" (I'm convinced that he wrote "Patriot Games" first), Secretary of the Navy James Webb reportedly hit the ceiling. There was a lot of classified info in that book. Clancey showed how he assembled the data from public sources and even briefed the CIA on his techniques. Today, there are a lot of analysts who specialize in "open source" intelligence.

Should this thesis be published? Honestly, I don't think so. As someone once noted, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." Like many others who have had military training, I can go into just about any town and find scores of potential targets in a short time. Just because I can do this, it doesn't mean I should go around publishing what I find.