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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CIMA who wrote (1624)	9/28/2001 4:24:57 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The following came from an eMail I rec'd: ********************* Here's a forward from a list I'm on designed to help everyone get a good night's sleep, though it might perk up anyone in the mood for a heavy mental session -- it's about chaos (and chaos theory) as it applies to terrorism. The immediate objective of terrorism is to bring chaos to an ordered system. We live in an ordered system called the United States. The Web is another ordered system. Some interesting stuff here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ With all of that said, let's explore a simple analogy... The terrorist organization is a network -- a loosely affiliated group of nodes that exhibit emergent properties as they form for a task and then disband. Their organization fits within the standard model of modern complexity theory: nodes of prominence emerge naturally as the forces of co-evolutionary development (namely, natural selection and auto catalysis) battle it out. That is to say that terrorists are, in a sense, born not made (And no, I don't mean that as some slight on Arabs, Muslims or Islamic culture -- read between the lines, Spanky). The internet is also a loosely affiliated group of nodes that exhibit emergent properties. In fact, if the structure of the two were lined up side by side, they would be nearly indistinguishable. As such, that which seriously damages the internet could, from a tactical standpoint, teach us valuable lessons about damaging the terrorist network. The Nimda virus hurt the internet more than any major corporation is willing to acknowledge. But make no mistake about it -- this sucker seriously impeded performance, and leaves certain systems still cleaning up. In other words, a virus at least temporarily brought a large portion of the internet to a crawl. This should be our first clue. Terrorist networks are distributed intelligence. Thus, they do not respond to the attacks of a command and control architecture -- i.e., tank battalions are pretty senseless. Hacks against computer networks, on the other hand, provide a useful outline for harm: 1. Take down a few key hubs. Okay, so Nimda didn't actually do this in theory, but in practice it might as well have. In a terrorist network this will mean the physical destruction of known camps, training centers and monetary sources (and a few key humans, if possible). 2. Begin a Denial of Service attack. Nimda -- at its core -- did this on an individual node basis, as it occupied servers everywhere with its incessant spreading. Translating this to terrorism means a little creativity, as a Denial of Service attack is essentially a request for information. But I would think that the analogy in the terrorist lexicon is something similar to gathering intelligence at such a rapid rate that they become alerted to your closing presence -- on a daily and repeated basis. This forces the network to constantly attempt to reorganize its connections to maintain viability. 3. Don't Stop. This is where the internet analogy crosses over to complexity theory. The life-cycle of a complex system (be it terrorist network, ecosystem or internet) runs as follows: Initial conditions build to a point wherein auto-catalysis (self- organization) occurs among the existing interactive elements. The auto-catalysis leads to a organizational network of prominence, wherein certain nodes gain levels of importance over other nodes. The key here, though, is the process -- the value and viability of the system lies in its ability to interact node-to-node. That is to say that information is generated in the process between nodes, and it is at that point that the co-evolutionary drives kick in. [note: we see this in the terrorist networks in the loose actions that ripple across cells that do not actually know each other -- the operation only becomes viable as the nodes process interactions with each other.] The system, once organized, will evolve so as to encourage maximum levels of diversity. Essentially this means that the system will naturally push itself to the now-famous "edge of chaos" as it seeks to remain viable. Systems living on this edge achieve maximum productivity (viability), but they also become increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic, exogenous events which push them into a reorganizational state equivalent to extinction. Alternatively, systems that do not reach this edge become rigid in their responses to information. This brings their extinction rate to 100%. The extremely dynamic nature of the terrorist network implies that it lives on the edge of chaos -- a network that's very viability depends upon its ability to rapidly respond to incoming information. Thus, the network is vulnerable to repeated deluges of assault -- not so much in the physical sense, as in the intelligence sense. By forcing the network to adjust to ever- tightening circles of intelligence, you're asking it to respond ever more rapidly to information requests -- effectively setting up a Denial of Service attack. Insistent, aggressive intelligence forces the network to expend its energy reorganizing and ensuring survival versus pursuing it stated purpose for existence. This will push the network over the edge of chaos and into a state of disarray. Whether it is able to reorganize is anybody's guess. So you see, the terrorist network can be effectively fought -- and, it would appear that Powell et al. have some clue as to how to go about it. For business, this means that distributed approaches to organization are now doubly important. And, while I hate to say we can learn something from the Open Source movement (if only because Eric Raymond wrote the single most asinine piece of the decade in response to the terrorist strike) -- well, its true. Open Source and Complexity theory hold the strategic keys to managing risk in the age of terrorism. And for those that are wondering: yes, I'm available for strategic and tactical consulting in this area. What makes me qualified, you ask? Four years working with the NSA doing shit that I'll never tell you about. Call me if you need help (and you know you do).