Very interesting article. It is a long article, so click the link to read on... Dissertation Could Be Security Threat Student's Maps Illustrate Concerns About Public Information 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. He can click on a bank in Manhattan and see who has communication lines running into it and where. He can zoom in on Baltimore and find the choke point for trucking warehouses. He can drill into a cable trench between Kansas and Colorado and determine how to create the most havoc with a hedge clipper. Using mathematical formulas, he probes for critical links, trying to answer the question: "If I were Osama bin Laden, where would I want to attack?" In the background, he plays the Beastie Boys. For this, Gorman has become part of an expanding field of researchers whose work is coming under scrutiny for national security reasons. His story illustrates new ripples in the old tension between an open society and a secure society. . . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23689-2003Jul7.html
Of course, the silly part is that they want the dissertation classified or burned or whatever, but if the information remains public, there's no reason that someone with bad motives couldn't rebuild his data and do the damage. I guess it's just that we don't want to make it easy, as if terrorists are lazy. "Well, I would go out and do some research into the public record to find the best places to do the most damage with the least effort, but I am already in my pajamas. Better call off the attack. If only there was an already prepared list."
