Comments on: Vote: Fortune 500, or Al-Qaeda?

By: bill waters

bill waters — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 03:17:53 +0000

its the one on the left. god told me

By: SNA_Novice

SNA_Novice — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:03:21 +0000

I don’t see a response from Mr. Krebs. Please…which one is which?!?

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:21:33 +0000

Does it make a difference? Just as in the Viet Nam war, we could have ended it by bombing a dam located within miles of Hanoi.
Bush won’t be effective, if he wanted to be, he could give farmers in Afghanistan money to raise other than poppy crop, which is what is funding AQ.
But now one wants to do that…

By: J

Tue, 16 May 2006 15:28:53 +0000

Its the cell on the left of course:)
Seriously. the cell on the left has spinter groups that are not connected and that is how I would picture a terrorist group that want to avoid all members knowing each other. The one on the right has everyone talking ot anyone — this is not secret enough.
Companies and normal social groups don’t try to hide there alliances and give false trails where a secret organization would.

By: Negroi

Negroi — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:33:29 +0000

Ive been thinking about it.
It s strange how social webs looks like terrorist organizations, rigth its the correct because all the cells have been organizated with almost three persons and the staff departament of fortune only have two.
But it seems like a normal democracy social web design, its like a signal of how all the dinamics moves of the man , like democracy or the ancient regime, make another dinamic in the same way but in diferent direction, like terrorist or revolucionary strikes like the french revolution.
We have to take care in what are we working to stop Al quaeda dimension of operative cells, if we make another dinamics, like make a stronger state with non legal moves( “non legal” because “Auctoritas, non Veritas”) because we are working at the same time in oppositte direction.

By: Tony James

Tony James — Mon, 15 May 2006 13:52:43 +0000

Given that the fundamental basis of criminal or terrorist cells is that there needs to be minimal knowledge of the rest of the organisation within each cell, neither of the diagrams presented fits the model. Parts of each one do, but they are not consistent. A terrorist cell model would suggest a web of concentric circles, with very few connections between the circles, the point being that people in the outer rings can’t identify the people further in.

By: Mr_Oni

Mr_Oni — Sun, 14 May 2006 20:59:43 +0000

The left is how I picture the Islamic family/social structure. Cell.
The right looks like it would need the concept of individuals to work. Fortune500.

By: Kevin Harris

Kevin Harris — Sun, 14 May 2006 18:20:14 +0000

I predict that the model on the right is more likely to be that of Al Qaeda. There is too much communication between reference points, centrally, on the left model. That seems more in keeping with a corporate model.
But, many of the connections that we can attribute to the Al Qaeda model may be misleading. It is known that phone calls can be traced and linked. A false pattern may have been laid in order to hide a true pattern. And that would be difficult to empiricize without knowing how such a pattern is being obfuscated.

By: John

John — Sun, 14 May 2006 18:15:09 +0000

That’s right, there’s no point in trying to spy on terrorists since the average man on the street can’t tell the difference between two network diagrams. It’s all for nothing, we may as well just give up now.

By: pedestrian

pedestrian — Sun, 14 May 2006 08:43:51 +0000

3)If you were Osama Bin Laden in one of the two, which solution would you choose to avoid while being vulnerable to internal spies and confession by detained members?