Military Intelligence

Military Intelligence — No oxymoron this time.

The graphic above [from Gizmodo] points to a smart move by the US Army. The army is diversifying their computer networks with both Macs and PCs to make the networks robust and resilient under attack. They started using Macs in the late 1990s to confuse hackers who only knew Windows hacks[which is still the majority of black-hat hackers].

Smart farmers have always planted diverse seed sets... if one strain of corn/soybeans/etc. is attacked by disease, the others usually survive. The goal is not to avoid attacks -- they will happen -- but to have your complex systems degrade gracefully, instead of collapse suddenly. When your systems can sustain attacks, without sudden failure, you have time to recognize and fix the disruption before it causes much damage.

Social networks need diversity also -- not just the typical gender/race/orientation types of diversity. But knowledge diversity coming from various knowledge pools, ways of learning, backgrounds, and ways of seeing patterns & solving problems.

Innovation happens at the intersections -- where diverse knowledge meets and mixes.

Happy Holidays to All !

P.S. Mix some knowledge while you mix those holiday drinks, eh?

Originally published December 22, 2007