[Air-l] networks

[Aldon Hynes]

Steve's focus on the storage and retrieval aspects of
a network are particularly interesting to me and I
would like to toss out a few comments.

In neural networks, it is the network itself, and its
connections that store the information and not the
individual nodes.  Neural networks are built to adapt
to new information, or for that matter to the change
of configuration of nodes.

If we work from a model of human knowledge and
learning as being based on neural networks, then any
organization is a network of neural networks, an
internet, and we all know that an internet is really
just another network.  So, we can see an organization
having knowledge that the individuals don't have.

To make this a little more concrete, take a look at
how RAID 5 disk systems work.  The information is
spread across several different drives with some
redundancy built in.  No single drive contains a
complete set of information.  It is more efficient
(depending on the type of application) than simple
mirroring.  It is also more secure, in that if one
drive is stolen, it is extremely difficult to
ascertain the data stored.

This would carry back nicely to Mark's original
parallel between a terrorist cell and a distributed
network.  A well set up organization should have
information redundantly distributed, but in such a way
that no single node can be used to ascertain the
information of the organization.  I must admit,
however, I don't have any experience with terrorist
cells, so I don't know how close they come to such an
approach.

As to the despoiling of natural resources, it is my
recollection that this was explored quite nicely in a
science fiction story a few decades ago, where they
explored the social implications of teleportation.  I
believe the story was named something like 'Flash
Crowd'.  Does anyone remember the story?

Aldon

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