Something I learned from "The Cuckoo's Egg"

Many people have criticized the government's monitoring and analyzing of email metadata, questioning the authority that the government has to gather the private information contained in this data.  The general idea seems to be that the government was all wrong in its course of action.  Too often critics only criticize without offering any useful ideas of how things could have been done more effectively.  Cliff Stoll was one of these critics but as he worked closely with individuals from various government agencies he realized that their motives and desired outcomes were similar to his.  This led him to abandon many of his criticisms and work towards a common solution.  Similarly, I think if those criticizing the NSA and other government agencies focused more on the common goal of national safety they could move past useless criticisms and instead contribute to a greater dialog of reforming current data mining practices. It is more productive for all people to collaborate and build a better system than to merely criticize the current system.  Recognizing the similar motives and desired outcomes of those in government agencies is the critical first step in that collaboration process.

Going Back to go Forward

There are many times when the past holds answers to our problems.  A small example of this is researchers using hair animation software to analyze the behavior of cables.  When confronted with a problem there is often pressure to come up with a brand new solution.  The struggle to find that solution can be very frustrating when it yields no usable results.  At times this frustration can be alleviated by looking at what has already been discovered.  It is surprising how many times a problem that has already been solved is very similar to ours.  Many times we have to look at solutions outside of our current discipline that can be applied to the problem at hand.  In order to truly find answers we may have to think more critically than creatively, not using creativity to come up with a new solution but to analyze old and seemingly unrelated solutions that apply to our problems.