DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U//FOUO) Letter to the Editor : More Comments on Social Network
Analysis
FROM: the editor
Unknown
Run Date: 12/22/2005
(U//FOUO) More thoughts on SNA, prompted by the articles "Using an Intelligence Analysis
Technique -- On Ourselves" and "The Leadership Center's Work With the 'Network of Networks'
and SNA" :
(U) Social networking is truly the wave of the future. A lot of you may not know this, but college
students (of which I finally ceased to be in May 2005) have been voluntarily assembling their
own social networks online!
(S//SI) A service known as The Facebook (found at www.facebook.com) allows students to sign
up and list all those who are their friends at their university and others across the US. The
system requires the friend to confirm that they are, in fact, friends in order to keep the system
honest. Additionally, the student may optionally enter in all of their classes and see who they are
linked to via the classroom. Finally, through the link "visualize my social network" they can see a
diagram similar to the ones we use to map terrorist networks.
(U//FOUO) I'm very excited about the possibility of extending the Agency's social network past
the pilot group. It would be exciting to see if it follows a power law, as these networks often do,
and whether the six degrees of separation holds up.
-- Eric Mesa
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108