The coming revolution in intelligence affairs
Kristan J Wheaton
(Assistant professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst College, USA)
In June 1815, according to legend, financier Nathan Mayer Rothschild stationed a scout on the outskirts of the battlefield of Waterloo. As soon as the battle was over and it was clear that the Duke of Wellington had won, the scout supposedly raced back to the London banker to deliver the news. The result, so the story goes, is that Rothschild made a fortune on the London Stock Exchange the next day.
In April 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally ill student, committed suicide at 9:51AM after having killed 32 people and injured another 23 at Virginia Tech University in the US. By 3:16 PM the same day, news of the massacre had been posted to Wikipedia, the open, online encyclopedia. Within three hours, over 300 changes had been made to the page as new information poured in. Within two weeks, over 8000 edits had been posted, causing a local newspaper, The Roanoke Times, to acknowledge that Wikipedia had “emerged as the clearinghouse for detailed information on the event.” Please continue.