Global Guerrillas
Politics: Global Guerrillas: ‘Networked organizations, infrastructure disruption, and the emerging marketplace of violence. An open notebook on the epochal war of the 21st Century.’
This stuff is scary — and I think it’s right; the author thinks Bin Laden sees the US as an over-stretched 1980’s Russia, vulnerable to economic collapse; his last communique talks about what he calls the ‘bleed-until-bankruptcy plan’.
Bruce Sterling says ‘You ever read my 80s novel ISLANDS IN THE NET? The one with a sinister, imaginary book of military strategy in it called THE LAWRENCE DOCTRINE AND POSTINDUSTRIAL INSURGENCY? Well, this blog feels a lot like I imagined that book would have felt. Kinda floods the mind with creepily subversive 21st century insight.’
Definitely worth reading.
Tags: book, century, disruption, epochal, global, infrastructure, marketplace, networked, notebook, politics, violence
Counterfeit Cops
IP: A funny IPR-enforcement-related story from New Scientist (sorry, subscriber-only link):
Just before delegates (to the 28 May ‘Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting’) left Brussels to ponder their future anti-counterfeiting measures, a salutary tale started doing the rounds.
The WCO (World Customs Organization) produces a CD database of the codes needed to identify goods by type so that local customs authorities can collect the appropriate duties. The discs sell for EUR 1000 apiece, but WCO investigators have found that staff at some border posts, which are supposedly the front line in counterfeit detection, are not using the official CDs. Instead - you’ve guessed it - they are buying cut-price pirated copies, complete with crudely photocopied, plainly fake covers and sleeve notes.
Physician, heal thyself!
Tags: combating, congress, counterfeiting, global, ip, ipr-enforcement-related, link, may, new, scientist, story
