[WikiEN-l] Intellipedia the intelligence version of Wikipedia launched

Thu Nov 2 01:17:13 UTC 2006

On 11/1/06, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> John le Carre, of course, had his equivalent, which was an alcohol-sodden woman with cats and no life, who had apparently memorised the Circus's database.

That's still just a database, of sorts; Connie Sachs wasn't editable!

> I don't know why the spooks didn't get to wiki before WP. It's obviously ideal, when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, to try to get NPOV pages, with Talk and sourced information.

There was a news story earlier in the year that reported that
something like half of the FBI didn't even have e-mail working yet,
and that they (or was it the CIA?) were having endless problems trying
to set up a standard database for their intelligence info. These guys
seem to be constantly way behind the times in terms of individual
computer technology. My purely speculative guess is that  -- like
large universities and other slow-to-change bureaucracies which have
no profit motive, tight funds, and no customer-feedback systems --
they think in terms of big, uniform solutions that cost lots of money,
are hard to upgrade, and are centrally controlled.

FF