ZDNet: Tech Update: Security / A world without secrets
Today, few legal restrictions exist on the collection and use of private information, outside of the health care and financial services industries. In his book, entitled "World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing" (Wiley, $27.95), Hunter posits that advances over the next decade in high bandwidth wireless communications, intelligent miniaturized monitors, semantic analysis, and natural language processing will render our lives and institutions transparent and subject to who knows what kind of scrutiny--depending on who wields the power or can parse the petabytes of data. Trust will become a cherished commodity.

…Hunter described his notion of network armies as individuals linked by ideology, not geography, and whose communications are public and instant via the Internet. The armies may have disparate agendas, but are united for a common goal, often against a common enemy. Uncharacteristic of most institutions in the public or private sector, network armies have influencers but no formal leadership structure.

His poster child for the evil network army is the infamous Al Qaeda, and the good exemplified by the Open Source movement. In the case of the Open Source movement, Hunter claims it is built on the notion that "software shouldn't suck," and has a well developed structure consisting of four influencers, six distributors, 250 project leaders (of which 20 play major roles), and 750,000 participants. The movement is galvanized by Microsoft, which has not been favorably disposed toward Open Source and Linux, as its nemesis.

In the future, these armies will become more sophisticated and sprout like weeds, spontaneously adapting to the environment. Hunter admonishes individuals and businesses to avoid becoming the nemesis of a network army, especially one that is malignant. "You can't negotiate your self out of war with a network army," Hunter said. "There is no one to negotiate with."
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2863665,00.html