
Email patterns can predict impending doom - muon
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227135.900-email-patterns-can-predict-impending-doom.html
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CWuestefeld
I don't think the failure of Enron is typical of that of other organizations.
Enron's very life was founded on cheating, and I assume that at least the
senior staff mentioned in the article were aware of this.

It seems plausible to me that much of the communications leading up to the
actual failure were of a cover-your-butt sort, and not so much the attempts at
constructive change that we might hope an organization involved in a more
ethical enterprise would experience. Indeed, I'd think that in the unethical
cases, where there really is something to hide, communication with the wider
corporate community would decrease as desperate scheming between those in on
the plot would increase.

So I don't think that it's fair to assume that the behavior observed in the
Enron case can generalize to other organizations.

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stcredzero
If there are insiders with some inkling of approaching disaster, then it makes
sense that traffic analysis can reveal a spike in anxiety and contingency
planning by members of an organization.

If I were dishonest, then I might try traffic analysis as a means to
accomplish insider trading. It's very indirect. None of the information assets
that traditionally raise red flags are involved. Unlike traditional insider
trading, your confederates/information sources wouldn't have to know what you
were up to, specifically. It wouldn't work in every case, but if it worked
often enough to give you a considerable statistical advantage, then one could
still make a financial killing this way.

This makes me worry about LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as Google and Yahoo.
It would be relatively easy for employees there to accomplish such traffic
analysis undetected, then to correlate this with market information.

EDIT: A defensibly legal means of leveraging this. Start a holding company
that happens to control the IT of all of its subsidiaries. Structure the
subsidiaries to be as independent as possible, otherwise. Make decisions to
"invest" in your subsidiaries based on the traffic analysis. (This could also
include insuring specific ventures against failure.)

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rapind
An interesting point.

You wouldn't even have to be a direct employee. An immoral IT worker could
probably gain access to at least some anonymous info by working somewhere on
the pipe (ISP etc.) for organizations that route emails externally (encrypted
or not, the contents and origin are not necessary).

There's most likely some data mining you could do on http stats too, instead
of just email.

Spooky.

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iigs
1) Sample size of one (or did I misread?) -- Enron. I don't have any guesses
on what a wider analysis would reveal, but you can draw all kinds of
conclusions from data when you have the data and the backstory and no other
data to verify against.

2) I wonder if this data is actionable in any useful way (other than leaving
immediately before TSHTF). I think the "Hey Guys, we shouldn't be doing this!"
emails probably stay down in the noise, and the corner probably turns with the
"OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!" email. Since no company is going to give access to
their anonymised on an ongoing basis, I believe the only people that would
have access to this would effectively be blocked by insider trading rules,
making acting on this data legally _dangerous_.

