Public Ear, Private Voice

Was this the person to get the message through the machine (preferrable) or directly to the legacy power structure? Patience and calm, there was enough time and because there was no reason for counter-productive urgency. The recently developed prudence of developing an identity based profile led him to a review of the person specific protocol to be employed.

A decades long friendship that began in the heat of corporate politics. A shame that the mechanism designed to insulate risk-takers from inappropriate exposure to their investments had been turned into such a zoo of egos behaving badly. Welcome to humanity and their experiments in leap-frogging evolutionary latency. In your dreams.

This man of a truly American background, whatever that means. The city of his childhood, a curious mix of social paradigms that could probably could not have occupied the same space in another country. An ethnic background with a truly remarkable track record in humor, financial achievement and the target of persecution. A haven for privacy, America proved a fertile ground for this man of ethics and warmth.

Secrecy and its circuitous management not often far from his attention. Openness, even when readily available at low cost, suspect. Too many examples of dangerous parties masquerading as the latest innovations. Better to go with the known and flawed than the new and unfamiliar. In a word, conservative. But iberal too because he was smart and sensed that power was in the hands of those whose stewardship had not kept pace. But still, conservative because the consequences of rushing in might prove foolhardy.

Yes, this old friend, new to the project but not of its founding ideas had a background particularly suited to this field test. He leaned back in his chair with hands clasped behind his head. The suggestion from the system monitor was just explicit enough. It was time to start assembling recent historical events to prime the machine. It would learn the primitives from the player's data interaction.

Set up the scene: Weapons shipments hidden from a sanctions regime. The usual suspects - Iran, the private China connection, maritime activity etc. The new kid on the block, potentially powerful with the tools of a society revering the 'rocket fuel' known as Open. Those aspiring to influence who had not yet embraced the cutting edge in communications technology, in many cases, could only watch as emergent destiny was taking a sharp turn. For they were dependent on the choke points of data distribution. Pathologically so.