Where will Osama bin Laden attack next?

[ima_sinnic]

'Tedious' PhD thesis terrorists' treasure map
Findings alarm government and industry

LAURA BLUMENFELD
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

The subject of his dissertation was so dull that Sean Gorman's dates would "start staring up at the ceiling" when he talked about it. Even his professor called it "tedious and unimportant."

But after Sept. 11, 2001, Gorman's findings are being kept under close wraps because the charts he has produced detailing the communication networks binding the United States together are treasure maps for a terrorist wanting to destroy the U.S. economy. Tinkering on a laptop, wearing a rumpled T-shirt and a soul patch goatee, this George Mason University graduate student has mapped every business and industrial sector in America, layering on top the fibre-optic network that connects them.

He can click on a bank in Manhattan and see who has communication lines running into it and where. He can zoom in on Baltimore and find the choke point for trucking warehouses. He can drill into a cable trench between Kansas and Colorado and determine how to create the most havoc with a hedge clipper.

Using mathematical formulas, he probes for critical links, trying to answer the question: "If I were Osama bin Laden, where would I want to attack?" For this, Gorman has become part of an expanding field of researchers whose work is coming under scrutiny for national security reasons. His story illustrates new ripples in the old tension between an open society and a secure society. . . .

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