Open Architecture Network

What it is?
The Open Architecture Network was founded in an effort to share information about improving sustainable living solutions and to find ways to improve global living conditions. Users post their ideas and solutions to all sorts of problems. These are then commented on with suggestions and improvements. Users are then able to track the progress on each of the projects. Some interesting projects include a mobile computer lab that is powered by stationary bicycles and a house that is constructed entirely of organic materials.

The founders of the site have also created The Open Architecture Challenge, which seems to be the most progressive undertaking in the architectural humanitarian world. The organizers have found three sites around the world that need sustainable, technologically advanced facilities in order for the community to survive. As an example, one of the sites includes a chocolate manufacturer in the rain forest. The goal for this site is to help them build facilities so that they can enter the global chocolate market and create a "for profit, non profit". "For profit,non profit" means that making money will allow the locals to maintain their tropical homeland. The winners of the design competition will be flown out to one of the three different sites and given up to $250,000(presumably from the entry fee and the corporate sponsor) to implement their designs.

How does OSA relate to Open Source Spying
OSA and Open source Spying are projects that house extremely different types of information. What does make them similar is that they facilitate getting information in the hands of those that can make things happen. This information might otherwise have been lost in the woodwork. In the case of spying, low level operatives(of possibly different agencies and varying locations) can get information to higher level agents through the use of Inteliwiki and blogs. In the past much information was lost, both because of hierarchy barriers and an unwillingness for inter agency cooperation. In the case of the OSA, people with great ideas, but without the resources to make them happen, can get their projects in front of those that can actually facilitate their implementation.

The major difference between the projects is that there does not seem to be a downside to the implementation of the OSA, and the starting of the OSA competition, while there are clear potential problems with implementing open source networking in the intelligence community. namely, privacy concerns and the potential for the lack of networking options reaching critical mass could make the idea useless.