The Case for Collaboration THE HUNT FOR TEN RED BALLOONS On
October 29, 2009, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) announced its "Network Challenge." At 10:00 a.m. on
December 5, 2009, at ten locations throughout the United States,
DARPA would let fly an eight-foot-diameter red weather balloon
tethered to the ground. Each balloon would be readily visible
from local roads and buildings--points the average person could
reach. A $40,000 prize would go to the first team to accurately
report the location of all ten weather balloons. The contest was
meant to replicate the challenge of trying to gather information
about an adversary in an open environment. DARPA wanted to test
whether ordinary folks using commonly available off-the-shelf
technology and social media like Twitter or Facebook could work
together--collaborate--to solve a problem that would be, in the
words of one expert from the National Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency, "impossible to solve by traditional intelligence
gathering methods."