"A return to more archaic forms of communication."

"But let’s turn to the more profound significance of what has occurred. Formerly, back in the days of Orwell, every power could be conceived of as a Big Brother watching over its subjects’ every move. The Orwellian prophecy came completely true once the powers that be could monitor every phone call made by the citizen, every hotel he stayed in, every toll road he took and so on and so forth. The citizen became the total victim of the watchful eye of the state. But when it transpires, as it has now, that even the crypts of state secrets are not beyond the hacker’s grasp, the surveillance ceases to work only one-way and becomes circular. The state has its eye on every citizen, but every citizen, or at least every hacker – the citizens’ self-appointed avenger – can pry into the state’s every secret."

Umberto Eco: Not Such Wicked Leaks, December 2, 2010

Foreign Policy is documenting the process of finding stories in the huge heap of information

The futile efforts to try and make known information unknown vaguely reminds me of how collecting societies try to fight piracy.