UK Guardian newspaper publishes USA NSA papers

[dan at geer.org]

 > "You don't need to be talking to a terror suspect to have your
 > communications data analysed by the NSA. The agency is allowed to
 > travel "three hops" from its targets."


Barnett, "Facebook Cuts Six Degrees of Separation to Four," 22 November 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8906693/Facebook-cuts-six-degrees-of-separation-to-four.html

average distance on Twitter is 4.67, as found in
"Six Degrees of Separation, Twitter Style," 30 April 2010
http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/sixdegrees/

or maybe it is only 3.43, as found in
Bakhshandeh, Samadi, Azimifar & Schaeffer,
"Degrees of Separation in Social Networks," 2011
http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/SOCS/SOCS11/paper/view/4031

"Allowed three hops" is closer to a grand mal seizure than a twitch.

For a sideline, look up "percolation theory."

--dan