I'm currently reading Beating the System by Russell Ackoff and Sheldon Rovin. I'm not sure how I found the book but I managed to find a very cheap copy via Amazon so I bought it because I like Ackoff's thinking. It's a sweet little book filled with little stories about how "David" beats bureaucratic "Goliath".
Despite security classification of all documents coming out of the Pentagon during WWII, the Pentagon acquired evidence that the Germans gained access to the contents of the most highly classified documents quickly. Clearly, those illicitly acquiring documents for the Germans knew which ones to select based on security classification.
Consequently, the Army Operations Research Group at Johns Hopkins University was asked to find a way of foiling the enemy. The project was placed under the direction of a medieval historian. He looked at the problems in humanistic rather than technological terms. His conclusion was to terminate all classification of documents and send the Germans a copy of every document produced in the Pentagon. he reasoned that by the time the Germans sorted through the mess and found the documents that were important, they no longer would be.
Lo and behold, this proposal was not accepted.
