Darpa's latest challenge: Locate these 10 balloons

That does not seem to be strictly foreclosed by the rules ( http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/rules.aspx ), but there is this nice catch all clause which I suspect would come into play ("DARPA reserves the right to disqualify a participant whose actions are deemed to violate the spirit of the competition for any reason, including but not limited to, the violation of laws or regulations in the course of participation."). I do note that "[b]alloons will be in readily accessible locations, visible from nearby roadways and accompanied by DARPA representatives." I suppose you'd want to make sure to hard check the balloons and verify the representative part.

Actually, it's a pretty interesting problem: what are the techniques by which an ad-hoc group of people can self-organize or cooperate? It's an aggressively large problem (anywhere in the US?) that seems quite exciting; they'll probably learn a hell of a lot.

It sounds to me like it could be valuable.

On the surface, we'll see how long it takes. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing was done in a couple of days. And it will also cause a lot of people to say: "wow, the power of the internet." It is probably a good way to gauge the potential influence of social networking on the internet. Which is a force that continues to grow, and we should do what we can to understand it.

I'm interested to see how it'll be accomplished. It might pinpoint the best use of networking sites for promotion.