A friend from HN (whom I'll leave anonymous, simply because I don't know if he wants his part in this to be known or not) was sharing information about what was going on in Libya with another friend, and mentioned that a virus was spreading through the opposition chat rooms. The virus made its way over to me for analysis, since its first stage was .NET (which I've got a good bit of experience dealing with). I broke the protections, wrote an antivirus, and within 48 hours or so, we had a detector/removal tool spreading throughout the opposition.
That is what spreading information is for. It's connecting the right people to the right problem.
Edit: I left out one key piece of information. The virus was explicitly written not to cause damage, or join a botnet, or anything of the sort; its sole purpose was to gather usernames, real names, and as much contact information as possible for the user hit with the virus. While we don't know who created this virus, it's entirely possible that it was created with the express purpose of identifying/locating certain members of the opposition.
That is what spreading information is for. It's connecting the right people to the right problem.
Edit: I left out one key piece of information. The virus was explicitly written not to cause damage, or join a botnet, or anything of the sort; its sole purpose was to gather usernames, real names, and as much contact information as possible for the user hit with the virus. While we don't know who created this virus, it's entirely possible that it was created with the express purpose of identifying/locating certain members of the opposition.