I've been actively building awareness on what used to feel like an unpopular belief only - Cyberterrorism, and also covered some recent events related to Cyberterrorism in some of my previous posts.
Last week, The NYTimes wrote about "Taking Spying to Higher Level, Agencies Look for More Ways to Mine Data", and I feel that avoiding the mainstream media for the sake of keeping it objective is quite useful sometimes. From the article :
"On the wish list, according to several venture capitalists who met with the officials, were an array of technologies that underlie the fierce debate over the Bush administration's anti-terrorist eavesdropping program: computerized systems that reveal connections between seemingly innocuous and unrelated pieces of information. The tools they were looking for are new, but their application would fall under the well-established practice of data mining: using mathematical and statistical techniques to scan for hidden relationships in streams of digital data or large databases."
Interest in harnessing the power of data mining given the enormous flow of information from different parties would never cease to exist. What's more to note in this case, is the Able Danger scenario as a key indicator for usefulness of outdated information, given any has been there at the first place. Conspiracy theorists would logically conclude that the need for evidence of the power of data mining for tracking terrorists would inevitably fuel more investments in this area. So true, and here's a recent event to keep the discussing going - "Suit airs Able Danger claims: Two operatives in secret program say their lawyers were barred at hearings"
While on one hand wars are getting waged with the idea to eradicate terrorist deep from its roots, and sort of building "local presence" thus improving assets allocation and intelligence gathering, I feel the fact that a reliable communication channel could be estalibshed by a terrorist network over the Net is already gaining a lot of necessary attention. However, TIA's ambitions have always been desperately megalomaniac, what about some marginal thinking in here folks, you cannot absorb all the info and make sense out of it, and who says it has to be all of it at the first place?!
The Total Information Awareness program was prone to be abused in one way or another, like pretty much any data mining system from my point of view. And while it's supposidely down due to budget deficits and privacy violations outbreak, government legislation and ensuring key networks remain wiretaps-ready seems to be a valuable asset for any future data mining projects. TIA is still up and running folks, or even if it's not using the same name, the concept is still in between the lines of DHS's budget for 2006 and would always be, and with the majority of corporate sector's participants are opening up their networks to comply with "legal requirements", the lines between privacy and the war against terrorism, and what to exchange for what, seems to be getting even more shady these days.
In my previous posts, I also mentioned about the power of the Starlight project as existing initiative to data mine data from different and media-rich sources alltogether, and most importantly, visualize the output. If you fear BigBrother, don't fear the Eye, but fear the Eyeglasses :)
More resources on Data Mining and Terrorism :
Data Mining : An Overview
Data Mining and Homeland Security : An Overview (updated January 27, 2006)
Using data mining techniques for detecting terror-related web activities
Data mining and surveillance in the post-9.11 environment
The Dark Web Portal: Collecting and Analyzing the Presence of Domestic and International Terrorist Groups on the Web
Workshop on Data Mining for Counter Terrorism and Security
TRAKS: Terrorist Related Assessment using Knowledge Similarity
The Multi-State Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX)
A Knowledge Discovery Approach to Addressing the Threats of Terrorism - w00t
Gyre's Data Mining section
Eyeballing Total Information Awareness
Able Danger blog
EPIC's TIA section
EFF's TIA section
Technorati tags : Security, Terrorism, Cyberterrorism, Data Mining, TIA
