Comments on: Mining for Terrorists

By: Noah

Noah — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 16:21:47 +0000

To get a sense of the scope, scale and futility of data mining I’d recommend ‘Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping’ by Keefe.
The volume of information (transmission from every communications satellite is fully intercepted) and the difficulty of cracking metaphor, verbal codes, etc. in different languages is all but impossible. But that hasn’t prevented the US from developing ECHELON, a global monitoring network that is arguably far more useful for violating the privacy of US citizens than foiling terrorist attacks.

By: C-Low

C-Low — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 14:36:45 +0000

I am with Pedestrian.
http://defensetech.military.com/cgi-bin/moveabletype/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=data+mining
All except top this entry gives the impression that Data Mining is horrible useless and basically just needless invasion of privacy.
But all and all glad to finally have you guys on board this war is only going to get hotter and for the west to survive is going to require a unified effort with our anger directed towards our enemies not back onto ourselves.
On the idea of blanket mining storing of conversations will be extremely useful in those times we catch a known terrorist either too late or right before attack. In those cases we will be able to go back in the database to get the important part of suicide bombers the “support cell” rounded up.

By: pedestrian

pedestrian — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 03:24:57 +0000

Didn’t we see some people on Defense Tech slamming on Data mining that it was worthless and such an information overload to track down terrorists?

By: Valdis Krebs

Valdis Krebs — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:03:57 +0000

No, David. It was NOT Big Brother — data mining of massive phone/financial records did NOT unravel this network!!!
It was finding an entry point into the network and then unraveling the threads from that entry point, that got it done. They let the network function [did not jump in and arrest them right away] so that the network would reveal itself through its activity. Then, when the network was ready to execute its plan, they shut it down. Just like the recipe here:
http://www.orgnet.com/tnet.html
Instead of mining the patterns of all 60,000,000+ UK residents MI5 found suspects, and then uncloaked the network neighborhood around them — using their planning activity against them — to see who all was involved. Well done!!!