Jeff Jonas is one of the country’s leading practitioners of the dark art of data analysis. Casino chiefs and government spooks alike have used his CIA-funded “Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness” software to scour databases for hidden connections.
So you’d think that Jonas would be all into the idea of using these data-mining systems to predict who the next terrorist attacker might be.
Think again. “Though data mining has many valuable uses, it is not well suited to the terrorist discovery problem,” he writes in a new study, co-authored with the Cato Institute’s Jim Harper. “This use of data mining would waste taxpayer dollars, needlessly infringe on privacy and civil liberties, and misdirect the valuable time and energy of the men and women in the national security community.” Are you listening, NSA?
Jonas doesn’t have a problem cobbling together information on suspects from various databases. It’s using these databases to forecast a terrorist’s behavior — think market research, but for Al-Qaeda — that Jonas hates. “The possible benefits of predictive data mining for finding planning or preparation for terrorism are minimal. The financial costs, wasted effort, and threats to privacy and civil liberties are potentially vast,” he writes.
One of the fundamental underpinnings of predictive data mining in the commercial sector is the use of training patterns. Corporations that study consumer behavior have millions of patterns that they can draw upon to profile their typical or ideal consumer. Even when data mining is used to seek out instances of identity and credit card fraud, this relies on models constructed using many thousands of known examples of fraud per year.
Terrorism has no similar indicia. With a relatively small number of attempts every year and only one or two major terrorist incidents every few yearseach one distinct in terms of planning and executionthere are no meaningful patterns that show what behavior indicates planning or preparation for terrorism. Unlike consumers shopping habits and financial fraud, terrorism does not occur with enough frequency to enable the creation of valid predictive models. Predictive data mining for the purpose of turning up terrorist planning using all available demographic and transactional data points will produce no better results than the highly sophisticated commercial data mining done today [with results in the low single-digits ed.]. The one thing predictable about predictive data mining for terrorism is that it would be consistently wrong.
Without patterns to use, one fallback for terrorism data mining is the idea that any anomaly may provide the basis for investigation of terrorism planning. Given a typical American pattern of Internet use, phone calling, doctor visits, purchases, travel, reading, and so on, perhaps all outliers merit some level of investigation. This theory is offensive to traditional American freedom, because in the United States everyone can and should be an outlier in some sense. More concretely, though, using data mining in this way could be worse than searching at random; terrorists could defeat it by acting as normally as possible.
Treating anomalous behavior as suspicious may appear scientific, but, without patterns to look for, the design of a search algorithm based on anomaly is no more likely to turn up terrorists than twisting the end of a kaleidoscope is likely to draw an image of the Mona Lisa.
Civil libertarians and bloggers have talked ’til they’re blue in the face about how lame this kind of terror-predicting is. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard a giant of the field, like Jonas, come out against the practice — at least not on-the-record. Let’s hope this is one conversation that the feds are monitoring.
(Big ups: Daou)
UPDATE 11:49 AM: Shane Harris here. Die-hard proponents of pattern-based ‘data mining’ to catch terrorists will remain unconvinced by Jonas’ and Harper’s argument. While it’s true that data mining in the commercial sector is based upon “training patterns,” backers of systems such as Total Information Awareness will say, yes, and that’s why data mining for terrorists has to start with hundreds — maybe thousands — of known or potential terrorist patterns to look for. A major part of TIA research was the creation of terrorist attack templates through red teaming exercises, in which experts were paid to come up with devious and clandestine plots that a terrorist might conceivably attempt. Their various machinations would, presumably, leave a set of digital footprints — airline tickets purchased, money wired, hotels paid for, and so on — and THAT data would be mined for clues.
What’s also interesting about this paper is the combination of the authors. Jim Harper is a well-known and articulate activist, and has long since staked out central territory in the security vs. privacy debate. But Jonas has stayed out of politics. Indeed, those who’ve met him will know that he sticks out like a sore West coast thumb among Washington gear heads, being unafraid to use the word “dude” in formal conversation and happily acknowledging his ignorance of most Beltway insider baseball. But those who know Jonas and have heard him speak about electronic terrorist hunting know that, like his co-author Harper, he has a strong libertarian streak. Maybe Jonas wouldn’t put it quite that way — dude — but it’s there.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Of course there is privacy concerns and of course there is potential for abuse. Name something that can
C-Low, thanks, your check is in the mail!
Careful, though, that subliterate moron schtick was almost over the top. No one’s going to believe you’re for real…
Bullshit.
“Their various machinations would, presumably, leave a set of digital footprints — airline tickets purchased, money wired, hotels paid for, and so on”
Bullshit.
If we look at the information footprint that the 9/11 hijackers left, what have we got?
their entry records
some flights that they took.
phone records on their non-terror phones.
basically these guys lived below the radar.
little of what they did would attract attention..
as for money transfers- well there are informal money transfer methods that immigrants use.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html
I think this comments thread gives us some perpective. Clearly there are a lot of Americans who will support data mining whether or not experts say it’s effective or legal.
They want the capability used. It’s no more complex than that. Unintended consequences, like the data being shipped to other Federal agencies to assist in criminal prosecutions, or being used for political opposition research, do not matter.
And will not until a Democrat does it. You heard it here first.
As a long time employee of the National Security Agency, I do not agree entirely with conclusions expressed in this article. Data mining is and has been extremely useful in building detailed and complex databases on a number of potential threats to the U.S. For example, detailed information on the enemy’s Order of Battle are constructed from intercepted data including sigint/comint and elint. Electronic profiles of weapons systems are developed. The list is endless. And much of the data mining is highly target specific….so it more akin to a laser than a shotgun.
yes, and what about just simply “mailing” cash
I am surprised that a man of his credibility made the assumption that terrorist activity is limited to a handful of incidents each year. While I understand that his focus may be limited to domestic attacks here in the United States, there is and always has been terrorist actiity throughout the world, and there is a vast collection of data to draw on. While I agree with his conclusion that forecasting terrorist activity is problematic, the assertion that there is not enough data to draw on to begin such a project is unfounded. I would argue that completing the project is the real challenge, because of its reliance on subjective conclusions to compensate for unknowns, its continual need for new input and maintenance. In theory, it works best on a targeted audience of limited scope. A system that monitors everything and everybody is too broad.
yes, i want to be a joint military for machanical automotive service.
i want to be a joint military for automotive services
Now I have been working. Rappelz unwittingly with the growth of the past few years, Rappelz has been updating, I also busy, but I have not forgotten the game. Work and is inseparable from the game, I like Rappelz, even if the equipment is not good, even if I have no much rappelz gold. I also very happy, because I have many friends in the game, so what can be said, does not, as long as you said to.
All things are the memories, before all things have been imprinted in my mind, the friends all have left the 2moons, sometimes before when the sleeping I often think of the previous screen, together with friends upgrade, earn the 2moons dil and together play with friends, playing now I also feeling some tired, I do not know what things I persist in
they often like to ask something about the players looks like, family, and in the game can earn how much 2moons gold, I do not know these people are playing the game or game play them
in order to play this game I spend money to buy the flyff penya, the BB again left me at the same time, same situation when I hard to get it, my angry can not use the words describe, if I was not operated for a full and the lack of time, then I do not have any words to say, but last time also like this.
Other players can, I think I can too, many players said that BB can let us get more flyff gold, if you do not have enough flyff gold in the game, and then you can not do many things, in the reality world also like this. But I more like through my effort to get the success, that success can let me memorable forever.
If you think that play game was important that have you thought about your parents? I want to say that when you played game that you do not forget your parents and friends. When you used your parents give your money to buy the Archlord gold, did you thought that money was your parents
The thing with non-Christians is that they are out
smarted by Cultists daily with data…Only people
who actually know God,catch such people…
Awesome article.