[iwar] [fc:Law.Enforcement.Agencies.Learn.the.Value.of.Data.Mining]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-18 21:58:27
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Subject: Law Enforcement Agencies Learn the Value of Data Mining

For your review.  Short of going the technology route, I would recommend
a book called "The Warning Solution" (Intelligent Analysis In The Age Of
Information Overload) by Kristan Wheaton (former linguist, accountant,
lawyer, and military officer).  The book addresses ways to cut through
the overload issues and get to the heart of analysis.  (Published by
AFCEA April 2001, ISBN 0-916159-30-2)
...

Subject: Law Enforcement Agencies Learn the Value of Data Mining  
Author: <a href="mailto:outreachmanager@law-west.org?Subject=Re:%20[LEANALYST]%20Law%20Enforcement%20Agencies%20Learn%20the%20Value%20of%20Data%20Mining%2526In-Reply-To=%2526lt;M1797329253.002.f4is1.5539.1011018202052Z.CC-MAIL*/O=INS/PRMD=GOV%2BDOJ/ADMD=T
ELEMAIL/C=US/@MHS">outreachmanager@law-west.org</a>
Date: 10/18/2001 2:55 PM

October 15, 2001
Law Enforcement Agencies Learn the Value of Data Mining

By Doug Brown

The internet works against, and for, law enforcement and intelligence
agencies.  On the one hand, it opens new channels of communication for
terrorists and gives them, authorities argue, a leg up in the war
against their targets.  On the other hand, it has populated authorities'
databases with reams of information, giving them exponentially more data
than they've ever had, and could ever use. 

"Our signal intelligence communities are awash in data," says Frank
Cilluffo,

deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies'
Global Organized Crime Project.  "Processing the data, even if you have
it, is difficult.  Seeing how that information makes sense or doesn't
make sense is difficult.  .  .  .  It's putting usable information on
those systems, and linking what may not seem linkable in real-time, that
is the challenge."

What intelligence agencies need, expert say, is better data mining
technology ? and lots more of it.  "What they really need to figure out
is a clear vision of how you can come up with smart programs that make
sense of data automatically," says Inderpal Bhandari, founder and CEO of
data mining company Virtual Gold.  "That is the piece they are missing. 

There are new techniques they need to be aware of in the data mining
space.  They need to pull that together, and somebody has to decide how
to use the techniques." After the attacks, Bhandari started writing a
White Paper about the problem, which he will send to intelligence
agencies and other experts in the field. 

One thing the agencies should be doing is using technology that
visualizes their data for them, says Patrick Hogan, Cedar Group's vice
president of content value management technology. 

"These guys are struggling," Hogan says.  "They have huge amounts of
information.  Just the e-mail tips alone [since the Sept.  11 attacks]
would be enormous.  They have to be processing that information, and we
are saying you can visualize that data and extract the key correlations,
all sorts of weird and wonderful pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, and that
releases valuable labor for those guys to go out into the real world and
solve problems."

Michael Welge, director of the automated learning group of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's National Center for
Supercomputing Applications, says intelligence agencies' problems are
unique, but not necessarily uniquely difficult. 

There are no off-the-shelf commercial tools that can meet their data
mining challenges, Welge says, calling on the government to work more
closely with researchers and industry to develop the right tools. 

Shortly after the bombings, in fact, government representatives did call
the University of Illinois' engineering department, asking for any
expertise it could offer in the war against terrorism, Welge says.  He
is drawing up a data mining proposal now to deliver to the government
soon, he says. 

Intelligence agencies have long been aware that they were falling behind
on the technological front.  The Central Intelligence Agency in 1999
paid for the launch of its own nonprofit venture capital firm, called
In-Q-Tel, aimed at giving seed money to companies that could develop
technologies to solve CIA-specific problems. 

Since 1999, In-Q-Tel has funded about 20 companies.  An In-Q-Tel
representative says the company is not talking publicly about its
projects. 

But, the CSIS' Cilluffo says, "I assure you, a lot of what they are
looking at is this: 'How do we make our data mining smarter?' "


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