Network Theory and information gathering | 03.13.2006 | 08:55:52 | Views: 4921 | ID: March 13 '06: There is an emerging tool in the war on terror which has been in development for the last ten years in colleges and universities. The New York Times reported over the weekend that "Network Theory" was developed by mathematicians, physicists and sociologists to help researchers paint pictures on human interaction, relationship and movement but is now beginning to be used by American intelligence agencies to help comb the internet and the voluminous amounts of data coming in to look for terrorists. "By mapping ... connections, network scientists try to expose patterns that might no otherwise be apparent," the Times reported. Part of that technology involves "Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness" - a technology designed to help casino officials in Las Vegas look for cheaters by "correlating information from multiple sources about relationships and earlier transactions," Computer World reported. NORA was developed by Systems Research & Development, a Vegas-based company run by Jeff Jonas. SRD's technology then piqued the interest of the federal government who wanted to use NORA to help create smarter network combing technologies to find information which might lead to terrorist activities, or operations. IBM announced in January 2005 that it had bought SRD and they will now be "integrated into IBM's Information Management software organization," according to a release from the company. Janet Perna, the general manager of IBM's Information Management Software said in the written statement, "The seemingly simple questions of 'who is who?' and 'who knows whom?' cut across a wide variety of business problems today. ... The SRD technology provides solutions to these age-old problems with unparalleled speed and accuracy." That technology coincides with other government information-gathering technologies and programs. Total Information Awareness and Able Danger, are both being used to trace al-Qaeda movements by "identifying linkages and patterns in large volumes of data," the Times reported.
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