Director of National Intelligence Report Details Data Mining Programs

DNI Report Details Data Mining Programs -
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/02/dni_report_details_data_mining.html

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided an overview of U.S. intelligence data mining development programs in a new report to Congress (pdf).

Data mining is used by intelligence agencies to search through databases in order to discern patterns of activity that could indicate a threat to national security.

The new report presents brief descriptions of several data mining-related intelligence projects, some of which have previously been publicly identified and others that appear to be newly disclosed.

“The Video Analysis and Content Extraction (VACE) project seeks to automate what is now a very tedious, generally human-powered process of reviewing video for content that is potentially of intelligence value.”

“Reynard is a seedling effort to study the emerging phenomenon of social (particularly terrorist) dynamics in virtual worlds and large-scale online games and their implications for the Intelligence Community.”

“Because application of results from these research projects may ultimately have implications for privacy and civil liberties, IARPA [the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency] is also investing in projects that develop privacy protecting technologies,” the report stated.

The ODNI Report to Congress is unclassified, but was accompanied by a classified annex. See “Data Mining Report,” ODNI Report to Congress, February 15, 2008

Full unclassified DNI data mining report (.pdf)

U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/02/dni_report_details_data_mining.html

By Ryan Singel February 22, 2008 | 2:15:43 PMCategories: Spooks Gone Wild

Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence.

The Reynard project will begin by profiling online gaming behavior, then potentially move on to its ultimate goal of "automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world."

• The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.

• If it shows early promise, this small seedling effort may increase its scope to a full project.
  
  Reynard will conduct unclassified research in a public virtual world environment. The research will use publicly available data and will begin with observational studies to establish baseline normative behaviors.

The publicly available report -- which was mandated by Congress following earlier concerns over data-mining programs -- also mentions several other data-mining initiatives. These include:

• Video Analysis and Content Extraction - software to automatically identify faces, events and objects in video

• Tangram - A system that wants to create surveillance and threat warning system that evaluates known threats and finds unknown threats to issue warnings ahead of an attack

• Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination - This tool is reminiscent of the supposedly-defunct Total Information Awareness program. It seeks to access disparate databases to find patterns of known bad behavior. The program plans to work with domestic law enforcement and Homeland Security.

The report gives no indication why the find-a-terrorist cell in Sims project is called Reynard, though that is a traditional trickster figure in literature.

i'm sure eventually this will be applied to finding political dissidents, non-conformists, home schoolers, constitutionalists, prepers, et. al.

the data sets will most assuredly include web forums!

if all this was in the Patriot Act... whats next?


Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover ""domestic,"" as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act ""dangerous to human life"" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.

" Section 802 of the Act creates the federal crime of "domestic terrorism." Among other things, this section states that acts committed within the United States "dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws" can be considered acts of domestic terrorism if they "appear to be intended" to "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion," or "to intimidate or coerce a civilian population." This provision applies to United States citizens, as well as aliens. "

A lot of protests are acts intended to attack or throw light upon a particular government policy. According to the nebulous definition of 'domestic terrorism' as espoused by Section 802 of the Patriot Act, such acts of dissent now fall under the definition of terrorism."

from the report:

Jackbooted webbots! Urbansurvival called it right.