Software analyzes news reports to identify terrorists
Rice University researchers develop artificial intelligence-based computer program which can scan news reports quickly to identify which terrorist group is behind a terrorist attack being covered in the reports
American computer academics say they have created an artificial intelligence-based computer program which can scan news reports quickly to identify which terrorist group is behind a terrorist attack being covered in the reports. They claim the “open source intelligence” scanner gave good results in the wake of last year’s Mumbai attack (Lewis Page notes that we are not dealing here with the IT usage of “open source”: Spies and intelligence analysts use the term “open source intelligence” to refer to material anyone can access — on the Internet, in newspapers, etc.).
“Our group has written software in the highly flexible Python programming language that allows us to ask who might be the responsible party for a terrorist incident using a certain set of parameters, such as weaponry employed, choice of target and tactics,” says Christopher Bronk, a Fellow in Technology, Society and Public Policy at Rice University in Texas.
According to the Rice coders, their terrorist-snifferware uses “the latest techniques from artificial intelligence.” It trawls through a mighty database of news reports compiled by the Institute for the Study of Violent Groups (ISVG) at Sam Houston State University. It seems that as the Mumbai attacks unfolded last year, Rice undergrad Sean Graham began feeding news reports into the mighty program. In a trice, seemingly, it had identified the radical group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as the most likely suspect — as fast or faster than the world’s intelligence agencies were able to.
“We designed the software to better assign attribution in terror attacks, and it appears to have worked,” said Bronk, a former diplomat and member of the U.S. State Department Office of eDiplomacy. “It allowed us to match signatures and say, with some confidence, what groups had the requisite experience, resources and coordinating factors to pull off the Mumbai attacks.”
Bronk collaborated with politics prof Richard Stoll, computing expert Devika Subramanian, and some students to produce the code.
