Government research to track online networking
Christopher Dela Cruz and Megan Carr / Staff Writers
Issue date: 2/21/07 Section: Page One
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By Christopher Dela Cruz and Megan Carr
Staff Writers
The Department of Homeland Security is paying Rutgers $3 million to oversee development of computing methods that could monitor suspicious social networks and opinions found in news stories, Web blogs and other Web information to identify indicators of potential terrorist activity.
The software and algorithms could rapidly detect social networks among groups by identifying who is talking to whom on public blogs and message boards, researchers said. Computers could ideally pick out entities trying to conceal themselves under different aliases.
It would also be able to sift through massive amounts of text and decipher opinions - such as anti-American sentiment - that would otherwise be difficult to do manually.
The program is designed to sift rapidly through huge amounts of data. It has also been described as a sort of "Super Google" researchers such as Eduard Hovy at The University of Southern California, to explain the scope and quickness of the technology.
One of the ideal results would be for Homeland Security officials to be able to "find a suspicious group based on its pre-event communication activity before they act," according to a PowerPoint presentation used by researchers to explain the project.
Nicholas Belkin, a University professor who studied in the field of Information Retrieval Systems, said these techniques have the potential for abuse if they fall into the wrong hands.
"If you can identify relations between terrorists, it could be used for other groups who may not want to be identified," Belkin said. "It could be used to identify members of groups who want to form a demonstration or oppose a particular event or government policy."
"Congress has enacted many laws designed to protect personal privacy in the digital environment," said Greg Lastowka, an assistant professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law-Camden. "Whether current laws are sufficient is contested."
Staff Writers
The Department of Homeland Security is paying Rutgers $3 million to oversee development of computing methods that could monitor suspicious social networks and opinions found in news stories, Web blogs and other Web information to identify indicators of potential terrorist activity.
The software and algorithms could rapidly detect social networks among groups by identifying who is talking to whom on public blogs and message boards, researchers said. Computers could ideally pick out entities trying to conceal themselves under different aliases.
It would also be able to sift through massive amounts of text and decipher opinions - such as anti-American sentiment - that would otherwise be difficult to do manually.
The program is designed to sift rapidly through huge amounts of data. It has also been described as a sort of "Super Google" researchers such as Eduard Hovy at The University of Southern California, to explain the scope and quickness of the technology.
One of the ideal results would be for Homeland Security officials to be able to "find a suspicious group based on its pre-event communication activity before they act," according to a PowerPoint presentation used by researchers to explain the project.
Nicholas Belkin, a University professor who studied in the field of Information Retrieval Systems, said these techniques have the potential for abuse if they fall into the wrong hands.
"If you can identify relations between terrorists, it could be used for other groups who may not want to be identified," Belkin said. "It could be used to identify members of groups who want to form a demonstration or oppose a particular event or government policy."
"Congress has enacted many laws designed to protect personal privacy in the digital environment," said Greg Lastowka, an assistant professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law-Camden. "Whether current laws are sufficient is contested."