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The core challenge facing organisations with security protection, defence or
enforcement mandates is to notice and react to warnings and indications prior
to the occurrence of events - for example, to discover a potential threat or
terrorist's plot in time to intervene. In pursuit of this goal, these
organisations gather huge amounts of content from public and classified
sources.
Today Investigators gather significant amounts of evidence when investigating
crime. Information is gathered using interviews (statements and transcripts),
receiving phone calls, collecting clues, spot checks, DNA tests, traffic
movement, transaction flows and so on. All this information then has to be
stored and indexed in a way that makes it is possible to identify trends,
similarities, abnormalities, inaccuracies, or any other kind of clue that would
help in solving the case. Often and certainly in large complex cases, the
resources required to effectively manage and sift through all this data is well
beyond the resources available. The bottlenecks encountered when processing
pieces of information can be attributed to the sequential nature of capture and
value assessment
"Intelligence collection, however, is only the first step in combating
terrorism. A piece of information is like a piece of a puzzle. Oftentimes, only
when a piece of information is combined with many other pieces of information
does the big picture emerge. Moreover, possessing information without more does
not stop terrorism; rather, information must lead to action."
Larry D. Thompson - Deputy Attorney General, Justice Department, 2001-03.
Statement to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The United
States - December 8, 2003.
For a strategic intelligence process to deliver the outputs necessary the
content gathering mechanism faces a number data management, analysis and
presentation challenges, specifically:
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Capturing data from diverse locations and sources over different
communication channels (enterprise networks, the web, fixed and mobile
telephony) |
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Searching for information in unstructured text formats requires a sophisticated
search mechanism that can spot subtle variations rather than relying on
standard search phrases |
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Extracting 'actionable intelligence' needs to from raw information by
identifying association between entities
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Utilising visual presentation tools to provide further clarity |
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Sharing information under strict security protocols and classifications |
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