From Eastman's Newsletter........and they're worried about vital records?????
- (+) Beyond Google: Total Information Awareness
The following is a Plus Edition-only article. It is copyright 2003 by
Richard W. Eastman and is restricted to subscribers to the Plus Edition
of this newsletter. Please do not forward it to others.
A controversial new project by DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, promises to provide an advanced tool for everyone, including
genealogists. With tools similar to those of the Total Information Awareness
project, almost anything is possible when trying to retrieve information from
online databases. The result would be very similar to the scenes on Star Trek
when Captain Kirk says, "Computer, please tell me …".
Quoting from the Total Information Awareness Web site:
The goal of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program is to
revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and
identify foreign terrorists – and decipher their plans – and thereby enable
the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat
terrorist acts. To that end, the TIA program objective is to create a
counter-terrorism information system that: (1) increases information
coverage by an order of magnitude, and affords easy future scaling; (2)
provides focused warnings within an hour after a triggering event occurs or
an evidence threshold is passed; (3) can automatically cue analysts based
on partial pattern matches and has patterns that cover 90% of all
previously known foreign terrorist attacks; and (4) supports
collaboration, analytical reasoning and information sharing so that
analysts can hypothesize, test and propose theories and mitigating
strategies about possible futures, so decision-makers can effectively
evaluate the impact of current or future policies and prospective
courses of action.
The TIA program operates by creating a huge database of databases, probably
bigger than any other database in existence today. This new database will
contain all the scraps of information that the government can find out about
people and events. It will include names, birth dates and locations
(worldwide), school attendance records, family relationships, medical
records, bank records, credit card information, telephone calls, credit card
receipts, e-mails, airline, bus and train tickets purchased, passport
information, drivers' licenses, automobile registrations, firearms sales,
intelligence information and much, much more. The database will probably
index the entire Internet as well (none of today's search engines index more
than 20% to 25% of the existing Web pages). As the TIA project Web site
states:
Technically, the TIA program is focusing on the development of: 1)
architectures for a large-scale counter-terrorism database, for system
elements associated with database population, and for integrating
algorithms and mixed-initiative analytical tools; 2) novel methods for
populating the database from existing sources, create innovative new
sources, and invent new algorithms for mining, combining, and refining
information for subsequent inclusion into the database; and, 3)
revolutionary new models, algorithms, methods, tools, and techniques for
analyzing and correlating information in the database to derive actionable
intelligence.
In other words, TIA will relegate Google to the Stone Age. The search
capabilities of TIA will be far superior to anything found on Google or
elsewhere. TIA's user interface will take the words you enter (possibly
entered either on the keyboard or as speech input) and link you to relevant
information. It will make inferences through the use of artificial
intelligence (AI) software. For instance, if the database finds an airline
ticket for John Doe's travel to Lima, Peru, it will also automatically check
hotel records and credit card receipts for Mr. Doe (and any of his known
aliases) during those date in order to create a complete picture of his
travel activities. It will also search for similar information about Mr.
Doe's relatives and known friends and business associates, especially looking
at their travel records for the same timeframe.
If you cannot think of an appropriate search term to specify, TIA will
suggest new search terms for you, based upon previous results. Its search
techniques will use Genoa II, described as a "cognitive amplifier that will
weave together human and machine intelligences more tightly than ever
before." TIA will also feature Human Language Technology: machine processing
of both voice and text. Database records will automatically be translated
from one language to another during searches.
This new technology even has a new buzzword to describe it: "Dataveillance
technology." This technology obviously can be used either for good or for
evil purposes. It does indeed prove that George Orwell's predictions are
coming true, although about twenty years later than predicted. "Big Brother"
will thrive and grow in the Total Information Awareness databases.
Many groups, especially the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and
the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), are opposed to the creation of the
Total Information Awareness project. The Electronic Frontier Foundation
writes, "The very workings of TIA would depend on access to massive amounts
of personal information stored in electronic databases. By definition, the
program is privacy-intrusive. As reported in the Washington Times,
Administration officials have acknowledged that even the limited privacy
protections for personal information provided under current law would have to
be modified in order to fully implement the program."
The cost of the Total Information Awareness project is estimated to be about
$200 million a year. That sounds like a lot of money until one realizes that
is less than the price of a single B-1 bomber. In other words, it is a
bargain-priced weapon with much more capability than similarly-priced
weapons. In fact, it is less than one dollar per year per American citizen, a
paltry price if it helps keep America and other countries safe from
terrorism.
The storage and use of personal information may be a cause for caution, if
not alarm. On the other hand, many uses of TIA could benefit mankind even
beyond the identification of terrorists. Medical researchers would be
delighted with such a tool. Imagine being able to compare the medical
histories of every single cancer patient, looking for common factors that
might cause the disease. Such tools have never been available to medical
researchers, but that may change within a very few years.
I suspect that most computer-owning genealogists can appreciate the use of a
similar tool for genealogy purposes. The present documents already state that
the TIA databases will track family relationships, as terrorists frequently
are related to one another. Presumably, these family relationships will be
tracked for two or three generations, possibly more. Given the power and
storage capability of TIA, tracking many more generations should be trivial.
With its huge storage capabilities, adding historical information from old
newspapers and other printed documents should be easy. If available, TIA
could easily swallow gigabytes of transcribed databases. TIA could easily
look for similar names in different locations. However, its real strength
could come when looking for more random information. If you have a Civil War
ancestor with unknown origins, wouldn't it be nice to search all the old
newspapers of the late 1800s for his name? He just might be mentioned "back
home," where his family still lived. Likewise, hundreds of thousands of
obituaries could be searched for a mention of your ancestor listed in the
section that says, "The deceased is survived by…"
So how does one access the TIA? Initially, you and I won't. In fact, it
probably will not be available on the Internet. This powerful new tool will
obviously have access restricted to just those with an official need.
However, many new technologies developed for military purposes by DARPA and
other government agencies in past years are now in the hands of consumers.
For instance, the Global Positioning System, or GPS, is a navigational system
using satellite signals to fix the location of a receiver on or above the
earth's surface. It was once so secret that the military was not allowed to
even admit that GPS existed. Today you can buy GPS equipment at Wal-Mart.
Other technologies invented by the military likewise have been exported to
widespread civilian use. The government's Springfield Armory first perfected
mass production in the early 1800s. The first computers were developed under
secret government contract during World War II for the purpose of predicting
the trajectory of artillery shells. Oh yes, a little thing called the
Internet was also invented by DARPA (and not by Al Gore). My guess is that
the TIA technology, if not its database, will be available to the public
within a decade or two. When it does appear for public use, I have no doubt
that it will have built-in safeguards to protect the privacy of living
individuals.
Public scrutiny of TIA is a good thing. Safeguards must be built in to guard
against Big Brother abuses. However, the underlying technology promises to
provide perhaps the most powerful tool ever invented for military personnel,
scientists, manufacturers, sports writers and, yes, even genealogists.
I want the TIA and I want it now. Google now seems so "analog."
You can read more about the Total Information Awareness project at its home
page: <A
HREF="http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm">
http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm</A>. There are many Web sites that
describe the controversies surrounding the Total Information Awareness
initiative, including the Electronic Freedom Foundation's Web site at: <A
HREF="http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/">
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/</A>. Further sites can be found by Google at: <A
HREF="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&
q=%22Total+Information+Awareness%22+%2BEFF</A>