[Air-L] data mining for terrorist.... it doesn't work

jeremy hunsinger jhuns at vt.edu
Wed Oct 8 12:43:24 PDT 2008


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10059987-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


October 7, 2008 9:30 AM PDT
Government report: Data mining doesn't work well
Posted by Declan McCullagh

The most extensive government report to date on whether terrorists can
be identified through data mining has yielded an important conclusion:
It doesn't really work.

A National Research Council report, years in the making and scheduled
to be released Tuesday, concludes that automated identification of
terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism "is neither
feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology
development efforts." Inevitable false positives will result in
"ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" being incorrectly
flagged as suspects.



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