Networking Information for
Homeland Security
Federal,
state and local agencies charged with the task of identifying national
threats need a tool that allows them to compile, compare, connect, and
share a mountain of distributed information. The challenges are
manifold:
- Important information is distributed –
everywhere.
- The important pieces are not being connected.
- Awareness of Important information needs to be
controlled
THE LINKSPACE SOLUTION
THE CHALLENGES ARE DAUNTING
WHY STANDARD
AUTOMATED TOOLS AREN’T ENOUGH
THE POWER OF LINKSPACE
MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE HOMELAND
SECURITY COMMUNITY
For the Analyst
For the Agent and Technician
For the Agency
Information Manager
LinkSpace networks information. LinkSpace
allows users to create a record of relationships between elements of
information. The relationships represent knowledge –connecting
distributed information with structured context and meaning. These
relationships are then shared with others who may utilize the
relationships to discover that knowledge.
This record of relationships enables users to be
aware of related information, augmenting the utility of the data
collection. With this real-time sharing and awareness of information,
the group as a whole and its individual members rapidly gain knowledge
of relationships they hadn’t perceived.
The process is cumulative. As the LinkSpace network
grows and its elements interact – as individual insights are shared
and group awareness is sharpened – the network of distributed
information becomes increasingly valuable for link analysis and
visualization. Thus, LinkSpace grows knowledge.
Finally, LinkSpace enables agency-designated
controllers to define and manage awareness and access. This
structured two tiered awareness-and-access management approach
balances the need for broad distribution with the need to protect
private and secure information. The awareness of the relationships
that an element of information participates in, and the knowledge
these relationships represent, can be managed based on the system
user’s roles and privileges.
This assures that awareness of
relationships is discreetly shared. Meanwhile, traditional network
privilege management and document control can assure that private or
secure information is accessed on a “need to know” basis.
Important information is distributed –
everywhere.
Maintained in diverse locations:
- Open literature
- Commercial networks
- State and local networks
- Law Enforcement Agency networks
- Defense & Intelligence Agency networks
Stored in diverse formats:
- Structured Data
- Unstructured Documents
- Non-text information
Used and maintained by diverse individuals and
entities with specialized missions, knowledge and expertise:
- Different businesses
- Different federal departments and agencies
- Different end-users (e.g. analysts, field
agents, technicians)
- Potentially different levels of government and
allied intelligence agencies
Merging of all information resources is not
possible. Moreover, most of the information is not important to
Homeland Security
The important pieces are not being connected.
Knowledge is in the understanding of connections
or relationships among important distributed information.
- Relationships can give meaning to otherwise
meaningless information
- Relationships can change information
- Relationships can have new meanings in light of
real-time global events
There is no uniform method for capturing and
sharing knowledge of relationships among distributed information.
Awareness of Important information needs to be
controlled
- High distribution causes information overload
- Resources can contain personal or national
security information
- Information must be presented in context to
convey its importance
In order to solve these challenges, automated tools
have been created that search and categorize different sources. For
example, Search Engines facilitate research within the mountain of
information on the Internet and on other networks, while Portals,
Directories and Databases organize pools of specialized information.
Unfortunately, no amount of static categorization
can replace human intelligence in understanding relationships among
widely-distributed pieces of information. Handling the complexities of
the Homeland Security shared information requires identifying,
validating, and weaving together the seemingly (or previously)
unrelated pieces of information that constitute a security threat. No
computer program can replace the skills of the analyst, the field
agent, and the technician in managing these complex relationships. Nor
can automation exercise the leaps of logic that effective
problem-solving demands.
Thus, the best automated tools will enhance the
human collaboration that is at the heart of the intelligence process.
For this, a new solution is required.
A piece of information passively filed in a Field
Agent’s desk drawer has very little value to the Homeland Security
community. Without awareness of the information or access to it, the
community cannot use it – either alone, or in coordination with other
information. Thus, if that piece of information can be placed in an
accessible repository, its value increases. And if that repository is
then indexed for search, making the piece of information more
accessible, its value increases yet again. Yet, it is still a single
piece of information, one of billions, unrelated to other information
that can give it meaning. Only if that single record can be networked
to other relevant pieces of information does it acquire significance.
As in all networks, if one resource does not provide a solution, it
will be connected to a resource that does. Today, human beings – in
departments, offices and agencies – provide that networking through
their expertise and group interactions. It is this human intelligence
that ultimately adds value to distributed information by
“connecting-the-dots.” LinkSpace allows users to capture and share
these connections. The network of distributed information created by
LinkSpace adds a new layer of understanding and organization to
distributed information.
In addition, LinkSpace lets information participate
in this new layer of understanding and organization yet remain where
it is owned and maintained. Each agency participating in Homeland
Security has its own portals, search engines, shared networks, and
structured data stores that help organize information for access in
support of their mission. Unfortunately, for users without perfect
knowledge of these information architectures, they become an implicit
barrier to discovery. LinkSpace can connect information regardless of
where it is maintained, allowing users to hurdle the hierarchical
boundaries of networks, portals, search engines and file systems that
limit awareness.
Clearly, there is need for an electronic system that
can serve as a “force multiplier,” serving the needs of the Homeland
Security community through cross-connecting information, micro-fusing
important intelligence information, and bringing all relevant
distributed elements into play. Such a network increases the value of
individual pieces of intelligence dramatically. Moreover, it opens the
possibility of even larger-scale connections, bringing many networks
into sync and providing the Homeland Security community with a major
new distributed knowledge sharing - and - awareness asset.
MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE HOMELAND SECURITY
COMMUNITY
The Problem: Analysts sort through mountains
of resources for important information needed to assimilate into
finished intelligence products. Distributed information is not
organized like a traditional library, where, once you locate a book on
a particular subject, it is easy to find related material on nearby
shelves. Analysts need tools to capture knowledge discovered during a
search so it can be recovered during the fusion process, shared across
disciplines, reused for future tasking and reconsidered in light of
new events.
The LinkSpace Solution: LinkSpace allows
analysts to perform micro-fusion of information. Micro-fusion is the
connecting, with explicitly defined relationships, of distributed
pieces of information. Micro-fusion is the capturing of knowledge as
it is discovered during the research process. These Micro-fused
elements can be assimilated in the fusion process, shared with other
analysts for cross-discipline awareness and be reevaluated
intermittently for relevance.
These micro-fused elements become part of a network
of information. As an analyst examines a piece of information,
LinkSpace will stream to the analyst a series of links to all other
information identified by other analysts as relevant to the
information being viewed. In turn, the analyst may enhance the network
of information by contributing his own findings and insights..
When the analyst views any link in the network, he
will be made aware of related links that will contribute directly to
his research. In this way, analysts will avoid the typical
“create-your-own,” start-from-scratch search patterns that waste so
much research time across offices and agencies. They will be connected
very directly to relevant information, taking advantage of the pool of
ongoing intelligence work.
The analyst will also benefit from colleagues’
real-time input on changing events. Perhaps most importantly, he will
be made aware of key information that he was not actively seeking –
information “he didn’t know he needed to know.”
LinkSpace can also alert “cleared” analysts that
information they are viewing is related to material in other,
compartmented directories. With this awareness, an analyst can then
request access authority to those additional directories.
Finally, the network of information can be analyzed
in the aggregate with link analysis and visualization tools for
patterns of relationships.
The Problem: The inter-governmental digital
divide. People in the field do not have perfect knowledge of the
Homeland Security information architecture and may search in the wrong
place, for the wrong thing, or not at all. Neither do they have the
skills or tools to contribute.
The LinkSpace Solution: With LinkSpace,
disparate resources can be connected in a way that puts important
information in the path of discovery using a web browser with
LinkSpace installed. For example, a Dade County FL detective can
create a relationship between a suspect’s driver’s license record in a
NY State database and a pending case in a Dade County FL municipal
database. Other investigators that view the NY State driver’s license
record in the course of an unrelated investigation can be made aware
that the individual is involved with other cases.
This sharing and awareness is unprecedented. With
LinkSpace, any relevant piece of information can become a portal or a
touch point exposing related content. You can share with the “unknown
user” because your material carries its own flags, by being networked
to other links.
It also is an achievable near-term solution because
it uses common hardware and software and can operate securely on
networks such as RISS.NET. It does not require recreating the
information infrastructure.
The Problem: Transformation. You have
attempted to aggregate content on your network in such a way that it
can be searched and shared. You are challenged to continually improve
the management of the data as the volume grows to assure the volume
does not hamper accessibility. The sophisticated application of
taxonomy and metadata techniques – even if applied optimally in a
search – may still return incomprehensible data sets as the volume of
information grows. The promise of increasing value with increasing
information fades. Now, as part of the transformation for Homeland
Security, your uniquely important expertise and datasets have to be
shared. To leverage the nation’s intelligence investment, and to
improve Homeland Security efforts, these disparate datasets must
somehow be coordinated with other repositories and made accessible to
other agencies. It is impractical and undesirable to standardize all
data or merge it into a huge, centralized, inflexible,
least-common-denominator repository. Yet without greater
interoperability, the synergies of our people and resources are not
being realized.
The LinkSpace Solution: Rather than
recreating your information architectures, use LinkSpace and allow
your information to be controlled and maintained within your agency
while participating in a Network of Homeland Security Information.
Manage separate controls on awareness and access to assure the widest
sharing of awareness while assuring distribution on a need to know
basis.
THE LINKSPACE ADVANTAGE
The Network of Information created by LinkSpace
provides the intelligence community with a major new asset, one that
increases its capabilities and impact exponentially. That is the
LinkSpace Advantage.
To learn more about LinkSpace, we welcome your
inquiries at info@linkspace.net
– or contact Tom Bascom, LinkSpace President and Founder, at (703)
848-9841.
