Computer Models Find Patterns In Asymmetric Threats

The Narrative Fallacy brings us a story about a project by University of Alabama researchers to develop a database capable of anticipating targets for future guerrilla attacks. Quoting Space War: "Adversaries the US currently faces in Iraq rely on surprise and apparent randomness to compensate for their lack of organization, technology, and firepower. 'One way to combat these attacks is to identify trends in the attackers' methods, then use those trends to predict their future actions,' said UA-Huntsville researcher Wes Colley. 'Some trends from these attacks show important day-to-day correlations. If we can draw inferences from those correlations, then we may be able to save lives by heightening awareness of possible events or changing the allocation of our security assets to provide more protection.' Researchers reviewed the behavior signatures of terrorists on 12,000 attacks between 2003 and mid-2007 to calculate relative probabilities of future attacks on various target types."

Re:Terrible idea

[caffeinemessiah]

The attacks are surprises and random, how are they going to try to extrapolate patterns with computers?

Even better -- if you look in television static long enough, you are going to find a pattern. Either they've found some hidden predictor of attacks, or maybe someone needs a course in basic Ramsey theory [wikipedia.org], which deals with conditions under which order (patterns) must occur even in random noise.

Consider this example (*not* meant as an analogy for the discrete math nazis): you have an infinite sequence of completely random letters over the alphabet. What is the probability of finding "abc" repeated 15 times with a gap of exactly 10 letters between successive repeats? If the stream is indeed completely random, then the probability is non-zero and you will EVENTUALLY (probably) see the "pattern".

Re:Terrible idea

[EricTheMad]

The attacks are surprises and random, how are they going to try to extrapolate patterns with computers?

The article doesn't refer to the attacks as random, but says that they rely on "apparent randomness". Nothing humans do is ever truly random, there are always patterns. They aren't trying to predict when and where and attack will happen, only what target are more likely to be hit. From the article:

For instance, if there were an attack on a government target, that somewhat increased the chance of an attack on a police target over the next several days. Armed with this knowledge, commanders could allocate greater than usual resources to protect police assets more carefully for several days after an attack on a government target.

Re:You're Tax Dollars At Work Frylock...

[bondsbw]

In case you didn't read the article, it's the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

By the way... both UA and UAH are national leaders in homeland security and law enforcement technology research. Add UAB, with its biomedical research and other engineering programs, and Alabama universities are home to some of the best engineering and technology research in the nation.

Re:You're Tax Dollars At Work Frylock...

[johndiii]

Not to mention the fact that the Marshall Space Flight Center is in Huntsville. That Saturn V thing? No way it could have actually reached space, it was designed in Alabama.

But this is Slashdot; it's useless to try rebut the groupthink (read: prejudice) with facts.

Re:Save Lives?

[cowwoc2001]

How about not placing artillery and missile positions in densely populated civilian neighborhoods? That way you don't get bombed.

Well, unfortunately the guys placing the artillery are not necessarily the ones who live there, and the ones who do live there will get a gun pointed at their family if they ask for it to be moved.

Which is not to say that civilians getting caught in the middle between two warring sides is anything new or novel, but the least we could do is not try to dismiss it by implying they deserve to get killed.

They don't deserve to be killed but nor do our guys. Our obligation is to do our best to hit the terrorists without harming the civilians. If that becomes impossible then it is perfectly acceptable to go ahead with the strike. Terrorists will embed themselves in civilian centers this way so long as it pays off. That is, so long as it prevents governments from attacking them or it gives those governments a bad name once they do the terrorists will continue to do this. We need to stop practicing double-standards which make it impossible for Western governments to win this war.

Case in point: when the Lebanese army went into a Palestinian camp in 2007 and took out terrorists alongside civilians not a word of condemnation was uttered. Hundreds of civilians died yet the UN, US and all surrounding Arab states defended their actions. When Israel did the exact same thing in 2002 (with a very low civilian death count) there was no end to the condemnation they received.

Here is an example of what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Defensive_Shield [wikipedia.org]
\-> Palestinians murder hundreds of Israeli civilians in a matter of a month
\-> Israeli go out and kill the terrorists
\-> They are accused of genocide. The media, UN and all major rights groups estimate the death toll into the thousands.
\-> Months later the UN publishes a report which affirms what Israel has been saying all along: "Fifty-two Palestinian deaths had been confirmed by the hospital in Jenin by the end of May 2002. IDF also place the death toll at approximately 52. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 were killed, a figure that has not been substantiated in the light of the evidence that has emerged." http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/ [un.org]

Attitudes like this ensure that terrorism is hear to stay for decades to come.