Systems Overview

Our archive of information on TIA is in its infancy. We will be adding much more information as soon as we can. If you feel there are errors in our information or can provide further insight into these systems please notify webmaster@eff.org.

1. Collaboration technology: the idea is to work "faster, smarter, jointer"
   • Genoa (as predecessor)
   • Genoa II (now beginning)

2. Dataveillance technology: Undersecretary Pete Aldridge: "The purpose of TIA would be to determine the feasibility of searching vast quantities of data to determine links and patterns indicative of terrorist activities."

   DARPA has said it needs a "very large scale databases covering comprehensive information about all potential terrorist threats; those who are planning, supporting or preparing to carry out such events; potential plans; and potential targets. . . . The database envisioned is of an unprecedented scale, will most likely be distributed, must be capable of being continuously updated, and must support both autonomous and semi-automated analysis. . . . The potential sources of information about possible terrorist activities will include extensive existing databases. Innovative technologies are sought for treating these databases as a virtual, centralized, grand database. This will require technologies for automatically determining schemas, access methods and controls, and translation of complex English language queries into the appropriate language for the relevant databases."

   • Genisys (designing new databases, using old databases)
   • Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD) (mining algorithms)
   • Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment (WAE) (terrorist group information "signatures," modeling, prediction)
   • FutureMap (market analysis/prediction)
   • Bio-Surveillance (combines bio-medical data-mining with environmental sensors)
3. Biometrics for human identification:
   • Human ID at a Distance (HumanID) (multimodal sensor fusion (face, iris, gait, expression recognition)
4. Human language technology: machine processing of both voice and text with obvious implications for transcribing wiretap voice recordings but also for textual data-mining (TDM) [more on TDM (PDF)]
   • Effective, Affordable, Reusable Speech-to-Text (EARS)
   • Translingual Information Detection, Extraction and Summarization (TIDES)
   • Babylon
   • Communicator