Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

CIA-backed analysis tool eyed for passenger checks

Reservations company hopes technology can help identify suspected terrorists

January 1, 2002 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Data analysis software backed by the CIA and used by some casinos to catch gambling cheats is now being tested for its potential to detect suspected terrorists and their associates when they make airline, hotel or rental-car reservations.


One of the four companies that operate major computerized reservations and global distribution systems has spent the past three months installing the software, which searches transaction data for nonobvious relationships. A working prototype of the application was due to be completed in late December, according to an IT manager at the reservations company.


The IT manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the secrecy of the project, said his company wouldn't have bought such software prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But after the attacks, officials decided to "go in and take the initiative to start plugging the [security] holes" in the reservations system to help prevent similar attacks from being carried out, he said.


The software, developed by Las Vegas-based Systems Research & Development Inc. (SRD), is supposed to clean up incorrectly entered data and search for possible connections between airline passengers and suspected terrorists on government watch lists. SRD said it can check a passenger's name, address, phone number and other identifying information against those of people who are believed to be terrorists.


The technology can also search for close variations, such as transposed digits within a driver's license number, and detect whether a passenger lives near a suspected terrorist by using latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, SRD said. Development of the software is being partially funded by In-Q-Tel Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based private-sector venture capital firm that the CIA set up in 1999.


The screening application generally runs in batch mode, said Timothy O'Neil-Dunne, a consultant at Tampa, Fla.-based T2Impact Ltd., which was hired by SRD to help with the ongoing installation. But for bookings made within 48 hours of a flight or a hotel stay, the software spools out customer records from IBM mainframe-based reservations systems and analyzes the data in near real time, he said.


At the company that's testing the software, the latter kind of data analysis is expected to take 30 seconds or less, the IT manager said. Staffers will start the testing process by running "canned data" through the software to see what connections it notices, he said. The next step will be to build business rules into the software, such as how many possible connections to a suspected terrorist are needed to flag a passenger as a potential threat and whom to notify if that happens.



Jump to comments

Business Intelligence

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER
Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.
WHITE PAPER
Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.
WHITE PAPER
Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Enterprise Data Governance: Bridging the Business-IT Gap
Register for this live webcast today!

Informatica 9 Launch: Transform your Business. Transform your world.
Business and IT will finally be on the same page. Data quality issues will be a thing of the past. The promise of...

Introducing the HP ProLiant G6 servers
Download this Resource Now!  

 

SAS Information Management Kit

SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. SAS gives 97 of the top 100 companies in the 2007 Fortune 500 THE POWER TO KNOW®.

Webcast: The Information Management Roadmap
Imagine high-quality data, cleansed, analyzed and delivered throughout your organization. Join Computerworld, IT visionary Thornton May and a panel of experts to learn how SAS® can help you make it happen.

View this webcast 
Research Report: Information Management Initiatives at Midsize and Large Organizations
See the top-line results of this Computerworld sponsored survey to see how IT and business leaders are handling information management implementation.

Download this report 
White Paper: Information Management: Better Information for Winning Decisions.
This white paper explains how the SAS Information Evolution Model aids companies in assessing how they use this information to make strategic decisions and drive business.

Download this white paper