home

Another Data-Mining Program Bites the Dust

By Jeralyn, Section War on Terror
Posted on Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 11:36:46 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

Say goodbye to Operation Advise, which cost $42 million. The DHS announced today it was scrapping the program, probably for good.

Known as ADVISE and begun in 2003, the Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement program was developed by the department and the Lawrence Livermore and Pacific Northwest national laboratories for use by many DHS components, including immigration, customs, border protection, biological defense and its intelligence office.

Reason for abandonment: It didn't comply with privacy rules.

[T]wo internal Homeland Security reports found that tests had used live data about real people rather than made-up data for one to two years without meeting privacy requirements...

< Ala. Judge Investigated for Spanking Prisoners | Norman Hsu Fails to Appear for Court, Warrant Issued >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    Another Data-Mining Program Bites the Dust | 4 comments (4 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

    Beware The Juggernaut. (none / 0) (#1)
    by Semanticleo on Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 11:50:59 AM EST
    Just covering what tracks they can, while they can.

    Has the federal voluntarily (none / 0) (#2)
    by oculus on Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 12:37:19 PM EST
    terminated any other data mining programs?

    Don't Get Too Excited (none / 0) (#3)
    by Strick on Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 12:37:48 PM EST
    Until you read this paragraph from the article:

    "ADVISE is not expected to be restarted," Knocke said. DHS' Science and Technology directorate "determined that new commercial products now offer similar functionality while costing significantly less to maintain than ADVISE."

    Oh, and this bit, too:

    one report also found that department analysts found the system time-consuming to use.

    They're just replacing it with more cost effective commercial products.  Products that will be more efficient at what they want to do.

    What is coming (none / 0) (#4)
    by Semanticleo on Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 12:44:32 PM EST
    No techie, but I understand the main issue is one program speaks in Chinese while another speaks Italian.  The programs are difficult to interface.

    It would be hard to imagine them not working to
    write code for a pan-program which ties all databases into a SkyNet model.

    Another Data-Mining Program Bites the Dust | 4 comments (4 topical)

    Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment