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The FBI's IT Expansion Plans
Lam1969 writes "The FBI is fast-tracking the hiring of IT professionals, reports Computerworld. Computer scientists, engineers, IT specialists and IT project managers are wanted to develop systems to support FBI analysts and agents working in the field. Large-scale database development projects are part of the FBI's IT expansion as well. From the article: "The FBI is also focusing on data warehousing as well as federated search technology, which allows a single search query to be deployed across a number of databases, regardless of whether those databases belong to the same protocol or platform.""
This is likely to implement the Real ID act which essentially amounts to a federally unfunded mandated ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account or participate in almost any way with any federal institution or service.
The thing about this ID card is what kind of information will be encoded in it. At a very minimum, name, DOB, sex, ID number, image and address, but also additional information that will likely be included are biometrics with some folks even proposing genetic sequences. However, a major problem with these cards is the inclusion of machine readable technologies included in them that has the very real possibility of making ID theft easier. Additionally, the RealID act requires people to have a physical address. i.e. NO post office boxes unless you are a judge or government agent.
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FBI is planning to recruit any/all Google staff. ;)
how well the information gathered by google for advertising would benefit the fbi so decided that the one stop search all method is quite usefull. integrate all their electronic databases into a google search server that's not online with the main net, and you have a powerfull search appliance for government
or something
It's a government agency, what did you expect? They just let you in without any screening whatsoever?
The US government wants to make sure that, if you join their ranks, they know more about you than anybody else. IMO, a good thing.
"MY APOCALYPTIC TENOR HAS NOT BEEN DISPELLED!" - T-Rex, qwantz.com
Since they'll get what they pay for, the conclusion is obvious.
"Hey, Boss . . . I've just finished encrypting all of our communications to make us immune to eavesdropping."
"Yeah, John? How did you set it up?"
"I used this really secure CSS encryption . . . I downl - er, wrote the source code myself!"
Oh, come on now. I'm sure the Bush administration would never, ever ask a Federal agency to do something explicitly forbidden by law. Nor would they ever use secrets for political gain. To suggest otherwise would be blatantly partisan!
Oh - and as far as the FBI fast-tracking new hires to deal with sensitive information? Two words: Robert Hanssen.
And people wonder why there are so many openings?
I fail at least 2 of them even though i live in the US, I'm not a citizen and there is no way I will give up smoking good herbs. I only drink once in a blue moon, but smoke weed on a regular basis, as i have done for the past 30 years or so. Much less problems with weed. As long as you stick to alcohol, FBI don't mind you beeing stupendously drunk each night, but smoking a joint while watching TV is bad. Go figure. And I will while smoking my devil head bong!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Don't get your hopes up. The FBI has had some "master" database system in the works for years and it's been a pile of shit. By all accounts it's been a massive waste of money and it hasn't shown any results.
What this sounds like is that they finally realized that they need to build the system from the inside out and not rely on contractors etc. todo the job.
However, I expect much like everything else, once all the people are hired the project plan presented with be full of unrealisic goals and timelines.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
> You mean google?
5 5234&tid=185&tid=103&tid=218
no:
* Google is (primarily) a search engine for unstructured data (documents, web pages, etc)
* Data warehousing is a method of consolidating & distributing primarily structured data
* Federated searching of databases is a method of spreading a search across multiple databases
So, data warehousing would be used to consolidate explicit data from multiple sources like:
- financial, credit, and purchasing info
- legal history
- travel info
- demographics & psychographics
- personal relationship data (friends, family members, friends of friends, etc)
- organizational memberships
Once together within a data warehouse you can easily ship that integrated set of data to data marts for further analysis:
- trend analysis
- searching (not freeform like google with tons of false positives, but contextual)
- scoring - for degree of match between people & organizations and established profiles
This is considerably more powerful than google for this application, though a google-like solution would also be useful for all the unstructured documents. The warehouse could even incorporate links to documents with the integrated personal info.
Federated searching is a completely separate solution that overlaps warehousing: in which you use modern capabilities of db2 or oracle (but db2 especially) to create a virtual database that maps to possibly hundreds of databases behind it. One query will be sent to all that it applies to (the optimiser is smart enough to know which to send it to usually). The reason for federation is that it is supposedly easier to implement than warehousing (don't have to move data into another platform). The downsides though include:
- performance will generally stink
- aggregate operations like scoring or trending can't be done on large sets of data
- it's fragile, and prone to break easily
But perhaps as an initial deliverable it could allow you to provide narrowly scoped searches across a variety of databases very quickly.
I'm not surprised that they're planning to do this. Ok, well a little surprised that they didn't do it at least four years ago - the data warehousing at least is a set of very mature methodologies & technologies. But they'll probably blow it - remember the $170m fiasco with SAIC over their "Virtual Case File" project?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/13/14
Note that the Virtual Case File project also included a data warehouse. That wsa probably flushed though, so no code reuse I suspect.
The FBI Liason released at a press conference this statement
In other news it was found that 300 low paid FBI employees are missing and several of the core servers that housed other sensitive data are also missing. A yellow post-it note was found at the scene which reads....
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Come on, you don't think Bush really turned his back on the TIA project so easily, do you?
if I walk into the interview and ask "Guns! When do we get guns!"
There seem to be quite a few examples of the FBI engaging marketing students on 'Projects' NPR was talking about it last week too http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/11/22/state/n081156S81.DTL&type=printable
http://www.ur.msstate.edu/news/stories/2004/fbimar ketingplan.asp
Connecting People who want to Learn with People who love to Teach since 1998
Knowing the FBI, I am putting my money on a "scalabale implementation of the lastest in RDBMS technology called....Microsoft Access"
So, in otherwords, the fbi is starting another big unsuccessful project to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into?
It's called a "Passport" and I use it in just about every circumstance that calls for more than one form of ID, since for ID purposes, it counts for three (Birth Cert+Social Security Card+Drivers License).
Well, it counts for birth cert, SS, and state ID, I wouldn't call it driver's license, since you aren't supposed to show it if you are actually pulled over while driving. But the issue here isn't that one ID already exists, but that it will be essentially required. It would be as if you were required to get a passport to get a DL or state ID, and the two are tied together so that any state's info is linked to the national database. Then it doesn't matter what you pull out and show them, they have access to information from the feds and all 50 states.
But yes, I too show my passport often when I need to prove ID as well as citizenship. It is much easier to have that than worry about carying around my birth certificate and a state ID or other combination to that effect.
Learn to love Alaska
Well, you not entirely wrong, just mostly.
A passport does not "count for three" forms of ID. First, your birth certificate is not a form of ID, only proof of citizenship for the person named on the certificate. Your Social Security card is not a form of identification, only proof that the person named on the card has registered with the IRS and Social Security Administration. Your Passport is not a replacement for a driver's license, as you do not even need a driver's license to get a passport, and try whipping out your passport the next time you get pulled over for speeding. I also normally use my passport as a form of ID. I have never had a situation that called for two forms of ID, where they would accept the passport as more than one of those forms.
You are correct that a passport has "name, dob, sex, id number, image, address (also required to be physical " however, that address does not have to be verified. If you check the official U.S. passport site. You will see that you are required to bring proof of citizenship(Birth Certificate or Naturalization Certificate except under extraordinary circumstances), a valid picture ID (Driver's license, Government ID, or Military ID) with a picture in which you are recognizable, two photos, and the fee. When I got my passport a couple years ago it wasn't even mentioned that my permanent address on the form was different from my P.O. Box which was listed on my driver's license. On my latest driver's license, they did change it to my home address, but, since I don't have any "official" mail (bills, etc.) sent to my home address, they were content with the pile of junk mail with my name and home address on it. Amusingly, when I bought my new car recently, I had to take my second choice in lenders, because the first refused to accept my application without some "official mail" proving my residence. Even the (now proper) address on both my passport and driver's license was not acceptable to them.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
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This is not news, especially with the current environment since 2001. Now the challenge has always been non-technical for the FBI:
hire really IT-savvy folks (i.e. with real experience, not DoD or college newbies) for gov't level salaries and ever-shrinking budgets--and considering the deployment environment is rather boring IMO. Of course, those engineers would be competing with [money hungry] companies like MicroStrategy that offer products they could buy vs. build.
And throw in the culture/environment, it's a tough pill to swallow for a tech-person to be serious and enjoy the job.
And really no one should be scared about these types of systems as long as their a policy/laws defined. I mean google already places a "surveillance" factor on the public domain and no one has a problem [yet].