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."

Comments

Terrible idea

[Brian Gordon]

Wow, is it just me or does this just sound like a total waste of money? The attacks are surprises and random, how are they going to try to extrapolate patterns with computers? Why not just hire a psychologist?

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, 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

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just you. No, I kid there are probably many others that think the actions of the insurgents are truly random.

Given that they suffer from the same weakness we all do - they are human - I'd guess that their attacks are not without predictive factors.

Is is waste of money? If the research shows that there are trends the military can exploit then no. If it shows that there are absolutely no trends to be found then no again since we can then give up and go home.

Seriously though, am I the only one who thinks that we are on the cusp of a breakthrough - the ability of traditionally organized mechanized armed forces to effectively engage guerilla tactics?

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The attacks might not be random, but more likely then not, once a pattern is found and exploited, these 'terrorists' will move to new tactics, a new pattern. There is a reason why they attack the way they do, and projects like these only prove one thing: those who fund these projects just don't have a clue, they are hoping throwing money at something will solve it, rather then trying to actually deal with the situation in a intelligent way.

Re:Terrible idea

[FleaPlus]

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.

Sure, that's why you have test sets to determine if the models the system learns from the data are useful or not. I think it's safe to assume that the scientists working on this are familiar with the basics of learning theory and modeling.

Re:Terrible idea

[Dr. Eggman]

But the terrorists have to conform to reality, there are conditions that must be met for an attack to be carried out. Resources and weaponry must be aquired transferred or built. Willing persons must be in the area or transported there. The application of these resources, which are valuable even if they are a disposable one-shot sort deal often, so we know they will be trying to maximize effect in minimizing risk. There may be vastly more targets than terrorists, but that does not mean that every target could be targeted at any one time. If anything, the research should be a useful tool in helping predict not randomized attacks, but rather supplies, logistics, idelogical supports; the true treasures of information warfare.

Re:Terrible idea

[readin]

Just how easy is it to think of something truly random? Ask 100 people to pick a random number between 1 and 10 and you will see a pattern. It won't be random because certain numbers will be preferred. Try asking the person to repeatedly pick a random number between 1 and 10 and they won't be able to do it. Throw in other factors they need to consider and being random gets really hard. By using computer pattern matching we have a shot at discovering patterns they don't even know they have, and perhaps patterns psychologists aren't aware of either. The psychologist will make assumptions, and those assumptions might be wrong or limiting. The computer can think outside the human box. It might just find the pattern without being hampered by questions about why the pattern is there.

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:Terrible idea

[TurinPT]

Human behavior is not entirely random, certain assumptions can be made.
For example, when choosing random locations on a map, people tend to scatter the locations across it, leaving a somewhat similar distance between each one of them.
Real randomness creates clusters on the map, causing some of the chosen locations to end up next to each other.

On the other hand, maybe I've just been watching too much "numb3rs"...

Re:Terrible idea

[flymolo]

And some targets are preferable to others. So empty warehouse X isn't as interesting as a shopping mall. So the randomness must fall with certain ranges of targets that will cause terror. Pattern analysis may help figure out what targets they pick randomly from based upon the above mentioned logistic, supply and idealogical concerns.

Re:Terrible idea

[Shihar]

You miss the point of the program. The types of attacks is constantly shifting. Where it shifts to might be unpredictable, but that doesn't mean that you can't catch the shift as it happens. So, imagine all of a sudden you get a few small, but successful attacks on Shiite elementary schools in a certain providence. Your correlation notices that there have been a few attacks, it notes that the attacks 'success' matches what counts as 'success' (high body count, media exposure, low losses, political change, increased sectarian strife, etc.) from previous shifts in targets, and alerts you to expect more attacks on school in that providence, and warns that in a months time you might be facing such attacks in other providences.

On the other hand, imagine that there are a few attacks on school buses. You might be tempted to draw the same conclusion as the school attacks. However, the bus attacks don't meet the pattern. They result in "failure", whatever that might be (high causalities on attackers, minimal media coverage, low body count, etc). The program says not to pour all your resources into fighting this new threat as it is unlikely that the attacks will continue.

I am not saying whether or not such a program is going to work, but the principle is sound. Some types of events lead to other types of events. You might not be predicting what happens in a year, but you might catch a trend before it spread across the entire nation.

Re:Terrible idea

[LifesABeach]

"Who defends everything, defends nothing." - Frederick The Great

Re:Terrible idea

[Rei]

Really, though, you think they're studying shopping mall attacks? They studied "12,000 terrorist attacks". Bet you didn't know there had been 12,000 terrorist attacks in Iraq in the past four years, did you, let alone 12,000 well documented enough to study? Assuming an average of 20 people killed per attack, that'd mean ~250k people had been killed in well-documented terrorist attacks without the media catching on to the overwhelming majority of it. With that many people being killed by terrorists, who needs insurgents?

Here's a wild notion: they're doing what the US government usually does and calling any insurgent attack a "terrorist attack". Which is why this research is being carried out for the DoD instead of the Department of Homeland Security.

Re:Terrible idea

[SeePage87]

I think it's safe to assume that the scientists working on this are familiar with the basics of learning theory and modeling. Why, they're from the University of Alabama.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, is it just me or does this just sound like a total waste of money? The attacks are surprises and random, how are they going to try to extrapolate patterns with computers? Why not just hire a psychologist? And how do YOU know they're truly random?

First, considering these attacks all are targeted at SOMETHING, presumably SOMETHING of value, their location CAN'T be random.

Geez, and that's just off the top of my head.

Who mods this crap up?

Re:Terrible idea

[Arcane_Rhino]

Seriously though, am I the only one who thinks that we are on the cusp of a breakthrough - the ability of traditionally organized mechanized armed forces to effectively engage guerilla tactics?

Wish I had mod points, and you weren't an AC. If you are correct, 2008 (or whatever year this break-through occurs) should be the year that historians look back to when considering the moment/era that the monumental geo-political shift occurred wherein NO small group could ever again hope to stand up to a superpower. The possible repercussions, for good or ill, are staggering to consider.

Re:Terrible idea

[Protonk]

No one said anything about limiting the scope of study to iraq. I agree with you that the net drawn across violent attacks around the word that labels them as "terrorist" is a little broad, but that does not mean that there is no value to study of it. And so what if we just find a means to make aggregate guesses about 'insurgent' attacks? Isn't that a victory in itself? Doesn't that mean that the study is worthwhile? They aren't purporting to predict single events from raw data, they are suggesting that we can make general statements about risk using decent models of the actors involved.

Re:Terrible idea

[Dr. Eggman]

Well, not to get bogged down in semantics, but I tend to categorize based on goals rather than more specific tactical nuances. Thus, often it comes out, sometimes in a way against me, a bit generalized. I associate insurgents, whom have the goal of demoralizing and terrorizing troops (as in deadly harrasment,) with terrorist, despite the wider range of targets an insurgent will chose (ie. ambushing supply convoys, raiding ammo dumps, rather than just civilian mayhem.) But in general what the gp is saying make sense. Using the patterns to help determine what targets are more susceptible. Maybe not warehouse versus mall, but instead determing some level activty, worth, etc that makes a target appear more worthy of attack.

Re:Terrible idea

[TubeSteak]

But the terrorists have to conform to reality, there are conditions that must be met for an attack to be carried out. Resources and weaponry must be aquired transferred or built. Willing persons must be in the area or transported there But didn't you read the first sentance of TFA?

"Adversaries the U.S. currently faces in Iraq rely on surprise and apparent randomness to compensate for their lack of organization, technology and firepower."

The terrorists lack organization, so they obviously can't arrange all the logistics you're attributing to them.[/sarcasm]
I seriously wonder what these UA researchers define as "organization."

Re:Terrible idea

[TapeCutter]

That's why the concept of statistical significance exists.

The hypothisis is that terrorist attacks are NOT highly correlated (ie: they are in fact 'random surprises'). If this is true then you expect to find what is true for the pattern 'abc' is also true for every other three letter pattern. If it is not then the pattern 'abc' is significant.

Significance does not mean certain, nor does it mean the correct conclusion is drawn, but it can rule out the 'random surprise' theory.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

that's why you have test sets to determine if the models the system

Yeah, we've got dozens of terrorist attacks every day to check their model against!

Re:Terrible idea

[caffeinemessiah]

Sure, that's why you have test sets to determine if the models the system learns from the data are useful or not. I think it's safe to assume that the scientists working on this are familiar with the basics of learning theory and modeling.

Blindly applying learning theory to collected data often leads to models that are apparently highly predictive on your test/validation sets, but are absolute garbage in unseen scenarios. You're assuming that by learning a "model" that the distribution of data remains the same even when this system goes into deployment. While that might be nice for some kinds of data, how could you even begin justifying this for *terrorist attacks*??

Re:Terrible idea

[cain]

In an infinite random series you will find every possible combination an infinate number of times. So odds are 1 that you will find your sequence. You will find every possible pattern. Your example is flawed though as in real life there are no infinate amounts of data. Good statistians will compute a confidence level in patterns they find. Almost everything that is not a"real" pattern will have a low confidnence level.

Does this fact make me a math nazi? I hope not. It just makes sense.

Re:Terrible idea

[DavidShor]

Right, because the Buddhists in Thailand and the Hindu's in Sri Lanka don't count. Of course.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. Nothing to see here!

Re:Terrible idea

[DavidShor]

"Seriously though, am I the only one who thinks that we are on the cusp of a breakthrough - the ability of traditionally organized mechanized armed forces to effectively engage guerilla tactics?"

Thats nothing new. Saturation bombing of villages would do the trick. The only way to eliminate a group with massive popular support is to end the support. When you are an occupier, the surest way to do that is to destroy the populace.

Just like every other anti-insurgent measure we've tried, the terrorists will just adopt trivial countermeasures.

Re:Terrible idea

[ridgecritter]

If they have actually uncovered predictors, and not simply the inevitable patterns within a noisy data set, could I defeat this study's model by selecting my targets with a mostly random process? If I had eight potential targets, could I toss a coin four times, eliminating half the targets each time to reach the final selection? Or for a single target, pick the time of attack in much the same way?

Re:Terrible idea

[DavidShor]

Then terrorists will start rolling dice. They aren't idiots, and they have a bigger stake in this then we do.

Re:Terrible idea

[Torvaun]

Huntsville is a good school. But yeah, most of Alabama is only useful for dragging down national averages.

Re:Terrible idea

[rgaginol]

But these guys are different - they have a magic eightball made of unobtainium. How could we argue with that?

Re:Terrible idea

[caffeinemessiah]

That's why the concept of statistical significance exists.

Significance only makes sense when the underlying distribution is known, such as the random sequence I listed as an example. When you have no clue what the underlying distribution is, and can NOT safely assume near-normality because of the central limit theorem, all bets are off. I just don't buy that the distribution of terrorist attacks is normal or even near-normal, not without some hard evidence.

Re:Terrible idea

[someone1234]

The terrorists got a BSD pseudo random number generator.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

About 2^91*10^(-97), that is around 10^-67. That that could be considered non-zero it is only a fragment of your imagination.

signed
    the discrete math nazis

Re:Terrible idea

[wall0159]

"Why not just hire a psychologist?"

did you mean an astrologer? a psychologist is a scientist...

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The guerrillas have to conform to reality and so do the military researchers. There are way too many variables here to possibly come up with any conclusive approach for predicting something like this. Also, every time an attack occurs or the army responds, the environment changes and the parameters need to be adjusted. Isn't this really supposed to be what military commanders are for; anticipating the strategy and movements of the enemy and responding by forming their own strategy?

Oh yeah and if they have so much data that they can accurately predict where and when the enemy will attack, then how come they haven't been able to use this data to produce a viable exit strategy?

Re:Terrible idea

[Antique Geekmeister]

The big pattern is that the guerrillas fight dirty. They look for and use any openings: if you close one opening, they'll use the next, least defended one, and it takes them very little time to shift targets because they have little command structure, just enough to keep isolated cells in munitions and shelter.

The second big pattern is "why do they keep attacking"? If the US instigators of this war had listened to their more competent staff, who told them it's a huge mess and they needed 3 times the number of troops and not to use so many mercenaries (who are a massive problem in Iraq as they've been in other "peacekeeping" operatons), we'd have had a much cleaner recovery after the invasion and wouldn't have these issues.

But that's an even bigger picture pattern, and these research studies can do nothing about it.

Re:Terrible idea

[Venik]

They got a government grant to find patterns in random data, and so they will look for these patterns until their funding dries up.

Re:Terrible idea

[houghi]

Hey, I have a better idea. Take an infinit amount of monkeys ...

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"The four steps were: create a database of past attacks; identify trends in the attacks; determine the correlation between attacks and use analysis to calculate the probabilities of future attacks and their location."

Wow! Using a database and data modelling. Radical man!

Re:Terrible idea

[Magada]

Unless there is a deep shortage of common sense and basic tactics knowledge in the US military, the list and relative priorities (in terms of value/accessibility) of both force and civilian targets should be on every commander's mind, at every level of command. I doubt very much that is not the case, what with "force protection" being drilled as an absolute priority into the heads of all would-be officers from day one.

Re:Terrible idea

[Kaeluka]

What is frightening as well, is the mere idea of giving computers decision power in anything, that has to do with shooting or killing. What if, maybe in 10 or 20 years, on of those new statistical overlords predicts a terrorist attack in a neutral neighboring country? Who can prevent a 'unbureaucratic', 'heroic' general from stepping in and safe those poor civilians? That's on of the many ways to start a war.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm not sure whether the current formulation of probability theory has machinery to deal with this example. That is, I'm not sure if there is a way of assigning probabilities to subsequences of a random sequence in the manner you describe. One might be able to describe it as the limit of a sequence of Bernoulli trials, but I'm not sure if this makes sense. If you know of a way, I would be very pleased to hear it. Good question!

Re:Terrible idea

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You really do not understand anything about humans, now do you. Which ideologies (currently) have terrorism ? Simple answer : socialism and islam.

They are both disproven (to say the least), and the terrorists know this (they are over 90% educated people, not country simpletons). So what is a terror attack ? Simple : it's an attempt to use violence to force reality to conform to their vision of it (then again, so is most of what the democratic party does these days). Other ideologies, like capitalism and christianity are the exact opposite : they allow reality in, and encourage people to "play their cards right". This is what lead to the formation of science in the first place (predicting nature obviously has large payouts, and the christian authoroties of the age were prepared to compromise, at least for the duration of the investigation, mostly longer, values. E.g. the theory of geocentrism was discredited by the vatican almost 100 years before Galileo was born, I hope this bold truth can make you go and check the history of his execution thoroughly)

Back to terrorists. They use violence to make reality conform. They will not let sanity intervene in their scheme. So why do terror attacks succeed ? If you check this you will not find what you like. It's terror organisers that are kept out of reach of our justice system (why do you think palestinians want a state ? So nobody can imprison them for killing Jews) that succeed on the xx'th attempt. These days xx is in the several hundreds. What makes terror succeed ? Trial and error. Laws that operate on absolutes instead of principles, and attempt to compromise with the intolerant. (e.g. the only correct response to any minimal number of parents forcing a hijab on their daughters is to outlaw it for all until the girl comes of age*, and enforcing this ban with stiff penalties, and, eventually prison sentences).

* this is china's policy, the result, surprise, surprise, is no hijabs in view anywhere

Terrorists find holes in our security, like 9/11, not through smarts, not through divine intervention, but through a simple little trick : trial and error. As long as we're playing catch-and-release and denying the root cause (it's the ideology) terror attacks will continue to succeed, and our civil liberties will be curtailed further and further.

What helps against terror ? Tougher sentences, leading to death penalty (life is not enough, unless you cut off communication with inmates), before they get xx attempts at terrorism. Not letting anyone escape judgement - alive.

Re:Terrible idea

[Devoidoid]

Which ideologies (currently) have terrorism ? Simple answer : socialism and islam.

Remind me again: which was Timothy McVeigh?

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers have decision power today over matters involving "shooting and killing", but there needs to be a human-in-the-loop before a weapon fires. For example, the Aegis Combat System (1960's era technology) on Navy ships can go "full auto" and automatically fire missiles at anything determined to be hostile, but you will never see Aegis in full auto outside of a lab environment!
As far as a rogue general invading a neighbor off of a modeled decision, this is an instance where the general's staff needs to step in pre-invasion and educate the general on the scope of the model (eg. a model built to predict attacks in Baghdad may give invalid predictions for Basrah) or inform the general's boss or IG or his/her senator on what's happening.

Re:Terrible idea

[oldhack]

But the terrorists have to conform to reality ... Resources and weaponry must be aquired transferred or built ... If anything, the research should be a useful tool in helping predict not randomized attacks, but rather supplies, logistics, idelogical supports; the true treasures of information warfare.

So it's tracking box cutters, lighters, shampoo bottles, what else? Do terrorists ship RPG rounds around with UPS?

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Which ideologies (currently) have terrorism ? Simple answer : socialism and islam. Ah, yes, all those socialistic islamic abortion clinic bombers. How well we remember. But, I guess that hasn't happened in a couple of years, so not really current.

Not to mention all that Islamic Irish trouble we had a while back. But then, that's also not really current. Good point.

We really haven't had any right-wing terrorists in this country in a while, have we. I guess giving them political power really does stop terrorism.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

look, this is just a payola scheme where millions are spent by the tax payers and nothing is returned.

they sat on the blue prints for the twin towers attack 5 years before it happened and couldn't prevent it, let alone predict it.

this sounds good, rips off tax payers and pads pockets of the good ole boy network, but it will do little else.

Re:Terrible idea

[sexconker]

Sure, you can SEE a pattern after it happened.
But you're still unable to predict a pattern.

It's not like the terrorists plan an attack every time the barometric pressure drops.

This is a futile effort, and no amount of statistics, futures markets, or other nonsense will help us predict a terrorist attack.

Re:Terrible idea

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Terror attacks today :

2/14/2008 Iraq Baghdad 7 36 Jihadis bomb a crowded marketplace, killing at least seven Iraqis.
2/14/2008 Iraq Awja 9 0 Freedom Fighters shoot a family of nine to death in their home, including children.
2/14/2008 Somalia Mogadishu 1 4 Islamic militants hurl a grenade into a crowd, killing a school headmaster.
2/14/2008 Thailand Yala 1 0 A laborer is shot to death in front of his wife by militant Muslims.
2/14/2008 Thailand Narathiwat 2 1 Two villagers are murdered by Islamic gunmen.
2/14/2008 Pakistan Bajaur 3 3 Three local soldiers are killed by a Taliban roadside blast as they return from guard duty.

I think this illustrates my point beyond any reasonable doubt. But hey, as I said, if sticking your head in the sand after insulting me makes you feel safe, makes you feel superior, be my guest.

Re:Terrible idea

[TapeCutter]

Sigh - there are many other types of distribution and a simple plot will discover most of them in raw data.

Re:Terrible idea

[phoenix321]

The idea probably lies behind the simple fact that humans cannot fathom pure randomness. What people sense as random can be or cannot be, the same holds true for things that are absolutey deterministic.

Example: try writing down a random string of numbers. And then analyse it with a computer.

You will have *trends* in there, you will have uneven distributions in there, you will have a certain favorite number and repeating sequences as well. No matter how hard you try, your brain cannot do random. This mode of operation is not supported on Human Brain 1.0 and we have instead a pseudo-random number generator that is worse than that of Windows 1.0

Explanation: your goal is to make random numbers in this experiment. Your brain therefore makes a feedback loop to see if it attains that goal - and this feedback loop makes this attempt futile. Without the feedback loop, your brain couldn't do anything and with it it will overcompensate for every randomness you actually achieve.

That is a homegrown explanation and I've made it up on the spot right now. But try it sometimes and you'll see what happens: your brain will record the past few numbers in memory and you can not unremember them. Maybe Shaolin monks can, but you and me cannot actively unremember anything. Then your brain will try to *even* the distribution out, because it assumes randomness = even distribution. If you were writing down an uneven distribution, you wouldn't be any random at all, so you have to concentrate on having a flat histogram.

And then you compensate by writing down numbers that you think you didn't choose for a while. And that's where the patterns come into play. Depending on your attention, mood, character and personality, you will choose alternating centers (low numbers/high numbers), hopping patterns (1-9-2-8 and so on) or simple intermittend sequences (1-3-5-6) because each make tracking even distributions easier and therefore trick your brain into thinking it achieved its goal of randomness. Depending on your attention you will even have one or more favorite numbers that clearly stand out during long sequences.

Analyse that number rows and there will be repeating patterns, covariances and data clumps all over the place.

And that was only 10 possible numbers with no other constraints and (almost) no emotional connotations. And now imagine planning terrorist attacks risking your life, assuming an enemy and incredibly strong personal preferences for location, means and time.

Re:Terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

simple plot will discover most of them in raw data.

Spoken like a true statistician. Except you can't really plot or high-dimensional, massive data sets by junking it into gnuplot.

You're Tax Dollars At Work Frylock...

[milsoRgen]

So predict the unpredictable?

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

[nlitement]

In case you didn't read the summary, it's the University of Alabama. :)

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

[FleaPlus]

So predict the unpredictable?

Or more precisely, predict the mostly-unpredictable. Just about any activity involving humans, even if it seems utterly random at first glance, will have underlying patterns which emerge once one analyzes the data.

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

[milsoRgen]

Yeah but a 6th month study done in Alabama ain't going to give you anything more than a good soldier is going to be able to tell you. Or maybe a good spreed sheet, this looks like a glorified Office macro to me.

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

[FleaPlus]

Yeah but a 6th month study done in Alabama ain't going to give you anything more than a good soldier is going to be able to tell you

That remains to be seen. Are you suggesting that analyzing attack data is a bad idea?

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

[milsoRgen]

That remains to be seen. Are you suggesting that analyzing attack data is a bad idea? Not in a generic sense no, but the application of such data is invariably going to be used in our current situation in Iraq.
Are you suggesting that throwing more money into our current situation is a good idea?

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

[bondsbw]

Yeah but a 6th month study done in Alabama....

<sarcasm>Wow... who thought there would be an ignorant post on Slashdot?</sarcasm>

Of course, I shouldn't be surprised. Most people don't realize that Alabama universities are on the leading edge of homeland security and law enforcement research. They tend not to be interested in anything coming out of the state that doesn't deal with football or some guy in a rural town that got caught making out with his sister.

You might want to research some of the many lesser-known things about Alabama... oh, like say, NASA... or the automobile manufacturing industry that has recently become a national leader. Or, say, our economy, which has kept strong even as the rest of the nation is falling into recession.

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

[milsoRgen]

Most people don't realize that Alabama universities are on the leading edge of homeland security and law enforcement research And that is supposed to increase my respect for Alabama? Sounds like a a good place for the Gestapo headquarters.

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...

[bondsbw]

Are you suggesting that throwing more money into our current situation is a good idea?

I bet you abide by the assumption that two wrongs make a right. You might not agree with the fact that we're in Iraq, or with the reasons we went to war, but what makes you think it's a good idea to leave our military stranded there without the technology to win it?

And don't give me any of this "we can just pull out" crap. You know that's not going to happen... we will stay there, and we will either starve our troops of the data and advancements to get it done, or we will find a way to settle it on our terms.

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

[Protonk]

godwin's law.

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

[milsoRgen]

And don't give me any of this "we can just pull out" crap. Well if you don't want any of that crap from me, I don't want any of your "win it" crap. There is nothing to win, there is no cohesive and organized central force in which to engage in battle.

And I agree, we will be over there for a long time, just because there's so much money to be made for powerful and influential people.

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

[smellotron]

Just about any activity involving humans, even if it seems utterly random at first glance, will have underlying patterns which emerge once one analyzes the data.

Yeah, that's why trading and investing are solved problems, and no one goes bankrupt by following the advice of market experts. Just because something may be shown to have patterns doesn't mean that we actually have any meaningful knowledge about it. Check out Fooled By Randomness for a better explanation than I can provide.

I think it's useful and interesting to research social statistics like this, but they should all be taken with a very large grain of salt.

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

[DavidShor]

You know, I don't believe that the troops are doing "the right thing". I have the greatest respect for their sacrifices, but it is a shame we have given them such horrible orders.

But no, I don't think that it's a good thing to help our troops "get it done", because I don't think that the insurgents who are attacking US troops are doing anything wrong. They are attacking foreign occupying troops, just as we would have done if anyone had invaded us. Many of these insurgents believe they are acting honorably, and I don't believe that we should be killing them. In fact in terms of morality, I believe that a US soldier serving in Iraq right now is less worthy of life then these insurgents(And if you are offended, give me one non-racist reason that would say otherwise). And while this is a disgusting thought, it is true. We are making our fine soldiers into monsters, when this is entirely avoidable.

Granted, insurgents certainly doing horrible things when they attack civilians, but truth be told, they are far far behind us in terms of innocent civilians killed. Moreover, there are far worse groups doing killing in the world(Darfur and the Congo jump out), and we silently support countries that torture their people on a wide-scale basis. These groups are doing what is necessary to further their priorities, just like we are. '

So no, I don't think it's a good idea to give the military more tools to help fight the insurgency. I don't think they have a valid mission, and I don't want their mission achieved.

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

[alan_dershowitz]

I believe that a US soldier serving in Iraq right now is less worthy of life then these insurgents(And if you are offended, give me one non-racist reason that would say otherwise). Because the majority of people attacking Americans are made up of two groups: disaffected minority ruling-class members that used to enjoy special political status over the majority population and who therefore want to destabilize any attempt at representative democracy; and foreign fighters who don't give a fuck about Iraq or Iraqis but hate the West so much that they cannot tolerate a successful American action in the Middle East.

The Sunnis are the minority, but Sunnis used to dominate the political process. The were benefiting from and working hand in hand with Saddam Hussein. They lost their privilege and are pissed as hell. That's why they keep boycotting shit, because in a representative democracy they don't get their way 100% of the time anymore. It's also why they blow shit up and kill people, because they hate Americans and they always hated Shiites.

So, I mean on a day to day basis, most US soldiers are trying to hold shit together so they can go the fuck home. In the meantime, the insurgents just want to kill people and fuck up infrastructure so that people beg for a return of the old system and the Americans get out of Dodge. I'm not saying that we have any right to be there, but I think if you look at any individual soldier compared to any individual insurgent, as is the criteria you specified, the American soldier's is motivated by basically altruism where the insurgent is the one that is fighting for an unjust system or because of religious hatred or is still holding a grudge about the fucking Crusades.

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

[Dhalka226]

(And if you are offended, give me one non-racist reason that would say otherwise).

I have plenty of arguments for you. Some conflict slightly (I'm not advancing a personal position here); choose whichever you please.

1. Nobody's life is worth more or less than anybody else's.

2. Nobody should be deciding whose life is worth more or less than somebody else's. If there's a god, that's his domain exclusively.

3. The soldiers are serving their country by joining the military, which is an admirable thing to do.

4. The soldiers are following orders that almost none of them had any say in. They may agree whole-heartedly with the mission being bogus.

5. Regardless of the motives or validity of our invading, the goal now is peace. If nothing else, we want to avoid ANOTHER black eye from withdrawing and the country falling (further) into civil war.

6. Your arguments are based on the assumption that the insurgents are simply countrymen who believe what they're doing is the best thing for their country. Some do; others are almost certainly legitimate terrorists out to kill people, and still others are foreign nationals just there to fight the US. These are no more admirable qualities than a US soldier following orders.

We are making our fine soldiers into monsters, when this is entirely avoidable.

Being a soldier is not being a monster. Killing an enemy is not being a monster. Fighting for your own life and the life of your squad members is not being a monster. It really doesn't matter if the mission should ever have been undertaken. They're there now.

Those who DO do monstrous things--such as the Abu Ghraib scandals--are monsters, and they deserve to be punished severely. They were also almost certainly that sort of bastard to begin with and it came out due to opportunity.

Granted, insurgents certainly doing horrible things when they attack civilians, but truth be told, they are far far behind us in terms of innocent civilians killed.

That's probably true, but if we're trying to speak from a perspective of morality then a line must be drawn between killing your countrymen because doing so throws the country into further chaos and makes the US look worse, and killing citizens because bombs don't discriminate good versus bad when they explode or because you're afraid for your life based on something they do.

Moreover, there are far worse groups doing killing in the world(Darfur and the Congo jump out)

Erm, the insurgents are bad but others are worse? Okay, but so what?

If you're suggesting they're better places to have sent our troops, I agree completely. If you're suggesting that even with 200,000+ troops in Iraq that we should send more there, ehhh... maybe, but that's an even more extreme burden on the military.

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

[wall0159]

If you think that then you obviously have no understanding of probability. Please educate yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_variable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics

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

[Antique Geekmeister]

Some of those guerrilla troops are certainly doing many things that are wrong. Armed theft is supporting them, as are blackmail, kidnapping, and drug running. Civilian terrorism, especially against your own countrymen for being religious or political opponents instead of military ones, and the harsh treatment of women and children including murder is "wrong".

I agree we have to keep a sense of scale, that many of the things the US does in Iraq are also "wrong" or even more wrong. But be clear, the guerrillas are for the most part desperate and nasty people, not the ones you want actually running the country if they succeed in getting us out.

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

[DavidShor]

"Because the majority of people attacking Americans are made up of two groups: disaffected minority ruling-class members that used to enjoy special political status over the majority population and who therefore want to destabilize any attempt at representative democracy; and foreign fighters who don't give a fuck about Iraq or Iraqis but hate the West so much that they cannot tolerate a successful American action in the Middle East."

This is a fair point, and I want to commend you for responding. However, this simplistic view of the insurgency is not true anymore. A good deal(and at this point the majority) of the people shooting at American soldiers today are from Shia militias, and even Kurds have occasionally fired on US troops.

Meanwhile, it is no longer true to say that Sunni insurgency is dominated by former Baathists. Not all Sunni's were preferred during Saddam's era, as power runs through tribal lines instead of religious ones.

Instead, most of the Sunni's in the insurgency are out to protect themselves from outright ethnic cleansing from well-armed Shia militias. Meanwhile, they want to expel foreign occupying soldiers, just as we would have. Al-Anbar was never a paradise, and these are not former tyrants. The men in the insurgency right now are brave men who gave up the little that they had to fight for something they believe in.

Foreign fighters always played a small role in the insurgency, and at this point, are irrelevant. Al-Queda made a tactical mistake in attacking civilians a bit too indiscriminately, and now most Sunni groups are fighting against them. The US has tried to exploit this as part of an "Awakening" strategy, but it has not really worked as well as we've hoped.

"The Sunnis are the minority, but Sunnis used to dominate the political process. The were benefiting from and working hand in hand with Saddam Hussein. They lost their privilege and are pissed as hell. That's why they keep boycotting shit, because in a representative democracy they don't get their way 100% of the time anymore. It's also why they blow shit up and kill people, because they hate Americans and they always hated Shiites."

More likely, the Shia have killed more people and blown more shit up. Most Sunni's were very poor under Saddam Hussein as well, as power flows through tribal lines, not religious ones. The reason they boycott stuff is simple: The Shia dominated Iraqi government has been engaging in ethic cleansing and maintaining Shia death squads.

Your mistake is that you are taking sides in a complicated and obscure civil war. But this is irrelevant, as the people who shoot at Americans are represented in every strand of Iraqi society.

"So, I mean on a day to day basis, most US soldiers are trying to hold shit together so they can go the fuck home. In the meantime, the insurgents just want to kill people and fuck up infrastructure so that people beg for a return of the old system and the Americans get out of Dodge."

Insurgents are not motivated by a return to the Baathist government, if you read their manifestos, they seem to want a lot more decentralization of power, so that the Shia majority can't take control of majority Sunni regions. They are motivated by a fundamental will for self-rule, the same drive that lead our founders to rebel against England.

Don't make the easy mistake of demonizing our enemies.

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

[DavidShor]

I agree with most of your points. And I thank you for your response.

"Being a soldier is not being a monster. Killing an enemy is not being a monster. Fighting for your own life and the life of your squad members is not being a monster. It really doesn't matter if the mission should ever have been undertaken. They're there now."

This might be where I disagree. I believe that occupying an enemy country against the will of the nation's people, is a horrible act. Occupying soldiers become monsters, their lives become forfeit.

And this bothers me a great deal, because soldiers have a right to defend themselves, and people have a right to kill occupiers. And so, you have two people shooting each other, while both acting well within their rights. Such a conflict is avoidable.

"That's probably true, but if we're trying to speak from a perspective of morality then a line must be drawn between killing your countrymen because doing so throws the country into further chaos and makes the US look worse, and killing citizens because bombs don't discriminate good versus bad when they explode or because you're afraid for your life based on something they do. "

It's a tempting proposition to draw a line between them, though I don't think the person being killed cares much about the distinction. I believe that they are attacking civilians, for the most part, because it is the only tactic available to them. Israel, pre-independence, attacked Arab civilians and bombed market places as well. And that says nothing about the validity of their cause.

Terrorism is just a tactic, that occasionally furthers the cause of the perpetrator. It usually kills less civilians than conventional war. So I don't really see the moral divide between terrorism and say... cluster bombing. I personally find that without strong justification(that do not come even close to existing in our current age), both are reprehensible.

"Erm, the insurgents are bad but others are worse? Okay, but so what? If you're suggesting they're better places to have sent our troops, I agree completely. If you're suggesting that even with 200,000+ troops in Iraq that we should send more there, ehhh... maybe, but that's an even more extreme burden on the military."

I'm trying to point out that the moral aspect of this argument, that innocent civilians lives are at stake, is inconsistent. If our goal was to prevent the loss of innocent lives, we would pull troops out of Iraq and send them to Darfur. Unfortunately, bad people do bad things around the world, and we are not in a position to stop it. The best thing we can do for Iraqi welfare would be to accept a great deal of refugees, because our military operation is not likely to stabilize Iraq.

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

[juuri]

I know it's funny to pick, but Huntsville is a very different city than the rest of the state, because of the ties to aerospace and the military. One must also remember that after WW2 Alabama was considered a safe place to tuck away the former Nazi rocket scientists because of the local "social climate".

Like my mutual fund...

[Anonymous Coward]

...past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

A step up.

[Ethanol-fueled]

As lame as it sounds, it would be a step up from the current method my gov't(US) uses: treat everybody like a criminal.

Re:A step up.

[Das Modell]

From what I've read, virtually anyone in Iraq is a potential terrorist. The soldiers have no idea who's friendly and who's going to explore or stab them in the back. Even many allies have been revealed to be terrorist infiltrators.

Re:A step up.

[wizardforce]

you're assuming that the current administration doesn't realize current protocols do nothing. It's security theatre not security. Had they actually wanted to prevent the kind of threats they claim are the most serious, they'd do well by scraping the police state they've set up and get out of Iraq. Here's a hint: you don't need a supercomputer with advanced algorithms to figure out that you can't lessen terrorism by invading countries for little or no reason, blowing up all their infrastructure and torturing people.

Re:A step up.

[susano_otter]

How does your theory explain 9/11 and all the other scores of terrorist attacks that happened back when we were leaving Iraq alone?

Re:A step up.

[wizardforce]

and all the other scores of terrorist attacks that happened back when we were leaving Iraq alone?

Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11. there were however a few attacks after the invasion- just not here. before 9/11 people were told that they should cooperate w/ hijackers to avoid getting hurt as the hicker(s) wanted a destination. after 9/11 people thought differently here- you're not going to see any of that again. people now realize that the hijacker might not be interested in getting anyone to their destination alive and as such, they aren't going to just sit there and let the hicker do what they please any more. it's no longer an effective weapon. it's far more efficient to kill troops in Iraq... 20x more and likely with the support of at least some of the locals. rather than being relegated as being the bat shit insane extremists that they are, they're now often times looked upon as freedom fighters. I don't think they could have planned this any better. they get a chance to hone their skills, support from the locals and a growing number of new recruits pissed off about their country being blown to hell.

to your other point- what caused 9/11- take a look at the history of that place and our involvement- including the nice warm welcome the soviets got when they tried to invade. how we constantly meddle in the affairs of these countries- countries with large numbers of power hungry, religious hatred harnessing extremists who at first attacked the forces we had in those countries [cole for one] and figured that attacking us on our own soil might be more efficient.

Re:A step up.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very convenient excuse to shoot at anyone. But knowing american habits there's always a good reason for a killing spree mainly when it involves civilian targets.

Re:A step up.

[Das Modell]

But let's just ignore the fact that terrorists kill civilians on purpose whereas Coalition forces do not. Let's also ignore the fact that terrorists wear civilian clothes. And so on.

game theory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all part of game theory. If your enemy doesn't randomize their tactics, then you can take advantage of any statistical bias or pattern. Soon anyone buying a geiger counter, thermal noise diode, or even a lava lamp, will be a candidate for the terrorist watch list.

Re:game theory

[psykocrime]

Right, and of course the next question is "what's to stop the terrorists from doing the same analysis, and the making it a point to do something other than
what the model predicts?" Now that it's public knowledge that we are using this kind of analysis, wouldn't it be useless?

Re:game theory

[Protonk]

Because terrorists are stupid. That's the sad, sad, conclusion we have to reach. Some methods of communication and control are relatively sophisticated, but by and large, people get caught through old fashioned police work. We have trumped up this threat like we were fighting UNCLE. The administration doesn't want the fact that we easvsdrop leaked because the terrorists will adapt and conquer that threat. They don't want specific torture methods revealed because they will train to be resilient to them (tell me how you train to not crack when someone pulls your fingernails out). they can't tell us why the liquid ban is still in effect because Abdul MacGyver will fashion a fancy bomb based on a press release.

There are situations where official silence is a good thing. "Dark Sun", the history of the hydrogen bomb, shows a good example of how the KGB mined a public report about nuclear energy before and after it was expurgated to see which important elements had been changed. They discovered one sentence had been deleted about fission product 'poisoning' of nuclear piles. From this one sentence they probably saved weeks to months of theoretical and practical work.

we are not in that situation. We can expect sophistication from our enemies--police and DA's dealing with mafia and gang lords in jail can tell you the elaborate and extensive measures taken by the gangs to ensure that control continued uninhibited through prison walls. What we should not expect is omnipotence. If we do that, they have won (and they practically have). We cannot expect them to reverse engineer every public model and therefore make public no models. We cannot expect them to exploit basic human rights needs and therefore keep those from them. We cannot expect them to be so sophisticated as to get through every net available and therefore treat every bottle of gatorade as a threat to national security. We have to establish competent policing, both here and abroad. We have to treat threats honestly and responsibly. We have to shun the notion that governmental secrecy is a necessary policy route.

Re:game theory

[samkass]

Incidentally, the same thing is true for anti-terrorism. As soon as we add racial profiling against arabs to our airport screening process, they'll start recruiting and sending radical Indonesians against us. As soon as we start checking shoes, they'll start hiding things in hats. The only way to really protect us is to have a truly random screening process as the last resort, and really stop them by tracking money and travel patterns ahead of time.

A Deadly Lottery

[Dr. Eggman]

Shortly after the study began however, the patterns began to match-up to something surprisingly familiar. We have determined that the terrorists are using Windows' random number generator to pick their targets.

Common Sense at work.

[nexuspal]

FTA
"This study considered two aspects of each attack: the target of the attack, and the time of the attack. Using careful statistical techniques, the team identified correlations between attacks on various target types as a function of time. 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."

Sounds pretty strait forward. If you have a brazen attack against, say, a base, you can expect a higher risk of attacks on other assets. Isn't that why after the 911 attacks there were Combat Air Patrol flights over every major city for days. This is just common sense...

Re:Common Sense at work.

[milsoRgen]

Yeah from reading the article it seemed like pretty basic stuff they were correlating. Like, it's a clear day: increased risk of sniper attacks. Or it's night: increased risk of people sneaking around.

Re:Common Sense at work.

[FleaPlus]

If anything, this seems like a way to computationally extract and quantify such "common sense" assumptions, and perhaps even see if old "common sense" ideas are actually not supported by the data (as happens rather often). As an added bonus, new "common sense" tactics might emerge.

Of course, there's also a chance that their work will end up not being useful. That's why it's called research.

Re:Common Sense at work.

[Protonk]

SOmetimes it is common sense. I haven't read the underlying study, but my thought is that they are putting a little too much faith in covariance. We might argue that large attacks spur copycat attacks and that those attacks occur on similar, but not identical targets. It might be a luddite perspective to dismiss this study as resulting in the same conclusions that ordinary police work would. I don't think this is the case. I also don't feel that this is the results of "patterns everywhere". It seems childish to me to dismiss works like this as pattern seeking out of randomness--it's not like attacks or crimes are statistically rendom, in the aggegate. They aren't like decomposition of radioactive isotopes. There are trends and predictions that can be made, there are links that can be broken. I would like to turn to the eaxmple of the change in crime statistics that helped PYC reduce its crime rate so dramatically.

Random?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are not random, they are in Iraq. GTFO of Iraq, and attacks stop. Hmmmm... Could of just bought me a coffee and donuts for that one as opposed to putting how many billions dollars on my generations shoulders?

Re:Random?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Brilliant! Every time there is a bombing, we'll condemn the entire country and force everyone to move to a different one! When we run out of land, we'll live at the bottom of the sea, grow gills, live in pineapples and wear square pants.

Numb3rs

[Anonymous Coward]

So the writers of "Numb3rs" found someone willing to hire them during the writers' strike?

Capability and Intelligence!

[GodOfCode]

What ever happened to spending more on hiring the best talent around and also spending more on intelligence gathering!

Re:Capability and Intelligence!

[martin-boundary]

What ever happened to spending more on hiring the best talent around and also spending more on intelligence gathering!

It cost too much.

Re:Capability and Intelligence!

[TheLink]

Didn't make "friends" enough money.

After all said "friends" weren't the best talent around ;).

The final solution

[B3ryllium]

I have discovered the final solution:

They attack the weak point for massive damage!

Re:The final solution

[geekoid]

If only, Then we could use that.
No they hit 'random' targets at 'random' times.
Bearing in mind 'random' just means you don't know all the variables and there is no obvious pattern. Or possible no pattern...which oddly enough IS a pattern. Just like there are no non-interesting numbers.

We could create the illusion of a weak link, and then know they're will be an attack. Then we could surprise the enemy to death.

A step down more like

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The computer model throws a double six as you walk past the screening point. You get selected for The Glove Of Fun.

Computer models are only as good as their data: Garbage In, Gospel Out. That's a problem with climate modelling. The climatologists keep tweaking the models until they get what they expect and are then smug because the models "prove" their predictions.

If terrorist activity is truely random, then this thing does not stand a chance. However, terrorists, like most people, likely follow some sort of pattern and if the signature "tell tale signs" can really be detected then perhaps attacks etc can be predicted.

Re:A step down more like

[complete loony]

Until the terrorists start reading the predictions and deliberately doing something else.

Re:A step down more like

[Protonk]

People like you freak me out. What do you think science is? How, magically, does meteorology differ from Physics? Do we hold the same opinions about black holes, dark matter and the big bang as we used to? Hell, the term "big bang" was originally pejorative--scientists didn't fit that possiblity into their models. The data changed and so that forced a change in theory. It's how fucking science works. For fuck's sake.

Climate science is no different. What is different is that there are consequences for our actions on earth that matter depending on the outcome of the model. Because there are huge stakes involved, people tend to forms groups at the poles of opinion. You have companies with large stakes in suggesting that climate change is not man made paying for climate research by scientists who feel similarly. You have news organizations and political organizations (who know shit about science) taking the barest of abstracts from a study and runnign with it. You have sceince dumbed down by both sides in order to explain it to voters and policymakers. this sort of thing doesn't happen that much in some branches of science.

Evolutionary biology, genetics, labor economics, sociology, antropology. Those are a short list of disciplines whose conclusions draw people into camps. They also happen to be the same disciplines (not an exclusive list) that people accuse of unscientific practice (and then in doing so, describe the scientific method perfectly, as you have done). That those disciplines and only those disciplines would suffer from a failure to understand the scientific model alone while scores of other disciplines would execute that model perfectly strains credulity.

Re:A step down more like

[Protonk]

They do. All the time.

Prediction: The earth is warming due to man made effects.

Test: Take given data (earth warming) and attempt to sort out all possible other effects.

These models are EXCEEDINGLY complicated. The early ones were pretty damn complicated but were basic by comparison. Models suggested for years that climate change was man made without a doubt. Later, models were revised with the addition of new data and new processes. this means that NEW information was found that NO ONE had before, like the actual oxygen content in ice cores. Like the feedback nature of ocean currents. Those were taken into account and the model changed. We became less sure of the impact of man in the scheme. As the models grew more sophisicated the confidence intervals got better and more information was added. We are now MUCH, MUCH more sure that climate change is real, man made and will impact us in a significant fashion.

All we have left are people like you. People who claim that their rejection of climate change is based on some scientific principle, like they are galileo before the church. I've got news for you. It's isn't some religious theocracy. It isn't an unscientific crusade. It is just science that leads to an unfortunate conclusion. We don't WANT to have this conclusion. We don't WANT to come to the conclusion that life will get demonstrably worse in the next 100 years rather than better. We don't WANT to live on a warming planet. These are just conclusions from the model and evidenced by the world around us.

I have no knowledge of why you don't get this or don't want to get this. All I can say is I'm sorry for you.

Re:A step down more like

[wall0159]

"The climatologists keep tweaking the models until they get what they expect and are then smug because the models "prove" their predictions."

That is a load of crap. If you don't know the difference between a priori and post hoc analysis, then please refrain from speaking as if you do. There's enough mis-information regarding climate change already without people like you contributing.

To digress, this attitude that climate scientists' results are due to such well understood logical fallacies is like saying that the theory of evolution is rubbish because the past has already happened. You don't believe that, do you? The alternative is accepting that the majority of climate scientists are intelligent people who know what they're doing - but that would be rather more inconvenient, wouldn't it?

Re:A step down more like

[mattpalmer1086]

Sooo.... you're quite happy that useful models can be built that make predictions about human intentions. But you don't think it works with the climate, because those dang scientists keep adjusting their models until they give predictions that fit. And the difference between these two is...?

Re:A step down more like

[BrianGKUAC]

Probably shouldn't feed a troll, but I've got a point to make because I'm tired of seeing it over and over again.

Science in and of itself cannot prove something correct. It can only prove something incorrect. Those that try to use it to prove something correct are those that are doomed to fail.

hypotheses are reasoned guesses based on observation.
theories are hypotheses that have been tested (if possible) and seem to generally stand up, while providing a reason for measured observations
Laws are theories that have become fundamental in projecting further theories, and are tested to a point of almost certain predictability in observation.

Not even a scientific law is a proven fact. It is an assumption based on reasoned observation and extensive testing.

And while we're at it... Let's not forget some of the most vocal and influential Catholic priests were homosexual child molesters.

Yet there are still catholics sitting around, believing in god, the sanctity of the church, the abomination of homosexuality, and the innocence of children. Just because one person who backs a theory ends up being a fraud doesn't necessarily mean the thoery itself is bunk.

Re:A step down more like

[Kjella]

The cheapest attack on science is to take some marginal doubt and blow it entirely out of proportion to pretend the model is nothing more than a wild guess. Like the socalled "Missing link" that creationists tried to use to attack evolution on the home field. Yes, some transitional stages are missing and if we found them, we could make yet smaller transitional stages but in the overall model it's like saying gravity doesn't exists because we argue if a 0.02m/s**2 discrepancy is due to wind resistance or not.

Another cheap trick is to use an apparent chaoticness to discredit a fairly predictable pattern. Take a boiling pot of coffee, it's quite chaotic and predicting how it'll bubble and move. But it's fairly easy to calculate how long until the pot is dry, or how quickly it'll cool down. The weather is chaotic, will it rain here, snow there, cold wind, warm wind and so on. The climate on the other hand ilke ice forming in winter and melting in summer is very predictable, there's no reason to think the climate is chaotic even though meteorology is.

Third trick is the oppositing position/equal weight balance. It's got all the validity of listening to tobacco-sponsored research showing smoking isn't unhealthy. In science there are roughly two positions, the scientific and the non-scientific one. Sure, scientists can argue whether the former is one foot to the left or to the right but the non-scientific position usually is somewhere down the hall, out the door, down the street and out of town usually in some sort of field with "alien" crop circles.

In the end, I've found the only way to win against someone that doesn't want to have a real discussion is the War Games solution: "The only way to win is not to play" or it can also be expressed like this: "Never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience". Note that idiots in this case also include people that aren't able to keep unscientifc arguments out of a scientific discussion, even if they seem otherwise intelligent. Just consider it some kind of mental psykosis, like a paranoid sees enemies in everything others see the divine in everything.

And last but not least, conviction is much stronger than any good scientific understanding, if you believe anything as much as a believer does you have an unhealthy scientific attitude unreceptive to opposing information. What they take as wavering on your part are healthy qualifiers and limitations, it's their irrational unrelenting belief in their own position that is the problem. Extremely stubborn and extremely wrong often go hand in hand, because they locked in to their first position and never gave it up since.

Re:A step down more like

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem arises when the scientific community reaches a conclusion before crunching all the data. this leads to paradigm paralysis.

paradigm paralysis most definitely impacts the "sciences." through in some politics and it can get down right ugly.

this also has practical implications - for example, the recommended diet over the last 30 years was *never* scientifically validated. a bunch of health "professionals" got together and decided, without any significant data to support their view, that a low fat, high carbohydrate diet is the way to go for good health.

their conclusion wasn't scientific in the least. while it sounded rational, it turns out the data don't support it as an optimal diet. The joslin diabetes center (affiliated with harvard medical School) switched their dietary recommendations for pre-diabetics and diabetics based on research. They didn't pull it out of their behind as the high carb, low supporters people did.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/22429.php

folks who are up to date on their diets will recognize they are now recommending the zone diet as discovered by dr. barry sears (Phd, biotechnology researcher, former Boston U. and MIT employee).

another mistake i see lots of people making here on slashdot is the idea that diet is as simple as calories in / calories out. this is a gross over simplification, even if there is partial truth to it.

to prove my point beyond any shadow of a doubt, take identical twins, feed them the exact same calories and put them on the same weight training program and inject one with anabolic steroids (muscle building part of testosterone). now, who here would expect them to have the exact same muscle and body fat composition after six months?

nobody? good. the calories in and calories out where the same, but the hormonal impact on those calories was very different. HORMONES ARE INCREDIBLY POWERFUL MEDIATORS WITHIN OUR BODIES.

in like manner, if one eats a diet that elevates insulin, a fat storage hormone, one will tend to get fatter than someone eating the same calories on a diet that doesn't over stimulate insulin production. the low fat, high carb diet sends insulin levels into over drive and, over time, will tend to fatten those who adhere to it. since everyone's hormonal system is unique, it will impact people differently but, more often than not, the fat gut will appear over time, given the assault on insulin that comes hand in hand with high carb diets. in addition, insulin reduces blood glucose and will eventually drain the brain of its #1 energy source, which will make you hungry and crave more blood glucose. this is the true reason why a ton of calories on thanksgiving tends to put people into a mental haze.

no wonder low fat, high carb diets make so many people fat, hungry and worn out all the time. even so, many medical scientists and professionals refuse to admit they were full of crap for all these years and hold fast to the same old crap that hasn't worked for those same years. they have their paradigm and they aren't about to change (admit to being 100% wrong), regardless of the data, and they are literally paralyzed by their paradigm.

frankly, it is amazing that joslin changed their recommendations, even if they fall over themselves as though they figured this out, when dr. sears first wrote about it over a decade ago. truth be told, they were a decade late and should be heckled for being so slow! ;-) better late than never, as they say.

there is only one diet that is truly hormonally balanced - the zone diet. given this hormonally balanced human optimization diet, one would expect great things from people on the zone and even better than great things are actually delivered:

1. dr. sears has personally worked with and crafted the diets of athletes that have won 24 gold medals in the last 4 olympic games.
2. dara torres might be the most famous - she r

Data Mining Principles Applied, Eigenbehaviors

[ngr8]

Although there are clearly many random elements, http://reality.media.mit.edu/eigenbehaviors.php/suggest that the "Circular Error Probable" may be improved, the site reads in part:

Eigenbehaviors allow us to identify the structure inherent in daily human behavior with models that can accurately cluster, analyze and predict multimodal data from individuals and groups. We show that it is possible to accurately model many people's lives with just a few parameters - thus allowing accurate prediction of their future behavior from limited observations of their current behavior - as well as to create a similarity metric between individuals and groups that allows accurate identification of group affiliation and behavioral 'style'.

It isn't whether it is an optimal strategy, but whether these tools improve materially the effectiveness of intelligence. "Discovery" AI/Expert systems were finding new materials processes during the 1980s.

Oh ye of little faith. Still, trust in god but lock your car.

Or get change

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Sir, that quarter you have in your pocket is a ramdom number generating device. Spread 'em.

Supposedly one of the better spies (I forget which) always carried a coin in his pocket that he'd flip every few minutes to make random decisions (get to a street corner: turn or go straight? Flip).

Re:Or get change

[Anonymous Coward]

Coin flips are not random... I once saw a stats professor flip 10 heads in a row. He had practiced.

Jack.

Re:Or get change

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it really be that hard to track down the crazy guy flipping a coin at every street corner he comes to... a.k.a. Two-Face?

Re:Or get change

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposedly one of the better spies (I forget which) always carried a coin in his pocket that he'd flip every few minutes to make random decisions (get to a street corner: turn or go straight? Flip).

Bruce Schneier developed an encryption scheme that uses a deck of cards to cipher and decipher messages.

Re:Or get change

[AP31R0N]

This quarter got here the same way I did.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

touch me in my sexy spot

Because....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Using computers sounds far more scientific than reading tea leaves.

Re:Because....

[timeOday]

Before you rush to judgement, I suggest you play a few rounds of rock, paper, scissors. There's nothing crazy about spending money trying to find patterns in the enemy's behavior, even if he's intentionally trying to be random... that's the entire field of cryptology!

Re:Because....

[timeOday]

PS, it's also what stock investors do. Of course in this case the "enemy" isn't actively trying to act randomly, but your competition is trying to find and exploit (and thus dissipate) patterns, just as you are. Thus the market as a whole amounts to a game where future returns are as random as your competition can make them.

Basis for correlation

[caitsith01]

I imagine a strong basis for correlation would be "target is a member of armed forces engaged in hostile occupation of foreign country invaded on false pretences for strategic reasons." E.g. America in Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Russia in Afghanistan, Germany in France.

In other words, the best way to reduce these types of attacks is to avoid invading other countries without (at least) the invitation of the citizens. Compare, for example, UN peacekeeping forces in Kosovo who are not subject to constant random attacks precisely because the general populace wanted them there.

America needs to learn to address the underlying disease, not the symptoms. Likewise terrorism: remove the underlying motivation (hint: it's not "terrorists hate freedom") and resolve the problem.

Re:Basis for correlation

[Warll]

"Germany in France." Speaking of religious extremists fighting for their god, God, Wining, Win, unlawful wars, Law. Godwin's Law....

Re:Basis for correlation

[shiftless]

I imagine a strong basis for correlation would be "target is a member of armed forces engaged in hostile occupation of foreign country invaded on false pretences for strategic reasons." E.g. America in Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan,

Why is Afghanistan included on this list..and what "false pretenses" are you referring to? There's nothing false about the bridges, schools, hospitals, factories, etc being built every day in Afghanistan under watch of the ISAF.

Re:Basis for correlation

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm...

Isn't the problem that:

1) The end of the Cold War left us with a large military infrastructure, and no obvious enemies.
2) The military/industrial complex wanted to keep being paid, so
3) They invented a host of new imaginary opponents, who just 'hate freedom', so they can never be negotiated with, and just have to be destroyed with hi-tech weapons..

How are you going to solve that? After 20 years or so of being treated as some kind of 'Dr Evil' most of the Middle East (and the rest of the world) will so hate the US that we will have all the enemies we could ever need...

Re:Basis for correlation

[ChrisMaple]

The underlying disease is specifically Islam and generally religion. The solution is rationality. Rationality is not something that can be forced on a person.

Re:Basis for correlation

[caitsith01]

Why is Afghanistan included on this list..and what "false pretenses" are you referring to?

Er... the fact that you funded and trained Al Qaeda's founders and supported the Taliban when they were conveniently fighting the Russians?

Isaac Asimov already predicted it...

[the_skywise]

If these models work out I'd say we might be seeing the beginnings of Psycho-history...

Re:Isaac Asimov already predicted it...

[martin-boundary]

It's easier to predict a theory that predicts human behaviour than it is to predict human behaviour. Basically, that's the difference between theory and practice :)

another shameful abuse of technology

[nickhart]

The people of Iraq have a right to resist their occupiers by any means necessary. If a government with a century-long history of aggression and crushing democracies were to invade your country, I'm sure you'd agree. That anyone would develop technology to aid the occupiers is shameful. If anything, try to come up with a computer model for ending the war and imprisoning its architects and enablers.

Re:another shameful abuse of technology

[Hythlodaeus]

> If anything, try to come up with a computer model for ending the war and imprisoning its architects and enablers.

That's what this is. You seem a bit misled about who is responsible for the present violence. If the fundamentalist extremists layed down their arms, the violence would be over. If the US pulled out, the fundamentalists would still employ violence against the democratically elected government of Iraq. Sorry to rain on your fashionable cynicism though.

Schrodinger's HumV

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you do the threat analysis and modify your response, that causes the pattern to be disrupted -- kind of like making a measurement in quantum mechanics changes the underlying system.

prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Numb3rs

Save Lives?

[MrSteveSD]

If we can draw inferences from those correlations, then we may be able to [b]save lives[/b] by heightening awareness of possible events or changing the allocation of our security assets to provide more protection.

How about saving lives by not using air-strikes in densely populated civilian neighbourhoods? It doesn't take a computer model to tell you that bombing towns and cities is going to kill civilians and create a lot of very angry (and probably armed) people.

Re:Save Lives?

[Vinegar Joe]

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

Re:Save Lives?

[NMerriam]

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.

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
\-> 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/

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

Re:Save Lives?

[bendodge]

How's this?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/13/0315230

Re:Save Lives?

[DavidShor]

You are given a choice between attacking weapons sites and killing civilians, or letting them utilize their weapons. I have to admit, unless these weapons are truly destructive(IE, nuclear), I'd go with the letting them utilize their primitive and ineffective weapons.

Re:Save Lives?

[cold fjord]

How about saving lives by not using air-strikes in densely populated civilian neighbourhoods?

If you want to reduce fatalities from explosions in Iraqi neighborhoods, why not take a stand against things that really happen instead of imaginary problems? The explosions that are killing significant numbers of Iraqi civilians are from bus, truck, and car bombs and suicide bomb attacks conducted by Al Qaeda and other extremists, not imaginary US air strikes. This isn't exactly an obscure fact. Politically unpalatable to some, but not obscure.

Re:Save Lives?

[cold fjord]

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.

Someone is implying that Iraqis deserve to get killed? I doubt it is the US military. They seem to be working pretty hard to help Iraq rebuild and protect Iraqis from terrorism.

Focus On Projects That Put Iraqis Back to Work
Market Fair Helps Baghdad Residents Plan for Economic Future
Soldiers Provide Aid to Orphanage
Coalition, Iraqi Army Bring the Heat, Fuel Iraqi Fires
Work Resumes at Water Treatment Plant for Al-Zeirji Town
Police transition teams help Iraqi police take back streets
506th RCT Soldiers Distribute School Supplies to Iraqi Children
Streams of water bring progress, hope to village
More Electricity Projects Improving Lives in Dhi Qar Province
Marines Launch Rescue Effort to Save 3-year-old Hadithah Girl
Soldiers Work With Poultry Growers to Revitalize Chicken Industry

Maybe it is the extremists and insurgents that you are thinking of. After all, Al Qaeda considers the Shia heretics, and most of the Sunnis in Iraq as traitors, and wants to kill them both.

Tribal force in Iraq target of attacks
Bus bomb kills five in bustling market
Teenage Bomber Strikes In Anbar - Suicide Attack Targets Meeting Of Tribal Leaders
Female suicide bombers shatter Baghdad calm
Bin Laden's trained children of death
US Says Iraq Car Bomb Kills 23 Civilians

Take the hint

[Dada]

If you have enough data to make statistically significant observations for such a project, it might be time to get the f outta there...

and as soon as US forces react, it's useless

[SuperBanana]

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.

All of which will change now because a)they may know about it because of the news story or b)if it works, US forces will behave differently.

The precalculated probabilities and patterns will be worthless. All it will take is the guerrilla fighters changing how they pick targets.

No kidding.

[FatSean]

I love the terrorist-fearing pant-loads crying that the terrorists use women and children to fight off the people who have invaded and occupied their country. Do they really think American women and children wouldn't volunteer to help resist the Chinese, if they entered our nation and set up a puppet government?

All I can say about this conflict is that nobody I give a shit about was stupid enough to believe the government's lies and enlist to fight in Iraq. My deepest condolences for those who enlisted pre-2003 to defend their nation...these men and women are being misused.

Re:No kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh but wait, your entire sorry ass nation whipped themselves into a patriotic lather and invaded afganistan and then Iraq.

also whats with all this anti china sentiment recently?

Re:No kidding.

[Ieshan]

This "don't you think you'd help fight the Chinese!" argument is so asinine it's not funny.

If the Chinese came and took over Hawaii, you can bet hard money that citizens wouldn't be setting off bombs in supermarkets or strapping explosives to disabled people to use as weaponry. The disabled people that they strap weapons to aren't fighting "the noble fight", they're people who don't know the difference because of mental disability. Would we use the full force of our military to stop such an attack? Of course. But don't act like we'd suddenly turn into religious fanatics that would bomb civilians in our own country to prove a point.

I know that you think the war is wrong, but don't try to justify terrorism by blaming the victims of terrorism - either the brainwashed kids or the innocent, targeted civilians. There were plenty of terrorist attacks around the world before Iraq, all of them due to a lethal combination of ignorance, hatred, and explosives.

Re:No kidding.

[clay_buster]

Do they really think American women and children wouldn't volunteer to help resist the

You're probably right but it is pretty depressing to thing that most cultures would take the mentally ill out of institutions, strap bombs on them and send them into markets to be blown up by remote control.

Sadly, Markets

[hey]

Sadly they have lots of data to work with.
I would predict that the worst attacks occur in crowded markets where there are lots of people.

One and only

[yuri2001]

The only pattern I can really agree on is the one where we see the US spending billions in research against something that a simple change of foreign policy could (still?) avoid.

And BTW, I thought you guys stopped relying too much on spy sats and computers an more on HUMINT?

Recently we discovered that some djihad groups are training 8 years old kids to be suicide bombers, that's were we are, the US wants to stop it? Then think with humanity.

that's flawed - here's better methodology

[rubycodez]

I have a fool-proof method for completely avoiding any future attacks upon our troops in Iraq. Get the fuck out of Iraq. Stop invading countries for the purpose of lining the pockets of defense contractors and protecting the interests of oil tycoons and central bankers. Predictable idiotic responses to my idea: the terrorists will have won! The terrorists have already won a new recruiting and breeding ground, thanks to gw, cheney and rumsfeld. Iran will take over Iraq: let them have it. they're probably too smart to want the trouble though. there will be civil war and genocide. we already have that, pay more attention. we'll destabilize the middle east. we already did that.

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a fool-proof method for completely avoiding any future attacks upon our troops in Iraq.

Added for emphasis. Literally!

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[NMerriam]

I have a fool-proof method for completely avoiding any future attacks upon our troops in Iraq. Get the fuck out of Iraq.

Didn't you hear President Bush explain how they'd follow us home if we left Iraq? There's only one guy causing all this conflict. If he's there, he can't be here. But if he doesn't need to be there, he can easily move his family here and cause all sorts of trouble.

Al Qaeda is Platinum on American Airlines, he actually is a million miler from way back, which means free upgrades for life, so he doesn't mind a long-haul flight! He has plenty of Starwood points to come over here, don't make him cash those in when he was planning on surprising his wives with a trip to the Bahamas next Spring!

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[Dachannien]

Maybe you haven't been keeping up with things, but the Iraqis are actually taking their country back from the insurgents/terrorists now, with US help in training their army and police. While there are still some bad spots - Al Qaeda moved to Mosul after Baghdad started getting too tough for them - things are enormously better in Iraq now. Iraqis who have day-to-day contact with US forces (and a lot of them do) have a very positive image of our troops, often trusting them to get things done because the Iraqi forces are still dealing with internal bureaucracy and corruption. That word has spread, to the point where people across Iraq are standing up to make their neighborhoods more secure.

This isn't about a simplistic "the trrrists will win if we leave", even though it's true that they will. It's about people's lives. While we shouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place, it's too late to pretend we never went - we have to deal with the consequences of the invasion and as well as the years during which the "do more for less" policy was pushed by Rumsfeld. Yes, thousands of innocent civilians have died at our hands, and tens of thousands have died at the hands of the terrorists, but hundreds of thousands will die if we leave Iraq to be split up by Iran and Al Qaeda.

By the way, the article wasn't merely talking about preventing attacks on our troops. Part of the surge strategy was to ensure that American troops are in the neighborhoods and interacting with the Iraqi people on a constant basis rather than holing up in bases and bunkers. That opens them up to further attacks, but our troops know how to defend themselves (easily the deadliest thing for our soldiers in a combat situation is buried IEDs, because insurgents and terrorists are usually extremely poor shots using the fairly inaccurate AK-47). What kills so many civilians is suicide bombings, shootings in crowds, and other activities that the study from the article hopes to pattern and predict. Much like the current mission in Iraq, the study is about saving civilian lives first and foremost.

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[mapkinase]

At the risk of evoking anger of moderators and offtop slaps on my most I have to tell that parent comment is neither "Insightful" or "Informative", because to be either of them it has to be an original thought (sorry, rubycodes, no offense).

It is neither of remaining choices for mods either. The choice I am looking here is "A truth that everyone knows which has to be told over and over again because people in power are not listening" or smth like that

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, the invasion was a bad idea. I agree. I also think that if you break it you buy it. We did invade, there is no getting around that. So what you have to ask is, what happens if we leave? Do we do more harm then if we stay. At what point do the returns out weight the investment? Lives are precious, but lets be honest we haven't lost that many troops. The number is a drop in the bucket if you look at vietnam or world war two. The capital is a probably a bigger issue. So at what point does pulling out hurt us less then staying? I don't think the answer is yet. We leave now we could see a middle eastern world war. The economic shock for that would be a real pain. I don't know if 'victory' is possible, but stability sure would be nice

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[rubycodez]

Al Q isn't big enough to either split Iraq nor are they the cause of most of the violence, that's a Bush-Cheney lie. It's a sectarian civil war that's doing most of the killing.

The total civilian casualties *are* in the hundreds of thousands already, due to the USA, and the refugee count more than that. Worse than anything Saddam ever did.

It is pointless for us to be there, and only brings more misery.

We are there to line the pockets of defense contractors, skids greased with the blood of our soldiers.

We are there to protect the oil tycoons interests, oil for blood

We are there because Israel wanted it.

Re:that's flawed - here's better methodology

[Dachannien]

Reputable sources have indicated that the body count is somewhere in the 80,000's. The Soros-funded Lancet study's inflated claim has had numerous holes poked in it.

And there is definitely a point for us to be there now, even if there wasn't a point for us to go there in the first place: to help the Iraqis form stable internal peacekeeping mechanisms so that we can eventually leave without precipitating mass chaos.

I don't get it

[PPH]

From TFA:

One way to combat these attacks is to identify trends in the attackers' methods, then use those trends to predict their future actions

The whole problem with guerilla tactics is that we don't know who to watch. If we could identify the attackers, don't waste time studying them. Just take them out.

OTOH, if this is an exercise in correlating past attackers behavior with patterns in the general population, it would require surveillance of that population the likes of which we are barely beginning to see.

If any anomalous behavior might get you labeled as a possible terrorist, you'd better think twice about switching from Windows to Linux.

As posted below....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Yup, we all know that people will tend to be predictable when they think they are being random. Ask a group of people to think of a random number and you'll see a skew towards 7. But it is easy to be far more random than that. Play rock paper scissors using a dice and you'll get 50%.

All you need to do is carry a coin etc around and flip it every now and then to randomise behavior. Good spies did this. So did good submarine commanders etc.

Heads we attack this week, tails we don't. Heads we turn at the next corner, tails we don't. Heads we turn left, tails we turn right etc etc. Heads we fly United, tails Continental.

FBI can try make a patern of that but all they'll do is burn CPU cycles

Re:As posted below....

[timeOday]

People have reasons for doing things certain ways. Forcing them to act randomly degrades their effectiveness. And that's under the unrealistic assumption that they think to randomize everything they should and then go to the effort of actually doing it.

Re:As posted below....

[Strilanc]

That's not true when their effectiveness depends on not being tracked. If you are a security guard and you follow the same patrol every hour, anyone who knows the patrol can avoid you every time. If you flip a coin to decide your direction or wait times here and there (and your route is reasonable), no one will be able to avoid you every time.

The same thing goes if you have valuables you need to transport from A to B every week. If you always follow the same route you're a much easier target: the enemy can ambush you every time. If you take a more random route they can only ambush you some of the time.

How to guarantee you are fighting the last war

[rlglende]

Anti-terrorism efforts are always a bet against human ingenuity.

This is a perfect way of preventing any ingenuity on your own side, not that there is much of that in any gov effort.

Lew

Now, Brian

[smittyoneeach]

The correct question is not "Why use computers"", or "Why not just hire a psychologist?". This is a government funding exercise. The correct answer is, "Why not do both?". We can frivolously blow twice the cash on white-collar welfare if we refuse to limit ourselves. Remember: the proper boolean operator is AND, not OR.
Now, Brian: proceed to your journal, write a post saying "AND, not OR" 500 times, and quit wasting valuable /. time with these half-measures.

Wrong strategy

[capn_nemo]

First, if they're using randomness to generate attacks, it's obviously impossible to predict. Yes, yes, small patterns may emerge, but it seems like a ridiculous idea to try and predict what a randomly connected network of people will try and do. Rather, assess *your* patterns - that's what they're doing anyway - and find your own vulnerabilities. In fact, we should be using predictive software to determine what we'll do, and then do something... random. Our best bet is simply to be unpredictable, not to predict them.

Moreover, our efforts towards prevention should be around large scale disaster response. We can assume bad things will happen sometimes, but it's the gigantic, unexpected thing, the Black Swan that's the real danger. Being mobile and responsive, preparing for the worst, we'll do a much better job of fending off attacks.

$.02

wheres the computer that would have stopped GW

[Anonymous Coward]

from invading a country that did not attack us, letting osama slip through tora bora into pakistan, didnt use enough troops in iraq in the first place, lets billions of dollars go unaccounted for and missing, .... where is the computer that is going to make decisions based on basic common sense and logic? where is that machine?

This is monkeyshine

[Anonymous Coward]

This crap has to stop if we are ever going to balence the budget or have a productive society.

In the early parts of the cold war there were "researchers" who got millions from the government for making charts and databases of who sat where during the Moscow May Day parade and similar bullshit, and analyzed and tried to predict "the Soviets are having problems with X missile program" based on the fact that someone coughed when a truck passed by or some shit.

Every few years the program would die off and be re-incarnated slightly different. In spite of the money spent, the cold war was characterized by the US being caught by surprise numerous times and generally vastly over estimating the enemy.

In the last few decades, a new twist on the scheme is to use "prediction markets" or betting pools, and some how devine the future from the numbers. If you talk to the proponents of those schemes, it is never clear where they think the information that Osama is about to attack will come from -- do they think that the billionaire cave-dweller terrorist himself will not be able resist investing in the market ? That one of his subordinates will do so ? That the CIA analysts who should know can't be trusted to tell the truth in their reports, but that for the sake of a couple of grand they will reveal their real opinions in a glorified office betting pool ?

Remember when experts used to get on Fox News and gravely announce that the "chatter" had risen in their captured communications ? Did they ever call one right ?

The fact is, there is a deeply embedded human instinct, to believe when presented with a bunch of random or semi-random data, there is some clue to be decoded. People spend their lives decoding hidden messages in Shakespeare, the Bible, the innards of sacrificed chickens, credit card transactions, stock market fluctuations, tea leaves, phone records, etc. Suppose these goddamn charlatans find that you can print out the data, turn it sideways and squint, and it looks even more like Jesus than the famous grilled cheese sandwhich. What then ?

There is likely little we can do to reduce the overall amount of research spending. But I believe that even ordinay people can effect the direction of it; and we can do that through mockery and redicule. Those eggheads may claim to investigate the truth for pure science and the advancement of knowledge useful to humans, but if every taxi driver, plumber, or student laughed in their faces when told what they researched, they'd write grants for something else. And since that something else might have a slim chance of being useful, that's what we ought to do.

Just like weather forcasting.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

For some reason the even the weather seems easier to predict than terror, yet we still get it wrong. It isn't like the wind and the clouds conspire against us.

"Now to Brenda, for this weeks terror forcast."

"3% chance of war."

No need to flee the country this weekend. Great.

Yeah good luck with that

[EEPROMS]

I recently listened to a podcast about risk analysis using software. What I found amusing is the World Tower (9/11) attacks had a high prediction but the pointy headed ones called it an aberration so ignored it. You can have the best analysis on the planet even with a 99% certainty but all you need is some pin headed public servant to ignore it either for political or personal reason and the whole thing falls apart.

Darn, beat me to it!

[Traf-O-Data-Hater]

Asimov's Psychohistory was the first thing I thought if too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

use the source....

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not exactly like we haven't seen the source o windows 2000.
God i hope it's gotten a lot better since then.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/feb04/02-12windowssource.mspx

Backtesting doesn't guarantee success...

[MadMorf]

Just like backtesting stock trading strategies doesn't guarantee future success, this probably won't make anyone any safer than making us take off our shoes, or emptying our shampoo bottles, before we get on airplanes...

But, someone will make a fortune from it...

Here's what I propose...It will probably work just as well...

Send emails to half of the people telling them to stay home and to the other half, tell hem to act as usual...

Lather, rinse, repeat...Profit!

Absolutely!

[Anonymous Coward]

The ENTIRE THING was preventable by not invading a sovereign nation and killing a messload of innocent civilians in the name of... what exactly was it again? I seem to have forgotten.

You reap what you sew. What we have sewn is to made a significant fraction of the world's population hate us, and our former friends distance themselves as we become the militarily aggressive nation that everyone fears. We've become the Germany of 1938, the Japan of 1936. In 2008, it's America. Small wonder the local population is giving their lives to drive an aggressive foreign power out of their homeland.

Re:Absolutely!

[chthonicdaemon]

you reap what you sew

A stitch in time saves nine.

Re:Absolutely!

[ConceptJunkie]

And that wooshing sound is the noise of your joke going over the head of the OP. :-)

Who cares, the army of the 12Monkeys already knows

[nicolasmendo]

JEFFREY
                Here's my theory on that. While I was
                institutionalized, my brain was studied
                exhaustively in the guise of mental health.
                I was interrogated, x-rayed, studied
                thoroughly. Then, everything about me
                was entered into a computer where they
                created a model of my mind.

        They all stare, mesmerized, at the strutting JEFFREY. Is he
        serious? Is he crazy? Doesn't matter -- he's charismatic.

                                JEFFREY (cont.)
                Then, using the computer model, they
                generated every thought I could possibly
                have in the next, say ten years, which
                they then filtered through a probability
                matrix to determine everything I was
                going to do in that period. So you
                see, she knew I was going to lead the
                Army of the Twelve Monkeys into the
                pages of history before it ever even
                occurred to me. She knows everything
                I'm ever going to do before I know it
                myself. How about that?

Saving lives

[fletch44]

I love that idea that this information might help to save lives. What it really means is that the army gets to kill a lot more foreigners on their land, with less risk to themselves. More people will die, not less. But I forgot, brown people don't count as real people, especially if they don't speak English.

Not from University Of Alabama

[Visoblast]

This work was done at the University Of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), not the University Of Alabama (UA) like the main post says. UAH did start as a satellite campus of UA, but became a separate university a few decades ago. I guess some news travels slow.

One non-random element

[pompomtom]

Perhaps the US could stop invading sovereign nations.

Nah, obviously I'm just kidding. Carry on.

a very simple solution

[b0nafide]

"These UAHuntsville scientists hope to help provide a better intelligence posture on these asymmetric threats by developing computer models that identify trends in the behaviors of the adversaries." the data is finally in after teraflop after teraflop of intense scrutiny. 100% of the random terrorist attacks have been carried out by members of the species that built the calculator.

Do you really need a refresher?

[Tony]

The ENTIRE THING was preventable by not invading a sovereign nation and killing a messload of innocent civilians in the name of... what exactly was it again? I seem to have forgotten.

*sigh*

I hate it when people trivialize the reason the US went into Iraq.

It's a *very* complex, very powerful function of time. However, it can be simply summarized thusly:

        Begin: Terrorists are hiding out in Iraq, and Iraq had something to do with 9/11
        Month 1: Weapons of Mass Destruction
        Month 2: Liberate Iraq from the tyranny of a dictator
        Month 3: Bring democracy to the Middle East in order to stabilize it
        Month 4: Them WMDs are still out there, and they're not going to destroy themselves, you know
        Month 5: Iraq is going to flourish now they have democracy
        Month 6: Mission accomplished!
        Month 7: That dictator had help hiding the WMDs, but we'll find them once we're in complete control
        Month 8: Iraqis are fighting back! They're terrorists! See? We told you they were there! ...
        Month 42: Iran is building WMDs!

Know what I hate? It was so patently obvious Iraq had no WMDs, and no capability of developing anything more dangerous than mixing bleach with ammonia.

It's over 6 years since 9/11, and we're no closer to catching bin Laden than we were at the beginning. Didn't somebody famous vow he would bring the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice? Now, I know that vows don't mean a lot to everyone, but they *should* matter to the leader of the world's most powerful nation. But, then again, he vowed to uphold and protect the Constitution, as well.

Oh, well. Fuck it. I am trying to let go of my hate, so I may find peace.

Somebody on this planet should have peace, anyway.

Re:Do you really need a refresher?

[DrVomact]

Know what I hate? It was so patently obvious Iraq had no WMDs, and no capability of developing anything more dangerous than mixing bleach with ammonia.

Well...not really. Iraq employed war gas ("mustard" gas and maybe VX, if I recall correctly) extensively during the Iran-Iraq war. (Iran reciprocated.) You may recall that Saddam put some of his left-over stock to use against the Kurds, also. So it was quite reasonable to think—at the time—that Saddam had an inventory of chemical weapons before Gulf War II. The big mystery is why anyone would think it mattered.

Today, just about any government can acquire (or even make) war gases, and other very nasty chemical things. These substances have been used as weapons for a hundred years, and are no more complex to produce than antibiotics or insecticide. Using them confers no advantage to a belligerent, because counter-measures are well-known, and the other side will reply in kind. Any state that uses such weapons to attack a much more powerful state is no less foolish than if it had attacked the superior power with "conventional" weapons. In other words, an Iraq with chemical weapons was no more of a threat than an Iraq without them.

This is so obvious that the phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction" was spun into currency to obfuscate the issue. War gas is just gas...but WMDs could be anything. If you say, "Iraq is a danger to us because they have mustard gas", you sound dumb. Fewer people will realize you are saying something dumb if you say "Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction". Also, it helps if you hint that these WMDs might be nuclear weapons. There wasn't any proof that Iraq had nukes...but the fog of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" suggested that they might.

Of course, if Washington had really thought that Saddam had nukes, there would have been no war. Why? Because, unlike war gas, nukes are truly a different order of weapon. They're much harder to make than insecticide, and having one elevates a state into a special club: Those Who Cannot Be Attacked. Any government that attacks another state which possesses nuclear weapons is acting suicidally--the risk that the victim will succeed in retaliating with even one bomb is unacceptable. That is why war today is of two kinds: big states attacking small states that have no nukes, and non-states attacking whomever they please, because those who have no fixed address cannot be nuked.

I highly recommend Martin Van Creveld's The Transformation of War on this subject.

Re:Do you really need a refresher?

[Dachannien]

Actually, Saddam was doing his best not to make it obvious that he didn't have WMDs. He feared the threat of attack from Iran (who, he feared, might attack if he didn't have WMDs) more than he feared the threat of an attack from the US (who might attack if he did have them), so he did what he could to prevent weapons inspectors from ever reaching the definitive conclusion that he had no WMDs. Unfortunately, our intelligence machinery failed throughout the late 1990s right on into 2003. Both Clinton and Bush were duped by the ruse, the difference being that Bush actually acted upon it.

Re:Do you really need a refresher?

[rubycodez]

what a load of bullshit. here is why we're in Iraq:

oil tycoons
defense contractors
central bankers
israel

How about a study

[Swampash]

...on why the USA is so hated that there have been TWELVE THOUSAND terrorist attacks in three and a half years?

Or is that just crazy defeatist talk?

Re:How about a study

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been NO terrorist attacks, they are simply patriots
defending their country from foreign invaders. I'm sure US citizens
would do tha same if a load of lard-arsed Iraqis took over the US.

Want them to stop attacking you? Get the fuck out of their country.

Re:How about a study

[Hoi Polloi]

Unfortunately this computer model is unable to help the researchers find a way to keep our nose out of other people's countries in the first place. The Department of Defense stopped being about defense a while ago.

I think every president gets to take the military out for a "drive" during their administration, right? It is one of the benefits, like expensive boardmember jobs and speaking fees afterwards.

McCain's Research

[Doc Ruby]

John McCain wants to spend another century collecting data for this research project.

Eureka!

[dexomn]

The recurring factor is douchebag with a vendetta.

Human beings are predictable

[mveloso]

It's not a waste of money, because humans are not random. They may seem random, but that's because you don't know what to look for.

This example explains it the best: if I'm on top of a building and you're at street level and I tell you "there's a red car coming, then a green car, then a yellow car and they should be near you in 2 minutes." Am I seeing the future?

You don't need to be a psychic to see the future. You just have to be able to look at things in the right way.

It's called non-hypothesis-based data mining.

[dos4who]

Remember the urban legend of "beer and diapers"? (If not, just do a search on the intarweb)... Seriously, Non-Hypothesis-Based Data Mining is all about removing pre-conceived ideas about how data should be extracted or may be interpreted from a given database of "seemingly random" information. For instance, let's say a study shows that for a given populated area, a high-number of Leukemia cases happen along a path which follows an overhead powerline. The natural hypothesis might be to assume that the powerline is (at least partially) at fault for those cancer cases; However, if you remove that hypothesis, your mind will be open to more possibilities for the illness numbers. An example can be that powerline trail housing tends to be less desirable, and therefore more affordable than those homes only a few blocks away. Maybe, because those lower cost homes draw lower income families, that their initial health care is not up to par, and other contributing factors and causes go undetected. Maybe those lower income families tend to eat more processed food and less ruffage, also contributing factors. Once again, remove the hypotheses, and the conclusive results will be even more profound that you could once perceive. ~m

game logic

[pockyninja]

They could just use the programs that determine AI in video games. Line the streets with explosive barrels; terrorists ALWAYS duck behind those for cover.

He was eventually nabbed when...

[patio11]

counterintelligence realized most people do not flip when crossing the street.

No, I'm joking. Seriously though, one of the things the military does in Iraq when looking for the foreign jihadis is they watch for wrong turns off main thoroughfares. It is apparently pretty effective at sorting out people who aren't from around here -- if you know Main Street less well than the Americans, you just might be from out of town!

Re:He was eventually nabbed when...

[mapkinase]

Point taken.

overfitting

[Anonymous Coward]

"patterns" are everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting

Attacks are not random!

[jack_n_jill]

Attacks are carefully correlated with those targets that are most easily attacked. The insurgents study all possible targets for weak points in their defense. They assess the chances of success. They consider how the attack aids their propaganda campaign. They see if they have the resources available for a successful operation. They select from a long list of possible targets and make their decision.

The attacks only seem random to the uninformed; i.e. the US Army.

If the Army manages to correlate against the above factors the insurgents simply use the above analysis to improve their chances. This is not a system of independent variables. Any success that the Army has will be countered by a change in strategy by the insurgents. The data that you analyze becomes invalid when you attempt to use it.

Incompetence and mediocrity are pervasive

[microbox]

Sure, that's why you have test sets to determine if the models the system learns from the data are useful or not. I think it's safe to assume that the scientists working on this are familiar with the basics of learning theory and modeling.

It is never safe to assume that people (and scientists) are capable of doing things "right". Incompetence and mediocrity are so pervasive that you can just rule this out, unless you see some evidence to the contrary
\
This whole exercise brings technical analysis to mind - extensive research into a huge waste of time, with the spectre of making $$$. Say, I wonder if this is some private firm trying to get research dollars for whatever half-baked idea they can come up with. Money is kinda like oxygen.

To be fair, I think an extensive detailed database system would be invaluable to crime fighting officials.

Re:Incompetence and mediocrity are pervasive

[FleaPlus]

To be fair, I think an extensive detailed database system would be invaluable to crime fighting officials.

Actually, after some quick googling, it turns out that similar methods are already used somewhat extensively and successfully in domestic crime fighting:

http://www.google.com/search?q=crime+mapping

I guess this is basically just a way to see if similar methods would also be useful in warfare. There are worse ways to spend $100K.

I, for one,...

[Lecard]

I, for one, welcome our new terrorist attack forecasting overlords
Sorry folks, I HAD to do that!

But hey, they should try finding some precogs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film) .

Minority Report

[AIFEX]

So can we assume the 3 bald heads in a swimming pool aren't working as well as expected then?

Terroists Perdiections

[__aalnoi707]

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.

So then the Terrorists find the pattern in the pattern detection then Act contradictory to the "pattern" that the computer found. Wow we rely on technology too much sometimes

Maybe YOU are a pussy?

[FatSean]

The American Revolution only happened because Americans had to use non-'noble' fighting techniques to defeat the better armed, trained and supported British. Also, only half the nation was into the fight anyway. I used China as an example, but I suppose Russians would be more acceptable, since they've begun their saber rattling.

Read a fucking history book, jackass.

Re:Maybe YOU are a pussy?

[Ieshan]

What does this even mean?

The people in the American Revolution never bombed their own civilians in an attempt to spurn British rule, nor did they use women or disabled individuals as weapons. Their "non-noble" fighting techniques were to not stand in a straight line.

Do you have a better example, or am I to assume that you last took eighth grade American history and can't argue without cursing at people?

Re:Maybe YOU are a pussy?

[geoff313]

Don't be so naive,

You are confusing asymmetric warfare with religious/tribal feuds. The fact that U.S. troops get continually killed and maimed by IEDs in Iraq is exactly the same sort of asymmetric warfare practiced by the "Americans" during the American Revolution. To "stand in a straight line" against the British would have been suicide, just the same as it would be for the "insurgents" to fight a set piece battle with U.S. troops. So the idea that people will try to manipulate the battle field to their own advantage is hardly "revolutionary".

What you are complaining about is religious and tribal feuding. While this is often savage and barbaric, it is entirely something different. Were those suicide bombers targeting the occupation forces when they blew up their own country people? No, those sort of attacks were meant to further provoke and incite religious and tribal feuds, which are meant to ultimately help their own religious/tribal agenda. They would be the equivalent (while highly exaggerated) of right-wing fanatics taking advantage of a Chinese invasion to murder every member of MoveOn.org to push their religious agenda.

Next time you speak on a matter please do a bit of home work, or exercise a bit of critical thinking,

-geoff

Re:Maybe YOU are a pussy?

[Ieshan]

Please read the entire thread before responding to one post.

I do like what you did there though. You separated attacks on US troops by roadside bombs and suicide bombs on Iraqi civilians as if they weren't being orchestrated by the same people. Reality check - they are.

The quote I was replying to:
"I love the terrorist-fearing pant-loads crying that the terrorists use women and children to fight off the people who have invaded and occupied their country. Do they really think American women and children wouldn't volunteer to help resist the Chinese, if they entered our nation and set up a puppet government?"

The point still stands. At no time in the revolutionary war did American Soldiers attack their own civilians to prove a political point. The original poster was alleging that the women, children, and disabled individuals who are being recruited by the Terrorist Movements in Iraq are somehow making a willful point to join and participate, to resist occupation. Please confirm to me that you understand that these mentally handicapped individuals are not, in fact, making an informed decision to participate in these bombings and that they are being used to awful and destructive ends by extremely evil individuals.

Also, geoff, I appreciate the snide closing to your post, as if your level of education was somehow greater than mine.

this just in: terrorists are

[Anonymous Coward]

reportedly trying to acquire a nuclear-decay based random generator.
They had previously been using this
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=126649

What a pantload.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Terrorist Attacks? What? Some dumbass strapping dynamite to his chest and wandering into a crowded market? OK - that takes munitions. Taking over a plane with razor knives and flying it into a skyscraper? Takes no munitions, just a shitload of nerve and a complacent herd of passengers. Both result in lots of dead innocent civilians.

But then there are other forms of terrorism, such as flying a B2 filled to the gunnels with high explosive munitions that rain down on the homes and hovels of innocent civilians.

Americans like to bark about terrorism as in the form taken by small groups of murderous assholes, frequently on a suicide mission. And they bark louder when a state gets involved in support of such efforts. But they refuse to take responsibility (much less blame) when they themselves act as State Sponsored and funded terrorists by bombing the living fuck out of innocent civilians. Whether it's a team of suicide bombers or a team of bomber flight crew, the results are the same: mass death of innocent civilians.

And don't go cracking a pantload over how the Iraqis attacked your freedom. WHEN did the boat filled with Iraqi soldiers float to the USA and attack your freedom? What day was that? I sure would like to know because I was taking a vacation in this lovely little place called REALITY. The USA is a terrorist nation. Its unwarranted and unwanted and utterly idiotic invasion of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people there. Whether it is death strapped to some delusional team of assholes chanting ALLAH, or some cynical assholes flying at 12,000m dropping ordnance all over a city and thinking it's a job well done, the results are the same: dead civilians at the hands of a team of assholes.

Here's a way to predict terrorists attacks: check the flying sortie records of the US Air Force.

RS

Re:What a pantload.

[ubuwalker31]

Your contention that the US Air Force are terrorists is complete and utter bullshit.

Terrorism is non-state sanctioned violence by a group for political/ideological reasons which is intended to create fear and terror, that deliberately targets civilian non-combatants.

State sanctioned violence is not terrorism. An attack not intended to cause terror is not terrorism. An attack not purposefully targeting civilians is not terrorism. Random (or ordinary criminal) violence without a political ideology is not terrorism. Being part of a loosely banded together militia fighting an invading army is not terrorism. Waging a holy war is not terrorism.

Waging an air war with precision guided munitions is not terrorism. Dropping a bomb on an AQI safehouse is not terrorism. Collateral damage caused by a bomb which accidentally falls into a civilian apartment complex is not terrorism.

There are other terms which encompass these activities, such as war crimes, aggression, looting, pillaging, etc. IMHO, terrorism should be something specific...making it too general is too political.

Re:What a pantload.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Waging an air war with precision guided munitions is not terrorism. Dropping a bomb on an AQI safehouse is not terrorism. Collateral damage caused by a bomb which accidentally falls into a civilian apartment complex is not terrorism.

Wrong.

Yes IT IS terrorism, when you INVADE A COUNTRY that hasn't done anything to you!

You can designate anybody as anything, but when they're just sitting around minding their own BUSINESS, and suffering horribly under sanctions you impose, and then you go and bomb the place to flinders, NO - THAT is terrorism, state sponsored Terror. Shock and Awe? Remember? You SHOCK AND AWE someone to make them feel better? No, you do it to KILL AND TERRORISE THEM. And don't go calling the murder of innocents "collateral damage", when it is simply the murder of innocents. YOU are COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

RS

Re:What a pantload.

[mgreenham]

Even better, look for the influence of every major US terrorist incident on pending legislation. This isn't to say "Neocons cause terrorism", but it isn't a good set of incentives, and worth watching on the list of major US attacks & warnings. Some are saying "Republicans cannot survive without terrorism". Or at least the threat of terrorism, which is itself a form of terrorism, and which is practiced daily by leadership announcements. Starting before the most recent Bush regime with the bombing of the Marine barracks during Reagan/Bush, bombing of the Cole under Clinton (which assisted pending procurement legislation), then 9/11 under this Bush just when his poll numbers were going into the tank, the deaths of Paul Wellstone (and his wife) as the only member who voted against so-called Patriot Act I, the Anthrax attack being sent only to Democratic opposition to said Act, the DC Sniper during pending vote for Patriot Act II, and so on. Even small incidents coincidentally and consistently occurring during run-up to '04 election such as the pavlovian Terrorism Alert bell rung each time a bump was needed in the dialogue. Want to test the theory? Here's a prediction: if telcos don't get immunity, if Obama looks like a winner, and Bush/Cheney look like they'll be indicted, we'll magically have another 9/11 style attack such as dirty bomb or threat of same. Odd how the "terrorists" seem to watch the legislation calendar and US elections closely and act in ways helpful to all-powerful central gov't insiders with rights to keep secrets and immunity from prosecution. Just a coincidence. One way to get perspective on some of these suspicions is Alex Jones www.prisonplanet.com. As they say, "Sure, he's crazy, but what if he's right?". About 1/2 of what he says is silly or irrelevant, but 1/2 is very disturbing and supports a great deal of scrutiny. He is paranoid about gov't control and intrusion, and has way too many facts for comfort. Check it out.

Re:What a pantload.

[ubuwalker31]

I'd like you to slow down a moment, and take the time to actually read and understand what I am trying to say:

Invading a country illegally is NOT TERRORISM. It is a war crime, and completely unjustifiable. Did you read that last sentence? It is a horrid war crime. Bush and cronies should be thrown in jail.

Using military techniques to cause terror to combatants, such as using a flash bang/stun grenades, dropping bombs, dropping leaflets, and killing enemy soldiers in spectacular fashion is not terrorism. It is the legitimate use of military force.

Your problem is that you equate any killing as unjustifiable murder and any use of terror by military forces as terrorism. When you use these words so broadly, they loose their meaning. Charles Manson is a murderer. Osama bin Laden is a terrorist. If you say that Bush is a murderer, then the word murderer becomes diluted and meaningless, because Osama's actions are clearly of a different caliber and carry with them absolutely no sort of moral, political, or spiritual authority.

The term terrorism should be used specifically, and not loosely as a political tool to attack one's enemies. Otherwise, it becomes as useless in our political debates as the words "socialist" and "liberal".

how about we stop occupying Iraq instead?

[justdrew]

stop the wart crimes and pull out.

Cheap Rhetoric

[sciop101]

Nuff Said.

How is this news?

[Money for Nothin']

From the submitter's comment, it sounds like all they're doing is using undergraduate-level statistics. Finding correlations in 2 datasets is *FAR* from new; you can do it yourself with all kinds of data on Swivel.

But correlation != causation; any /. reader should know that. A correlation in data does not mean there is any actual connection between them: there is surely a non-zero correlation between lobster prices in Maine and the number of prostitutes murdered in Thailand. But that does not mean they are in any way connected.

Social scientists have been struggling with this problem for decades, particularly that most-empirical of social scientists, the economist... Predicting human behavior can be broadly performed with simple statistical models, true. But to gain accurate, actionable information is quite a more challenging task.

That CS profs are treading on ground that social scientists have already, with dismal results, suggests one or both of two things: a lack of cross-disciplinary study on the CS profs' part (quite likely, given the insular nature of us CS people), and/or an over-fascination with statistical techniques they haven't experienced enough to realize just how limited they really are in their real-world predictive capability, given dirty, inspecific, inconsistent data...

So look at the civil war.

[FatSean]

You act as if the USA has never used these sorts of tactics and has some sort of high ground from which to disparage those who are defending their way of life against what they see as invaders and corrupt countrymen. What do you think the nuking of Japan was like?! Remember the civil war?

Whatever dude...I know it's just easier to accept what you are told about terrorists by your government.