Proceedings of a Workshop on Statistics on Networks (CD-ROM) (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Dynamic Network Analysis in Counterterrorism Research--Kathleen Carley, Carnegie Mellon University
Dynamic Network Analysis in Counterterrorism Research--Kathleen Carley, Carnegie Mellon University
Pages 169-187
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From page 169... ...
They certainly bring to the forefront a lot of different kinds of data. However, there are analysts who face both of these issues using the same kind of data and in both cases using data that has strong network characteristics.
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From page 170... ...
Basically, the set of tools help you build a network so you may find points of influence, and then help you assess strategic intervention. The important thing from a technology standpoint is that all of these things have to be built by lots of people, they have to be 1 ORA is a statistical toolkit for meta-matrices that identifies vulnerabilities, key actors (including emergent leaders)
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From page 171... ...
FIGURE 1 Integrated Tool Chain for Dynamic Network Analysis From a network assessment perspective I am only going to concentrate on the middle block of Figure 1, which deals with network analysis. Basically, we ask four fundamental types of questions.
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From page 172... ...
It uses these different kinds of multi-mode multi-plex data to help predict, think about, and infer actions from one network to another. People or Agents Knowledge or Tasks or Events Groups or Resources Organizations People or Agents Standard Social Knowledge Network Assignment or Membership Network Resource Network Attendance Network Network Knowledge or Knowledge Network Information Needs or Utilization Core Capability Resources Resource Network Network/ Network Network Substitution Network Tasks or Events Assignment or Needs or Utilization Precedence Network Institutional Attendance Network Relation or Network Sponsorship Network Groups or Membership Core Capability Institutional Inter-organizational Organizations Network Network Relation or Network Sponsorship Network FIGURE 2 Illustrative Meta-Matrix for Dynamic Network Analysis In other words, ORA uses something we call the meta-matrix approach to evaluate connections among multiple entities at varying strength, as illustrated in Figure 2.
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From page 173... ...
Finally, we have also found the need to consider networks over time; specifically looking at data from multiple time periods reveals what relations remain constant and which change. As an example of the first of these challenges, I point to an analysis we conducted about one particular Middle Eastern country.
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From page 174... ...
It is important to note that multi-mode data gives us a very different picture of the society and the connections among the elite than we would have inferred from just the social network in the open-source data. FIGURE 4 Political Elite with Connections Through Knowledge and Resources -- MidEast The next example is about collection methods.
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From page 175... ...
In fact, we were able to actually assess who the leaders were once we started capturing data over time. Thus, the third issue that is critical if network techniques are to be used in meet applied needs, is that 175
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From page 176... ...
Thus, another issue is that you need, since for many applied concerns, you need to move beyond single-mode single plex data, you also need new metrics for identifying core vulnerabilities. In building the dynamic network tools we have tried to address the issues described above, and others.
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From page 177... ...
On the one hand, this is funny because they hold completely opposite political views. On the other hand, this makes sense, because their political positions ensured that they would be connected to the same others.
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From page 178... ...
The block model reveals a structure that basically shows a bunch of individuals who are all tightly connected along the diagonal to a bunch of separate groups, and then a few individuals who serve as liaisons connecting multiple groups. The upper red horizontal rectangle in Figure 8 is the row of group connections for Zawahiri, while the lower red horizontal one is for bin Laden.
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From page 179... ...
I am going to show you some networks and talk about this in the context of some work we have been doing on Al Qaeda using data collected from open sources on what it looked like in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003. In the Figure 9 the meta-network of al Qaeda circa 2000 (left)
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From page 180... ...
At the same time, the network was become increasingly adaptive as a group from 2001 to 2002, but it had suffered so much attrition by 2003 that it kind of stabilized in a new organizational form. In terms of other factors, we know that, over time, the communication structure of the group has changed, such that the average shortest path among actors, for example, has actually increased.
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From page 181... ...
Basically these tools -- we have used ORA to estimate immediate impact using 181
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From page 182... ...
We also used DyNet to examine the effects of hypothetical changes to stylized networks composed by blending actual network data with network structure extracted from more qualitative assessments. For example, Figure 11 shows an expected change over time for Al Qaeda, which is in blue, and Hamas, which is in red, based on a combination of real and stylized data drawn from qualitative assessments.
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From page 183... ...
The relative value of this analysis is not to make a point prediction of what actually happens to these groups, it is not to predict specific reductions such as that pulling out all the high-cognitive-demand people will result in 40-percent lower performance. Rather, the value of this analysis is to show relative impact; e.g., that the relative impact will be stronger were you to remove all those people versus removing just bin Laden and that any intervention is more crippling than none.
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From page 184... ...
The point here, is that suggestions for information gathering and about missing data are some of the side benefits from doing predictive analysis of network change. In summary, from an applied perspective there is a need to move beyond simple network analysis to look at dynamic multi-mode, multi-plex approaches.
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From page 185... ...
In terms of the covert networks themselves, we actually used this model to try to predict who some of the emergent leaders were in some of the groups over time. I can tell you that, in the case of Hamas, we correctly predicted the next leader after Yassin using this model.
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From page 186... ...
One is basically a measure of information diffusion, which is basically based on shortest path, with the idea that systems tend to perform better if they are closer together and so on. A second measure of performance is what we call our performance-as-accuracy metric, which is a simulation technique that estimates, for any given organizational form, its likelihood of correctly classifying information, given a very trivial classification choice task.
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From page 187... ...
Some of our leading data suggests that for some types of network structures, like corporate free networks, you can in fact do better than that.
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