The defence and intelligence communities really seem to be interested in virtual worlds. This is interesting because a) intelligence work and defence-operations are fascinating topics and, more importantly, b) the intelligence and defence sectors are the places where a lot of innovative work takes place or is financed and 3) virtual environments (or augmented, or synthetic ones) are a major disruptive technology.
In the context of virtual worlds and intelligence services/law and order/defence I just looked back on what MixedRealities discussed since the start of this blog in January:
- The possibility that virtual worlds are not only collaboration tools for companies, universities and non-profit organizations, but also for criminals and for terrorists. In April Representatives raised concerns about this during a hearing in Congress about virtual worlds. In a recent post on Virtually Blind research was discussed showing that Jihadist use of Virtual Worlds is currently minimal but that those groups will probably explore the possibilities of those environments in the next two years. The blogpost provides interesting links, for instance for the original researchwiki.
- The use of virtual environments, augmented realitiy (a reproduction of reality with overlaying extra data streams and dimensions) for simulation practices and experiments, for instance by companies such as Forterra Systems and QinetiQ.
- The use of virtual environments for collaboration, planning, training but also recruitment of the younger generation, for instance the project of the US Air Force which tries to involve the Millenial Generation.
- Data-mining, a topic which seems extremely important (but which I not yet covered here on MixedRealities), so let me try to make up for this in what follows.
Data-mining and Virtual Worlds
In February Virtual Worlds News reported on Reynard, a data-mining project from Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which is an exploratory effort to monitor activity in virtual worlds and online games and then model what terrorist activity in those worlds would look like.
Now, IARPA is a very interesting US organization of the activity formed in 2006 from the National Security Agency’s Disruptive Technology Office (DTO), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s National Technology Alliance and the Central Intelligence Agency’s Intelligence Technology Innovation Center (quoted from Wikipedia).
The article in Virtual Worlds News explains also what data-mining actually means in this context:
Data-mining is defined as “a program involving pattern-based queries, searches or other analyses of 1 or more electronic databases” in order to “discover or locate a predictive pattern of anomaly indicative of terrorist or criminal activity….” and will now be ongoing “in a public virtual world environment. The research will use publicly available data and begin with observational studies to establish baseline behaviors.”
Now a new dimension seems to be added, because Virtual Worlds News says in a new report that IARPA Director Lisa Porter talked about plans, “including developing a division to focus on Incisive Analysis that might make use of virtual worlds for information processing.” The interpretation of Virtual Worlds News:
This is all very serious–and neat–work, obviously, but I for one really get a kick out of the idea that there could be a group of people conducting behavioral analysis in Second Life and then immediately feeding that data back into a proprietary, IARPA-built virtual world.
The problem the intelligence communities try to solve is not just “keeping an eye on virtual worlds”, it is also organizing the enormous amounts of data (internet traffic, social networks behavioral analysis, geo-spatial datastreams, telecom-data etc) in a way that increases the odds of highlighting crucially important information when there is still time to react.
Of course the various innovative tech-ventures of the US intelligence community interact (one can hope), so that IARPA will cooperate with DARPA and work closely with In-Q-Tel, the intelligence community’s venture capital fund, even though In-Q-Tel’s focus is near-term, high-risk problems.
Another example of how all this is somehow linked together is the project Babel Bridge, where Forterra Systems (In-Q-Tel is an investor in the company) and IBM work on a project allowing the American security services to use a unified graphical communications system. The system makes it possible to comunicate in realtime in a virtual world. It is not clear to me whether this project is at this stage linked with the data-mining project.
Business consequences
This stuff is maybe fascinating, but it is also deadly serious. What is at stake is protecting a world which becomes more and more vulnerable because of the increasing urbanization, the vulnerability of energy- and water supplies, of crucial infrastructure etc. At the same time it becomes easier to produce terrible weapons, the access to the knowledge and the materials needed for massive attacks is also getting easier. It also seems to be obvious that there are quite some people who are highly motivated to commit such attacks.
At the same time, the desperate attempts to prevent such attacks and to monitor developments, need technological innovation. The US is probably leading the way, organizing and funding research in a creative way, though I am not sure how well all these efforts are coordinated. Private companies and research organizations benefit from this, because they can focus on developing technology, not on immediate financial return (I guess the same applies for Israeli efforts, on a smaller scale).
From a business perspective, it is interesting to note that In-Q-Tel itself sees some similarities between its approach and that of big companies:
Similar to a corporate strategic fund like those found at Intel Corporation, Motorola and Disney, IQT operates for the strategic – rather than financial – benefits to its customers in the IC (RL: Intelligence Community). IQT targets its technology engagements based on a deep understanding of the challenges of our Intelligence customers to deliver solutions that will provide strategic advantage to the mission of intelligence.
I guess that in the Western world not only the US and Israel but also the UK and France are working along the same lines, stimulating research and innovation by financing tech companies with a focus on technological innovation and not on immediate financial return. I have not yet looked into the situation in Russia, China or India.
As far as the European Union is concerned, I think the European authorities and the companies in the relevant industries are still in the “under construction” phase of a well-structured collaboration between companies, researchers, and the defence- and intelligence communities. This is not so strange. The European member countries are after all very concerned about their very own strategic interests.
For the development of disruptive technology related to matters such as geo-spatial datastreams, virtual environments, data-mining (but of course also advanced materials and biotech), the fact of operating in a country where those technologies are stimulated by the authorities can make a big difference. Especially when government agencies support the creativity of research ventures and smaller companies. I will try to bring some more posts about the situation in the European Union. Please feel free to give insights, opinions or any other information about these issues.
Roland Legrand
