Connecting the Dots

We have unbelievably huge amounts of data about pretty much everything that is getting generated, stored and tracked. And yet intelligence agencies don’t seem to be able to put all that data together to nail terrorists before they strike.

Why can’t they connect the dots, we ask? And in the question lies the answer, according to some. Huh? Sound very Zen? We use the wrong metaphor (connecting the dots), then take that metaphor to its logical conclusion (a figure should emerge), and are surprised when real life doesn’t imitate our childhood books! When put like that, it does seem pretty stupid, doesn’t it? As Bruce Schneier wrote:
“In real life, the dots can only be numbered after the fact…In hindsight, we know who the bad guys are. Before the fact, there are an enormous number of potential bad guys…The television show "Person of Interest" is fiction, not fact.”

Besides, with so many “dots”, Schneier says it is very tough to know which dots form the “image” and which are irrelevant. If you think about it, this would mean that more data will only make the job even more hard, not less!

Or is there hope if we shift from humans processing intelligence to letting algorithms do it? After all, says Chris Anderson:
“Google can translate languages without actually "knowing" them (given equal corpus data, Google can translate Klingon into Farsi as easily as it can translate French into German).”
Scott Adams says algorithms should be able to find and connect the “right” dots:
“My hypothesis is that science will someday be able to identify sociopaths and terrorists by their patterns of Facebook and Internet use.”

If Adams is right, I guess Google is the most likely company to get there given its expertise with data everything. In which case, maybe we should join Ashley Mayer in her prayer:

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