Super Spy Program Fights Crime

Print this story

share:                       

Memex is a super search engine that can draw conclusions, point out links and make investigation suggestions. Police in many US cities along with 140 US Defence Installations and many countries are now using Memex, or 008 as many call it.
Photo by Ron Laytner, Edit International

More photos >

By Noel Young
Copyright 2009
Edit International

9/11 style terrorist attacks against London’s skyscraper Canary Wharf complex and Heathrow Airport were recently thwarted according to UK government sources.

Those who were saved may owe their lives to a 'thinking' computer spy used by British Intelligence that puts even fictional James Bond to shame.

All over the world, law enforcers - frustrated by the tangle of unrelated information flooding in on crime and terrorism - are turning to a crime solving artificial intelligence system which can quickly snoop through every piece of information available on Earth and then predict what is likely to happen next.

The name is Memex, nicknamed 008 because it is James Bond’s replacement. Many consider it a living, thinking detective and some of its admirers even believe Memex would have stopped 9/11 if it were given the chance.

One after another, in the weeks before the World Trade Center attack, three of the hijackers were pulled over for speeding by American police in three different states. But no-one “connected the dots” and the three went on to commit the most horrific mass murder in history.

The communications failure was absolute. Yet all the time, Memex, an ultra-sophisticared computer system capable of “connecting the dots” and preventing the disaster, was already guarding 140 of America’s top secret miltary installations - and had been doing so for many years.

The tragedy was that the FBI, the CIA and the vast majority of America’s law officers knew nothing about it. Only now is Memex coming into its own.

Recently, the prestigious British Jockey Club, following a massive probe into corruption in horse racing, announced it was bringing in Memex to provide "an effective way of searching, analysing and sharing intelligence on a national level."

Poland's police and border officials have bought the system - as has the the new government of Iraq.

This Big Brother, 2004 style, is at the heart of the ruthlessly efficient crime–fighting machine of Scotland Yard in Britain. Interpol is using it, too.

Memex is in reality a terrifyingly efficient search engine who thinks for itself. It is capable of swallowing thousands of words and figures in input, scanning vast data banks, and putting together a possible outcome in time to take action.

It has been around for a few years but, like a true secret service man, has until now stayed “below the radar.”

But following the horrors of 9/11, more and more lawmen are inviting Memex onboard. It is already in action in two American states, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Sgt. Raymond Cook is supervisor of the Pennsylvania State Police's Analytical Automated Intelligence Unit. Before deciding on an intelligence system, six companies showed off their systems. “Out of all the companies, there was only one who could do the job, and that was Memex," said Sergeant Cook.

Sgt. Cook said the system “delivered the capability to link people, places, and vehicles within seemingly unrelated sets of information...an extremely effective tool in focusing investigations.”

Soon it will be accessible to all the department's 4,000 troopers. “There is no real sense in entering data into the system and hiding it," says Cook "The whole idea of intelligence is the free exchange of information. If you provide intelligence information to a trooper, he's going to provide information back to you."

Cook pictured a trooper making a traffic stop at 2AM on an empty highway. Right now the officer can find out who the vehicle is registered to from the driver's licence, and license plate number; and if the driver is wanted or the vehicle stolen.

“The new system will automatically query the Intelligence System, as well. The trooper might learn the motorist has a history of being combative with police officers and has threatened to kill any officer who stops him again."

“He may also learn that the driver may belong to an international terrorist group. That will heighten his awareness."

"He's going to instantly inform the intelligence officer who prepared the original report. He might tell him, 'I stopped this suspect in this location. I observed the following in his backseat. Here's his license plate number and the make and model of the car he was driving.'"

Already you can feel the net closing in...

-------------
What actually happened before 9/11 was this:

* Hani Hanjour, driving a Chevrolet van with New Jersey plates was pulled over for going 50 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone in Virginia. He produced a Florida driver's license. A month later he was aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon.

* Ziad Jarrah was pulled over by a trooper in Maryland travelling at 90 mph in a 65 mph zone on northbound Interstate 95 on September 9, shortly after midnight. He was issued a citation and went on his way. Jarrah was on a CIA watch list - but local law enforcement officials had not been told by the FBI.

* Mohammed Atta was stopped by police in July 2001 in Tamarac, Fla., and booked for having an invalid licence. He ignored the ticket and a warrant was issued for his arrest. A few weeks later he was stopped for speeding but the officer, unaware of the warrant, let him go with a warning. A month later he piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the World Trade Center's north tower.

-------------

A commentator familiar with Memex says, “It’s difficult to believe that Big Brother would not have connected the dots and that one or all of the above would not have ended up in custody. Who knows what effect that would have had on the 9/11 plot. It could even have stopped it.”

Cook stays clear of that speculation. Instead, he says that expanding Memex's capabilities “dovetails directly into the push for law enforcement to do a better job of sharing information since 9/11. It's no good gathering intelligence and doing nothing with it. Then all our efforts go to waste."

Big Brother has already saved American lives and those of many others.

In Sarajevo, at the height of the Bosnian conflict, American marines were poised to go into combat. Memex hummed into action. Matching patent records, chemical stock details, and people, it concluded that the warring factions in the city had chemical weapons and were likely to use them. With six hours to go, the attack by US Marines was called off. Big Brother had averted a chemical catastrophe .

In Edinburgh, Scotland, police tracked down a rapist after a single phrase “White kappa jacket” was typed into the system. The mystery assailant had worn it in his attack on the girl and Memex pointed out that a man arrested on a minor theft charge a few weeks previously had also been wearing a “white kappa jacket.” It was him - and he was jailed for 10 years.

A detective on the case said, “If it hadn’t been for Memex , he could have taken a long time to catch.”

In Panama, former President Manuel Noriega was plucked from his homeland to stand trial in US with the help of Memex. By providing a rapid response to information in real-time, US commanders were advised how best to execute Operation ‘Just Cause’ – the campaign to kidnap the dictator.

On the civilian front, Memex successfully pinpointed a massive US health insurance fraud. A scam in local hospitals had only been suspected - until the information was fed into the search engine. Memex “connected the dots" and showed the astonished executives that the problem was far wider - across a number of states and involving millions of dollars.

Memex was born in Edinburgh, the brainchild of two university professors 30 years ago. Then it was a piece of hardware, a peripheral to a machine. Now the company has 50 employees in East Kilbride, Scotland, and ten based at Memex Inc. in Virginia, and the genius professors have redesigned Memex as software that can be run from any computer.

One executive likened the way Memex works to a super Google operation - with the added ability to draw conclusions, point out links and make suggestions.

“In Google you generally load in a word or a sentence. With Memex you can upload up to 30,000 characters in any textual form you choose - e-mails , PDFs, court records, you name it, “ said managing director David Carrick.

“Memex can even cope with misspellings. It accesses major databases, sometimes leaping from one to the other, and comes up with various ‘hypotheses’ - things the investigator might want to look at."

With Memex on the job the one remaining electronic haven for criminals and terrorist are chat programs like America Online's Instant Messenger that keep no records.

But that loophole may soon be closed. Software developer Robert Giordano, founder of Design215, has created a new type of chat program called PULPchat that will keep Memex searchable chat transcripts allowing law enforcement to crack down on Internet pedophiles and monitor terrorist communications.

Already, the Big Brother engine has become a key player in both the US and Britain in the war on crime and terrorism.

The US Department of Defense was first to spot the potential back in the 1980s. They moved quickly to sign up this devastating new special agent. Since then there has been no stopping him.

Kim Wilson, CEO of Memex Inc, of Virginia, recently gave a presentation to business executives in Boston. He flashed up on the screen a map of the US showing Department of Defense Facilities where the system is at the core of the security operations: 140 sites from coast to coast.


“Some of these are so secret we are not even allowed in there to service us them ourselves," said Wilson.

The first American police force to take up Memex was Pennsylvania. Then across the border in New Jersey, home of the TV series The Sopranos, the state police found that Memex was ideal for tackling organised crime and street gangs.

Now 650 of the state’s police departments , inluding 21 state prosecutors, are working together, using our search engine with their databases. We believe this is a first in the US. Historically, law enforcement organizations had not shared their data.” said Wilson.

New Jersey, just over the river from the World Trade Center, was the first state in the US to set up a counter-terrorism organisation after 9/ll. “The operatives looked over the shoulders of their police colleagues and said, ‘We’ll have Memex too,'” said Wilson.

The Scottish-owned company, one of whose directors is former Scotland Yard boss Sir David McNee, has now been invited to submit proposals to New York, Massachusetts and Delaware.

In Britain many police forces have adopted the technology. A passenger on a long-distance train to Aberdeen from Liverpool had not bought a ticket . That information was fed into the system and when the passenger returned from Aberdeen just half-an-hour later, again failing to buy a ticket, the information emerged that he was a drug dealer down South who operated locally, but was not known to travel.

“Well now he was travelling,” said Carrick, “and possibly to drop off drugs at the same time. Why on earth he chose to travel without a ticket, drawing attention to himself, beats me.”

On the track of a string of robberies, British Transport Police were able to establish the suspect was in certain places where crimes had been carried out at the relevant times by tying in credit card records.

Carrick is sensitive to the nickname 'Big Brother': “Our aim is to help the authorities stop the terrorists and the criminals. We are simply providing the tools.

He pointed that the latest version of the software, being offered to the state of New York, has all the safeguards of data protection legislation built in as well as the provisions of the European Charter on Human Rights.”

In the current climate, we believe any initiative by the Government to protect the public tends to be welcomed.”

Carrick is confident that Big Brother 2004 will carry on with his mission of making the world a safer place, "He may not have the looks of James Bond," he laughed, "but he can certainly beat him at poker."

Now the pledge by US Attorney General John Aschroft to “connect the dots” in the war on crime and terror by pushing America's federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to share information may have opened even wider the doors to this new international benevolent Big Brother.

- End -
By Noel Young
Copyright 2009
Edit International


FURTHER INFORMATION:

www.memex.com

www.pulpchat.com

More photos >