How the Manhattan Bombings could have been prevented with little intrusion into people’s lives

I value my privacy, and I don’t buy the argument that “it’s ok if you have nothing to hide”. But I am surprised how the alleged Manhattan bomber was not stopped earlier. Hindsight is 20/20, but simple use of analytics (yes, "Big Data", but just metadata) could have prevented this tragedy.

2 critical pieces of information came to light AFTER the bombing:

1.  The police was warned about the suspect TWICE since 2014
• http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/nyregion/new-york-new-jersey-bombing.html?_r=0 
2.  He bought most components he used in his bomb off eBay.
•  http://abcnews.go.com/US/nyc-explosion-buying-bomb-parts-ebay/story?id=42243357

I am quite sure that the authorities have a clear idea of the raw materials that can be used to make bombs. Sure most of these are at least dual-use.

Citric acid is a well known preservative, but if you are not engaging in large scale food production, then it is unlikely that you’d need industrial volumes of citric acid.

Similarly, ball bearings are very commonly used in all sorts of equipment; if you are sitting on a swivel chair while reading this post, it is likely that you have ball bearings right under you. Again, if you are not engaged in manufacturing or repair of equipment with moveable parts, then you are unlikely to need ball bearings on a large scale.

Now when you combine citric acid, ball bearings and other ingredients, you end up with a potential recipe for a bomb.

What I am saying is:

1. The combination of individual dual-use items purchased over time should be enough to trigger an alarm, and this could be done by eBay itself.
2. Adding context is important (and this is where many “Data Science” endeavours fail since they do not incorporate “domain knowledge”), since these items are dual use, and there are more avenues for purchase on top of eBay. Hence, someone not engaged in food preservation ordering large amounts of citric acid should trigger a flag. Then a deeper search can be conducted.
3. A deeper search can be conducted once flags are raised, either by the combination of purchases, or by contextually strange purchases. What is key here is that only ‘metadata’ is required to paint the picture.

For example, the credit cards/bank cards/account details attached to the online ordering platforms can be tracked to the individual and transactions on all his/her cards/accounts checked for confirmation of the suspicious patterns. 

Furthermore, basic Call Data Records of phones associated with the individual can be accessed to show possible alternate locations such that more than just the residential address is included in the deeper search. And in case deeper analysis still is required, simple SNA run on the individual and his/her associates and their locations also included in the deeper dive.

All this is quite easily done if you have access to the metadata.

But you don’t need the metadata of everyone to be pulled out and analysed, only those flagged by their purchases, online behaviour, or as in this case, by people who suspected them.

And that is the most glaring part. You can argue that not all bomb recipes are known, and some purchases of dual use items might escape notice, and even combination of these or out of context purchases (after all, a farmer might decide to use fertiliser for bomb making, hence context is not exculpatory by itself). But once an individual is flagged, it would be a good idea to monitor such simple clues to what he/she might be up to, and avoid tragedies.

Is Penelope Garcia a "Data Scientist"?

Yesterday, while watching an old episode of Criminal Minds, a question came to me: “Is Penelope Garcia a ‘Data Scientist’?” Some people have compared ‘data scientists’ to the CSI, looking at evidence, but I have not seen many ‘data scientists’ using microscopes and scalpels, rather they mainly rely on computers, data, structured or semi-structured...

For those who haven’t watched Criminal Minds, the TV series follows the exploits of the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI, and they solve complicated crimes, from serial killers, kidnappers... through behavioural profiling mainly. Penelope Garcia is the one who uses computers, databases, video feeds... all sorts of data to help catch the criminals from her ‘office of supreme genius’.

She accesses databases, matches and intersects them, conducts searches, runs algorithms on all sorts of data including videos, photos and audio recordings. She is very adept at using huge volumes of data to narrow down the suspect list.

In her back-story, she is described as a hacker. 

I would say that of all the characters in Criminal Minds, she is the one who comes closest to the image many people have of a ‘Data Scientist’, someone who can do amazing things with data.

But she doesn’t work alone; the person she interacts the most with is Derek Morgan.

Derek Morgan is probably the most action oriented member of the BAU team. Often he is the one who provides direction to Penelope, how to use the vast amount of information at her disposal so she can come up with more usable, actionable information and sometimes even where to start looking.

In his back-story, he served in the bomb squad and as a former police officer before joining the BAU.

Not many people would see him as a “Data Scientist”; his knowledge is from his experience on the field. But without his input and the interaction with him, Penelope’s impact would be reduced.

A third member of the team could also be seen as a “Data Scientist”, Dr Spencer Reid. Yes, he has a PhD (more than one actually). His IQ is 187.

Dr Spencer Reid brings a profound knowledge of psychological/sociological theories and statistics/mathematics to the BAU. Using his deep knowledge of these fields and synthesising them, Dr Reid is able to quickly point the team into the most likely areas where the un-sub/suspect is to be found. He also helps Penelope Garcia use her hacking skills more effectively. However, he is quite technology unfriendly, preferring not to use a tablet or email even, favouring books, notebooks and letters.

Who do you think is the “Data Scientist” of the trio?

 If this was put to a vote, I guess most people would pick Penelope Garcia because of the computer skills, coming in second would be Dr Reid because of his theoretical knowledge and IQ, and third would be Derek Morgan.

Makes sense, right?

My view is that, together, they make a good “Data Science” team.

I go back to the Drew Conway inspired diagram; a “data scientist” is a combination of Hacking/Computer science skills (Penelope), Domain Knowledge (Derek) and Stats/Maths (Spencer):

The whole gamut of ‘data science’ functions need not be done by a single individual.

Very often, especially in the case of vendors, it is important to acknowledge that the perfect data scientist is a unicorn, and the solution lies in combining the skills of different people into an effective team. And of course, for the team to function, each team member needs to realise his/her role and respect the expertise of the others, seems to work very well in Criminal Minds.