Defeating Terrorism with Network Theory?
This article discusses the effectiveness of network theory in predicting and linking terrorist networks. One of the biggest obstacles for the NSA is determining who should they be listening on to in the first place rather than intercepting any random communication for information. The issue with this is finding the right person to start making connections with. Since most of us are connected to hundreds of thousand of people by only three degrees of separation, NSA will often end up with false positives and implicate many innocent citizens. Some network academics suggest using weak ties to identify hubs that may help NSA find leaders or individuals that may be playing a significant role in the terror networks. Scientists are using algorithms that can determine the “role structure” in these networks and then using this to examine possible hierarchical relationships.
This is related to the strength of weak ties concept that we’ve discussed in class. The idea that one node that may seem insignificant or is an outlier may in fact be an important figurehead in the terror networks. Also, understanding these weak ties that may be under the influence of terror networks can help us pinpoint the weakness in strong ties in certain areas. For example, terror networks could be targeting a specific demographic and using strong ties to quickly spread information while using weak ties to stay under the radar. In fact, analyzing these weak ties will give a greater idea of how terror networks uses strong ties in our society to stay hidden amongst national security. This can help us prevent future attacks and threats.