| Author |
Message |
Robert Myers
Guest
|
 Posted:
Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:59 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:30:37 GMT, "mike" <mike@mike.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
In a closed government system like the FBI case database the software that
enters or modifies a case file can send a message directly to the indexing
engine. Further unlike GOOGLE the indexing engine does not have to waste
cycles re-indexing old entries that have not been changed. Therefore a near
real time index, within a few hundred milliseconds, can be maintained.
|
Well, sure. People know how to keep idices updated. In order to
index something, the data have to be visible to the indexing system in
a secure, consistent way that the indexing system understands. Many a
slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. That's why I don't believe the
current FBI system is only ever 24-hours out of date. When they find
another roomful of boxes, it'll have been however many months or years
out of date that roomful of boxes was hiding.
This from my inbox
--------------------------Advertisement-------------------------------
<Proprietary name for enterpise IT architecture deleted>: Watch
everything work together and see change coming a mile away.
Reduce the number of IT elements in your network. Eliminate
customisation. Automate change. Use standard technologies and
interfaces. Create reusable components. Implement consistent
processes.
Interact with any system, anywhere, always. Build architectures
modularly. Virtualise your systems. Change one element without
impacting the entire network. Build a dynamic link between business
and IT. Connect applications and processes inside and out.
*******
Above all, minimize difficulties, oversell, and watch people go back
to pad and pencil, or at least bypass your nifty enterprise
architecture and keep things squirreled away in private stashes, maybe
even on a computer--a PC or a laptop. And, oh yes, watch as revenue
and jobs disappear from the industry.
Maybe there is a National Academies report that would answer the
question in my OP.
RM |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Stefan Monnier
Guest
|
| Posted:
Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:39 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
| Quote: | The UK benefits system was hit by a large IT problem in recent days,
[...]
crash, including the role of suppliers Microsoft and EDS. The two
companies run the department's network as part of a GBP 2bn (EUR
|
Welcome to the concept of "privacy".
Stefan |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stefan Monnier
Guest
|
| Posted:
Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
| Quote: | beginning to prepare ourselves against the war on terror
|
[ I suspect that's not what you wanted to say, but I happen to agree with
it. ]
Luckily, technical problems and incompetence are on our side in the fight
against the war on terror. Too bad political power isn't.
Stefan |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Fuld
Guest
|
| Posted:
Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:09 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
"Bernd Paysan" <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:cllsb2-0nl.ln1@miriam.mikron.de...
| Quote: | Stephen Fuld wrote:
Precisely. And the other technical problems seem fairly easily solvable.
For instance, I don't doubt that by sending some money to Google for a
special system for them selves, Google could easily take each query,
optionally look up all the words in a thesaurus and modify the queries to
include either the original word or the synonym.
Not just the query, the index, too. Certainly, the thesaurus must map
equal
words when querying, but when they go in as equals in the map (index), the
map is denser and smaller.
|
That is a good point that I missed. But I am not sure whether it is a good
idea. Is it sometimes necessary to ask for the particular word and
explicitly not one of its synonyms? If so, then you could specify it in the
query, but that wouldn't work if the index had already deleted the
information. I don't know if there is such a requriement though.
--
- Stephen Fuld
e-mail address disguised to prevent spam |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:47 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
| Quote: |
Finally, if they can't understand the requirements of what they want
-
then managing [people AND technology] will bring any such system to
its
knees during peak vacation times. $170M is a drop in the bucket for
a
meta-enterprise system requirement such as this.
|
Assuming a billing rate of $250K/year, what exactly was produced for
680
person-years of work?
per LA Times:
A preliminary report from Aerospace Corp., a federally funded nonprofit
research firm in El Segundo hired by the FBI to assess its options, has
identified commercially available programs that could meet the FBI's
requirements, sources familiar with the study said. Using such programs
would also enable the FBI to integrate its software with that of other
agencies doing similar work - a far more complicated task if it chose
to stick with a custom product.
......
In 1995, the agency's vast paper files were partly loaded into a
searchable electronic database. That system was soon found to be
inefficient and riddled with software bugs, and some top officials
never adopted it.
Until recently, much of the rest of the agency - including some field
agents - lacked such basic features as e-mail.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI's hardware, software and
communications networks, built up at the cost of hundreds of millions
of dollars, were revealed as severely outmoded.
.....
The linchpin of the planned computer system was the Virtual Case File
software, designed for use on fast computers and networks to make it
widely accessible across the FBI's scores of offices. The plan was to
include images, video and sounds, crucial components of a modern
investigation.
....and CNN
The current program requires FBI personnel to manually enter, print,
sign and scan their information into the "investigative data
warehouse."
The new software program was supposed to allow agents to pass along
along intelligence and criminal information in real time. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Robert Myers
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:30 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
On 17 Jan 2005 13:47:15 -0800, jgrove24@hotmail.com wrote:
| Quote: |
Finally, if they can't understand the requirements of what they want
-
then managing [people AND technology] will bring any such system to
its
knees during peak vacation times. $170M is a drop in the bucket for
a
meta-enterprise system requirement such as this.
Assuming a billing rate of $250K/year, what exactly was produced for
680
person-years of work?
per LA Times:
A preliminary report from Aerospace Corp., a federally funded nonprofit
research firm in El Segundo hired by the FBI to assess its options, has
identified commercially available programs that could meet the FBI's
requirements, sources familiar with the study said. Using such programs
would also enable the FBI to integrate its software with that of other
agencies doing similar work - a far more complicated task if it chose
to stick with a custom product.
|
Aerospace Corp is at least a disinterested party. Whether it has the
expertise to do this particular job is another question. It certainly
doesn't do enterprise IT or (AFAIK) supervise enterprise IT-type
contracts.
HP blamed a $208 million quarterly loss for its enterprise storage and
server division on a new inventory and logsitics control system last
year. No security and no criminal case file issues. What would it
have cost HP to do it right the first time? Anything less than $208
million would have been a bargain. I wouldn't have wanted to be
selling HP enterprise services when that was going down.
Rather than what do you need all this money for (which is surely the
question being asked), a better place to start would be how expensive
is it to get it wrong. The Federal government has gotten so many of
these systems wrong, like the social security computer system, that
it's tempting to say derisive things about the US government IT. With
the other examples in this thread, maybe we should just say derisive
things about government IT. But then HP can't get its own system
right. One could say derisive things about HP? Already done.
Or maybe the problem is just hard and people are chronically
underestimating the actual difficulty and cost of doing it right. The
"Oh, we'll just do this and this and that, and it'll be done"
handwaving has obviously been done to an expensive fare-thee-well.
RM |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Fuld
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:54 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
"Robert Myers" <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7jdou09inojg2a80mufa7a1sbkpr71dohn@4ax.com...
snip
| Quote: | Rather than what do you need all this money for (which is surely the
question being asked), a better place to start would be how expensive
is it to get it wrong. The Federal government has gotten so many of
these systems wrong, like the social security computer system, that
it's tempting to say derisive things about the US government IT.
|
What is wrong with the Social Security computer system(s)? There were lots
well documented screwups in implementing the SSI system in the 1970s (and I
can talk about that), but I haven't heard much since. The Social Security
system is usually cited as the epitome of government efficiency, costing
taxpayers only 1-2 percent of benefit costs in administrative expense. Full
Disclosure - I used to work for the Social Security Administration in the
1970s.
--
- Stephen Fuld
e-mail address disguised to prevent spam |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Robert Myers
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:44 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 01:54:55 GMT, "Stephen Fuld"
<s.fuld@PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
"Robert Myers" <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7jdou09inojg2a80mufa7a1sbkpr71dohn@4ax.com...
snip
Rather than what do you need all this money for (which is surely the
question being asked), a better place to start would be how expensive
is it to get it wrong. The Federal government has gotten so many of
these systems wrong, like the social security computer system, that
it's tempting to say derisive things about the US government IT.
What is wrong with the Social Security computer system(s)? There were lots
well documented screwups in implementing the SSI system in the 1970s (and I
can talk about that), but I haven't heard much since. The Social Security
system is usually cited as the epitome of government efficiency, costing
taxpayers only 1-2 percent of benefit costs in administrative expense. Full
Disclosure - I used to work for the Social Security Administration in the
1970s.
|
August 2003 google groups comp.arch "social security." I may well
have different federal fiascos conflated by now. More than one
problem system was discussed.
RM |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Fuld
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:58 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
"Robert Myers" <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:ettou0lqsk6p15kpic17t3jfi349do2enh@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 01:54:55 GMT, "Stephen Fuld"
s.fuld@PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote:
"Robert Myers" <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7jdou09inojg2a80mufa7a1sbkpr71dohn@4ax.com...
snip
Rather than what do you need all this money for (which is surely the
question being asked), a better place to start would be how expensive
is it to get it wrong. The Federal government has gotten so many of
these systems wrong, like the social security computer system, that
it's tempting to say derisive things about the US government IT.
What is wrong with the Social Security computer system(s)? There were
lots
well documented screwups in implementing the SSI system in the 1970s (and
I
can talk about that), but I haven't heard much since. The Social Security
system is usually cited as the epitome of government efficiency, costing
taxpayers only 1-2 percent of benefit costs in administrative expense.
Full
Disclosure - I used to work for the Social Security Administration in the
1970s.
August 2003 google groups comp.arch "social security." I may well
have different federal fiascos conflated by now. More than one
problem system was discussed.
|
I checked and there was much confusion of several different projects and
several more situations. The closest to a "fiasco" was the one I described
back then, which was an attempt to redesign the entire Social Security data
processing systems in one fell swoop. It was an in house effort and they
had dozens of analysts working one it, but it never got to the coding stage
before the management came to their senses and realized that it wouldn't
work. So it was not a system that was implemented and "gotten wrong".
Other than that, I can't find anything that matches the criteria you had in
your post.
Not that there haven't been a substantial number of such "fiasco"s in the
federal government. :-(
--
- Stephen Fuld
e-mail address disguised to prevent spam |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
krasicki
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:58 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
Stefan,
It is precisely what I wanted to say and I agree with you that the
current political opportunists will never get it right although some
of the problem is endemic to all governments.
In the United States too little thought [in fact none] goes into
ensuring a harmony between technology and governance [rights and law
inclusive].
What the FBI is asking for is technically feasible, it will never be
cheap until the extreme expense of doing it the first time is spent,
and it will not be like Google, grep, or many of the familiar utilities
being argued here.
It will require non-trivial artificial intelligence components,
robotics, and human exo-skeleton sensory extensions to gather and
process information. Although, Google search queries like, "Find me a
terrorist I can arrest." are quaint wish list items what is really
needed is a push mechanism that triangulates a multiplicity of weighed
behavioral, inferred, and heuristically enhanced, pattern-matching
analysis tools. You can't begin to talk about a Virtual Case File
until an inventory of these techniques is accounted for and
expectations level set.
This problem is not profoundly different from NASA's 'search for life'
techniques and certain gaming algorithms may be useful in unorthodox
ways.
The intent [just guessing] is to anticipate what might happen, who
might be inviolved, what might prevent the event rather than the more
pedestrian anthropology of what happened, who did it, give me instant
suspects. With all due respect to the latter activity, and considering
the consequences, the former problem will not be solved COTS style. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Robert Myers
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 8:06 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 06:32:16 GMT, "Stephen Fuld"
<s.fuld@PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote:
| Quote: |
I checked and there was much confusion of several different projects and
several more situations. The closest to a "fiasco" was the one I described
back then, which was an attempt to redesign the entire Social Security data
processing systems in one fell swoop. It was an in house effort and they
had dozens of analysts working one it, but it never got to the coding stage
before the management came to their senses and realized that it wouldn't
work. So it was not a system that was implemented and "gotten wrong".
Other than that, I can't find anything that matches the criteria you had in
your post.
Not that there haven't been a substantial number of such "fiasco"s in the
federal government. :-(
|
Not everything is a failure, I'm sure. What I partly had in mind
about social security was its more recent move to decentralized data
processing. I know I had read some complaints, but now that I look
over what's quickly available, it seems to have worked--certainly not
a fiasco.
It's not the Federal Government, but Lockheed is bragging about how
much it has reduced paperwork in its contract submissions by putting
everything (including drawings in editable format) on computers. Come
to think of it, the Aerospace Corporation probably does have some
experience with a system with many of the capabilities the FBI wants,
including the capacity to handle sensitive documents. Wonder how well
it really works?
It's difficult for someone not actually involved even to guess what's
going wrong, how much should be forseeable as being at least very
risky, and how much is just the misery of dealing with complex
systems.
RM |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 8:13 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
Robert Myers <rmyers1400@comcast.net> writes:
| Quote: | It's not the Federal Government, but Lockheed is bragging about how
much it has reduced paperwork in its contract submissions by putting
everything (including drawings in editable format) on computers.
Come to think of it, the Aerospace Corporation probably does have
some experience with a system with many of the capabilities the FBI
wants, including the capacity to handle sensitive documents. Wonder
how well it really works?
|
i believe one of the augment success stories was that lockheed had
used it for very large (fed. gov) contract submissions (aka hundreds
of thousands of pages, millions?) ... and that it was dutifully all
x-ref'ed with hypertext links. augment had moved from sri to tymshare
.... and when m/d bought tymshare, i don't think augment was one of the
things that survived.
random past augment posts:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#00 old mainframes & text processing
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#22 No more innovation? Get serious
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#26 Who Owns the HyperLink?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#31 stupid user stories
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#70 CM-5 Thinking Machines, Supercomputers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#25 Question about root CA authorities
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#4 IBM Mainframe at home
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#4 markup vs wysiwyg (was: Re: learning how to use a computer)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#6 Biometric authentication for intranet websites?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002o.html#48 XML, AI, Cyc, psych, and literature
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002q.html#8 Sci Fi again was: THIS WEEKEND: VINTAGE
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#44 Rewrite TCP/IP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004j.html#39 Methods of payment
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#39 August 23, 1957
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#55 creat
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Eric P.
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 10:14 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
Robert Myers wrote:
| Quote: |
On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 19:59:23 -0600, "del cecchi"
dcecchi.nojunk@att.net> wrote:
Check out the new system for registering firearms in Canuckistan.
A billion-dollar mess, by one estimate, with an early-on claim that it
would cost taxpayers net $2 million:
|
This had little to do with IT costs, and the original cost estimate
was $199 million for the whole government program, not $2 million
for a system. Program means government project not computer program.
There are some costs due to the IT system, like having over 1000
change orders by 1999, having to buy new hardware to handle the
load, and scrapping the whole system designed by the government
and bringing in a private contractor to redo the system.
However since the costs of this are not yet known,
they were not included in the program overrun estimates :-)
This has more to do with "How not to run a project" than computers.
When the gun control law was passed in 1995, the government estimated
that the program would cost $119 million. Registration fees would
bring in $117 million, with taxpayers picking up $2 million.
The latest estimates say that 2005, gun registration will actually
cost $1 billion and that registration fees will raise only $140
million. That means the program will cost taxpayers $860 million.
One reason: the original estimates assumed that the provinces,
and not the federal government, would pick up the tab.
Surprise, surprise when they declined to do so.
Some other reasons included:
- Nobody was put in charge of the project. When this was pointed
out as a problem, the suggestion was ignored.
- the province of Alberta and Aboriginals challenged the
constitutionality in court costing time and lawyers fees, etc.
- general refusal by many in western Canada to register incurring
bureaucratic costs to try to track them down
- original estimates did not include side effects costs, such as
cost of longer jail sentences for gun crimes ($126 million)
- original estimates did not include employee benefits costs
The full Auditor General's Report PDFs are available here:
http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/reports.nsf/html/02menu_e.html
You'd think someone would get fired for this. Foolish me.
Eric |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Stephen Sprunk
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Jan 18, 2005 11:44 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
"krasicki" <krasicki@consultant.com> wrote in message
news:1106021732.876074.76930@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | The intent [just guessing] is to anticipate what might happen, who
might be inviolved, what might prevent the event rather than the more
pedestrian anthropology of what happened, who did it, give me instant
suspects. With all due respect to the latter activity, and considering
the consequences, the former problem will not be solved COTS style.
|
If that was the intent, then why the heck is it called "Virtual Case File"?
The name strongly implies they want an electronic document storage and
management system.
Another project might use VCF as a source of information to decide who
"might" be a terrorist, but that doesn't seem like the purpose of VCF
itself.
S
--
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Eugene Miya
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 12:30 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
|
|
Just passing thru.
In article <1106073846.68565940416bbb820ea211806518463d@teranews>,
Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> wrote:
| Quote: | "krasicki" <krasicki@consultant.com> wrote in message
news:1106021732.876074.76930@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
The intent [just guessing] is to anticipate what might happen, who
might be inviolved, what might prevent the event rather than the more
pedestrian anthropology of what happened, who did it, give me instant
suspects. With all due respect to the latter activity, and considering
the consequences, the former problem will not be solved COTS style.
If that was the intent, then why the heck is it called "Virtual Case File"?
The name strongly implies they want an electronic document storage and
management system.
|
This is largely in fact what it is and is meant to be.
I was asked and did finally visit the Bureau and briefly worked with
their Chief Scientist. The Bureau no longer has that position.
They did approach my agency for assistance but due to the distance
of my/our programmatic offices I recommended they talk to people at
Goddard.
It's called a case file going back to the Hoover days and one of the
things he did to revolutionize the Bureau (it's not called a bureaucracy
for nothing):
Hoover brought in 3 x 5 cards.
The Bureau is highly backlogged with FOIA requests. That should give
you a hint.
| Quote: | Another project might use VCF as a source of information to decide who
"might" be a terrorist, but that doesn't seem like the purpose of VCF
itself.
|
Maybe later stages. That's a slightly different matter.
There is a talk abstract from a project we funded at UCB given by a
friend when she was at Berkeley but its no longer on line and one would
have to search the Internet Archive (unless it has been removed at DOJ
request).
In a way I feel sorry for the FBI, but in other ways I don't.
It's truly a case by case basis.
Whit Diffie (who is giving a Museum talk in 2 weeks) pegged Bureau
mentality in his book.
Gotta go, just passing thru.
Oh, is it possible? Hmmm. Well, likely you want to substitute other TLAs
and see if you think that.
-- |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in