| Author |
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Robert Myers
Guest
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 Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 2:57 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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On 18 Jan 2005 11:30:18 -0800, eugene@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya)
wrote:
| Quote: |
Oh, is it possible? Hmmm. Well, likely you want to substitute other TLAs
and see if you think that.
|
I like this article
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004b/spacestoryN1010ROCKETSIDE.htm
<quote>
Oct 10, 2004
Most defense space projects over budget
BY JOHN KELLY
FLORIDA TODAY
CAPE CANAVERAL -- The Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rockets aren't the only
space projects to cost more than the government expected.
Most Defense Department space projects are over budget, many by
billions of dollars.
In quarterly reports to Congress, the Pentagon reports at least $20
billion worth of overruns on its active space programs. That does not
count secret programs, such as spy satellites.
Then there's NASA. On average, the space agency's projects come in 45
percent over budget, the Congressional Budget Office recently
reported.
The simple explanation from the Air Force and others in the business:
"Space is hard."
</quote>
The article goes on to speculation as to what's really happening that
might fit right into this thread (changing the subject from space to
computers, of course).
That fact that nothing seems to get done without going significantly
over budget isn't the same thing as saying that nothing ever gets
done, of course, but some of the ways things go wrong don't seem
likely to be peculiar to the FBI.
RM |
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del cecchi
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 5:55 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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"Robert Myers" <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1v0ru0phjdv5571gmolugemaapjc7dt0hr@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On 18 Jan 2005 11:30:18 -0800, eugene@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya)
wrote:
Oh, is it possible? Hmmm. Well, likely you want to substitute other
TLAs
and see if you think that.
I like this article
http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004b/spacestoryN1010ROCKETSIDE.htm
quote
Oct 10, 2004
Most defense space projects over budget
BY JOHN KELLY
FLORIDA TODAY
CAPE CANAVERAL -- The Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rockets aren't the only
space projects to cost more than the government expected.
Most Defense Department space projects are over budget, many by
billions of dollars.
In quarterly reports to Congress, the Pentagon reports at least $20
billion worth of overruns on its active space programs. That does not
count secret programs, such as spy satellites.
Then there's NASA. On average, the space agency's projects come in 45
percent over budget, the Congressional Budget Office recently
reported.
The simple explanation from the Air Force and others in the business:
"Space is hard."
/quote
The article goes on to speculation as to what's really happening that
might fit right into this thread (changing the subject from space to
computers, of course).
That fact that nothing seems to get done without going significantly
over budget isn't the same thing as saying that nothing ever gets
done, of course, but some of the ways things go wrong don't seem
likely to be peculiar to the FBI.
RM
|
Duh. Where have these idiots been? How do you estimate the cost of
doing what has never been done? And is the pressure to estimate high or
low? It wasn't that the FBI program went over budget, but that they
went over budget and it still didn't even come close to working.
del |
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Terje Mathisen
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 7:57 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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del cecchi wrote:
| Quote: | Duh. Where have these idiots been? How do you estimate the cost of
doing what has never been done?
|
In the case of NASA, your best/only guess is to look at how you've
budgeted previous projects, vs how much they've really cost. This is the
only way I know to even guess at the required fudge factor. :-(
Of course, some things turn out to be effectively impossible, in which
case you need clear milestone targets, and the guts to kill projects
that aren't going to work out.
I'm running the 'IT Fire Department' in Hydro, which means that my group
get all the 'critical/totally new stuff/overrun/should have been working
last week' projects. We have an incredible success rate, partly because
I insist on splitting complicated development jobs into multiple clearly
delineated projects, with a stop/go decision after each part.
If it isn't going to work at all, I'd much rather find out sooner rather
than later.
(Yes, I do realize that this is hard to do when you have multiple
man-years of effort before you can have even a mock-up working. I stay
away from such projects. :-)
| Quote: | And is the pressure to estimate high or low?
|
Here's the crux!
When all competing projects are going to submit a 'best case' guess,
instead of a maximum (90%?) likelyhood/median/error range number, your
own project pretty much have to do the same thing, otherwise you'll
never get of the ground (literally in NASA's case).
Another example from the other end of the spectrum:
I am leading the orienteering group at the corporate sports club, we
submit budgets each fall for the next year's activities. Three years in
a row we submitted exact budgets, i.e. we knew within about 10% what
both income and expense would be. All three years our budget got slashed
by 50%, because all other groups in the club had overbudgetted madly, so
everyone got slashed by the same percentage.
Last year we fixed this, not by doing a similar padding of the budget,
but by writing an enclosing letter stating how we knew this budget to be
exact (as well as _much_ lower than any other group's), pointing to the
very close correlation between the previous three year's original budget
and actual result, and that we would much rather keep on doing the best
budgetting job we knew how, than to become a part of the problem by
doing the same padding as everyone else.
It did work, we got almost exactly what we asked for. :-)
| Quote: | It wasn't that the FBI program went over budget, but that they
went over budget and it still didn't even come close to working.
|
Right.
Terje
--
- <Terje.Mathisen@hda.hydro.com>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching" |
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krasicki
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 7:57 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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Stephen Sprunk 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.
|
There are often massive differences between what something sounds like
and what something is.
As a taxpayer and wearing the hat of an information analyst, I would be
furious if $150+M were being spent to manage legacy FBI paperwork
because that would mean that 'terror' in the eyes of the FBI
constituted the imminent need to file and retrieve paperwork.
Aside from the sheer absurdity that pre-911 case file information
schemas are sufficient to capture the kind of data necessary for
analyzing terrorist threats [instead of, say, political tom-foolery]
there is probably no canonic and extendable information schema that
maps historic case file differences, cross-agency differences, and
intra-agency diffences of even existing data. Up-front questions about
such a project is what kind of documents do you have, what are they
worth, how clean is the quality of the stuff, what would you be
interested in, and so on.
And the reason you would ask these questions is to introduce rigor to
the information schema - when an agent needs a bit of information that
bit of information has to have a well-known, certain meaning.
But even this is presumptive that the agency has interest in mining the
nuances of existing data.
The specification could just as well mean that the paper inventory of
index cards needs to be physically retrievable. Modern libraries are
moving away from Dewey Decimal systems to inventory control systems in
which physical payload is stored and retrieved from an automated
container management system. Material is put into a container, the
contents identified, and the system carries it away until the material
is requested. No more messy file cabinets or bookshelves to browse.
| 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.
|
Sounds like the FBI still has no imagination if that bullet point
didn't make the 'wish list';-) |
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Jan Vorbrüggen
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:23 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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| Quote: | Another project might use VCF as a source of information to decide who
"might" be a terrorist,
|
Solving that problem is only to a very small degree amenable to spending
more money. It would take years or, more likely, decades of research while
giving the researchers access to real-life data, for starters. And a lot of
others things in addition. I don't see that happening.
Jan |
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Robert Myers
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 6:48 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:55:27 -0600, "del cecchi"
<dcecchi.nojunk@att.net> wrote:
<snip>
| Quote: |
The article goes on to speculation as to what's really happening that
might fit right into this thread (changing the subject from space to
computers, of course).
That fact that nothing seems to get done without going significantly
over budget isn't the same thing as saying that nothing ever gets
done, of course, but some of the ways things go wrong don't seem
likely to be peculiar to the FBI.
Duh. Where have these idiots been? How do you estimate the cost of
doing what has never been done? And is the pressure to estimate high or
low? It wasn't that the FBI program went over budget, but that they
went over budget and it still didn't even come close to working.
|
That (big money, no product, not even a working prototype) also
happened with the Sergeant York Gun, for example. In the case of the
Space Shuttle, it only ever worked in the sense that the goal posts
were moved very far from the way the program was sold (it really was
supposed to be a shuttle, like the New York-Boston shuttle, then a
pioneering service offered by Eastern Airlines). I really don't think
the problems are peculiar to the FBI.
As to the realities of goals and budgets for new projects, you
_surely_ must have at least a clue as to how that goes in large,
bureaucratic organization. The short time scale on which the budget
is completely redone for the US government means that promises have to
be sufficiently ambitious to survive the budget axe, and the budget
has to fit into whatever arbitrary constraints have been dictated.
That predicts chronic overpromising and underbudgeting, a prediction
that is borne out by experience.
One way to regularize the discussion of the FBI Case File system would
be to divide it into a part that is relatively routine and a part that
hasn't really been done before. The challenge for the relatively
routine part (a secure document management system) is probably getting
agents actually to use it without disrupting ongoing cases; i.e., it
really shouldn't be a "software problem." The non-routine part,
prognostic data mining, sounds like it's just burueacratic sales talk
at this point.
RM |
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Rick Jones
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:21 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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del cecchi <dcecchi.nojunk@att.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Duh. Where have these idiots been? How do you estimate the cost of
doing what has never been done?
|
The same way we all estimate the performance of systems that don't
exist?-)
rick jones
--
Process shall set you free from the need for rational thought.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to raj in cup.hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
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Del Cecchi
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 12:19 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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Rick Jones wrote:
| Quote: | del cecchi <dcecchi.nojunk@att.net> wrote:
Duh. Where have these idiots been? How do you estimate the cost of
doing what has never been done?
The same way we all estimate the performance of systems that don't
exist?-)
rick jones
|
Nope. I know what the non existant system is supposed to do and how it
is supposed to work, so I can simulate its performance. Actually
implementing or designing such a system maybe in fact be impossible or
require invention.
An example "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that never had a
cache miss. What would be the performance of such a system?"
Now, build one. :-) |
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Terje Mathisen
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:59 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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Del Cecchi wrote:
| Quote: | Nope. I know what the non existant system is supposed to do and how it
is supposed to work, so I can simulate its performance. Actually
implementing or designing such a system maybe in fact be impossible or
require invention.
An example "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that never had a
cache miss. What would be the performance of such a system?"
Now, build one. :-)
|
Easy. We actually have one of those, in the form of a machine with a
single-level memory system. :-)
Terje
--
- <Terje.Mathisen@hda.hydro.com>
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching" |
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Del Cecchi
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:48 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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Terje Mathisen wrote:
| Quote: | Del Cecchi wrote:
Nope. I know what the non existant system is supposed to do and how
it is supposed to work, so I can simulate its performance. Actually
implementing or designing such a system maybe in fact be impossible or
require invention.
An example "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that never had a
cache miss. What would be the performance of such a system?"
Now, build one. :-)
Easy. We actually have one of those, in the form of a machine with a
single-level memory system. :-)
Terje
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I wasn't thinking of no cache misses by having no cache. :-) |
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mike
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:52 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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| Quote: | The non-routine part,
prognostic data mining, sounds like it's just burueacratic sales talk
at this point.
|
Most of this thread keeps repeating the assumption that the FBI system was a
failure because it tried to do this and it probably is impossible with
current technology. We have not seen a real requirements specification and
this may or may not be in it. I wonder if we are over stating the goals.
Historically, investigative organizations have tried to find all the parts
of a crime and all individuals involved in a conspiracy by looking at every
contact and relationship. That is, they would interview all family members,
look at the phone bills and interview everyone that was called, look at the
credit card bills and examine travel patterns and talk to everyone who sold
something to the suspects, etc.
If I were trying to design a system for the FBI, I would concentrate on
automating data mining from this perspective rather than try to directly
predict criminal intent. If the system contained info on every suspected /
convicted criminal including terrorists and also contained detailed credit
card, phone, e-mail etc. transaction history you might be able to quickly
generate a "related suspect" list for further investigation and or
surveillance. The system would not say "hay these suspects are all taking
flying lessons, they intend to attack the World Trade Center". Rather, it
would say this suspected terrorist has been in contact with these 23 people
and 4 of them have received money transfers from a common account in Libya.
There are cultural and organizational challenges to successful system
development in any large organization and these are exaggerated in
government bureaucracies. However this more modest goal would seem to be
theoretically possible and an appropriate use of technology by the FBI.
Mike Sicilian |
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Rick Jones
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:18 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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Del Cecchi <cecchinospam@us.ibm.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Terje Mathisen wrote:
Del Cecchi wrote:
Nope. I know what the non existant system is supposed to do and how
it is supposed to work, so I can simulate its performance. Actually
implementing or designing such a system maybe in fact be impossible or
require invention.
An example "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that never had a
cache miss. What would be the performance of such a system?"
Now, build one. :-)
Easy. We actually have one of those, in the form of a machine with a
single-level memory system. :-)
Terje
I wasn't thinking of no cache misses by having no cache. :-)
|
So, we have a case of an incomplete specification to an implementation
that was not what the specifier had intended :)
rick jones
--
Process shall set you free from the need for rational thought.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to raj in cup.hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
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del cecchi
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:48 am Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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"Rick Jones" <foo@bar.baz.invalid> wrote in message
news:oVBHd.6186$mh6.5600@news.cpqcorp.net...
| Quote: | Del Cecchi <cecchinospam@us.ibm.com> wrote:
Terje Mathisen wrote:
Del Cecchi wrote:
Nope. I know what the non existant system is supposed to do and
how
it is supposed to work, so I can simulate its performance.
Actually
implementing or designing such a system maybe in fact be
impossible or
require invention.
An example "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a system that never had
a
cache miss. What would be the performance of such a system?"
Now, build one. :-)
Easy. We actually have one of those, in the form of a machine with
a
single-level memory system. :-)
Terje
I wasn't thinking of no cache misses by having no cache. :-)
So, we have a case of an incomplete specification to an implementation
that was not what the specifier had intended :)
rick jones
|
Absolutely, now that you mention it. My bad. Of course when you
simulated it with no cache the performance would stink for the current
era and so it wouldn't be necessary to build it. :-) |
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Stephen Sprunk
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 8:18 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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"Jan Vorbrüggen" <jvorbrueggen-not@mediasec.de> wrote in message
news:356jnfF4j7q4kU1@individual.net...
| Quote: | Another project might use VCF as a source of information to decide who
"might" be a terrorist,
Solving that problem is only to a very small degree amenable to spending
more money. It would take years or, more likely, decades of research while
giving the researchers access to real-life data, for starters. And a lot
of
others things in addition. I don't see that happening.
|
I didn't mean to imply that such a task is actually possible with today's
knowledge, just that (based on the name) it doesn't sound like that was the
point of VCF.
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 |
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Eugene Miya
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Jan 20, 2005 11:52 pm Post subject:
Re: [OT?] FBI Virtual Case File is even possible? |
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In article <1v0ru0phjdv5571gmolugemaapjc7dt0hr@4ax.com>,
Robert Myers <rmyers1400@comcast.net> wrote:
I got email requested back for a moment.
| Quote: | On 18 Jan 2005 11:30:18 -0800, eugene@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya)
wrote:
Oh, is it possible? Hmmm. Well, likely you want to substitute other TLAs
and see if you think that.
I like this article
|
While DOD is a TLA, it is more than well known that the DOD can throw
money almost wherever it wants. If you want to self select like this
proverbal guy under the street light looking for dropped keys at night,
you aren't going to think about things.
| Quote: | http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories...
Most defense space projects over budget
This is a digression from your own question. |
Try thinking about the usual (and less usual) conspiracy theory agencies
if you want to consider the realm of possibilities independent of the
Bureau's bureaucracy:
CIA Virtual Case File is even possible?
NSA Virtual Case File is even possible?
G[S]IA Virtual Case File is even possible?
NRO Virtual Case File is even possible?
And then you can consider "even possible?"
Certainly not hardware architecture.
-- |
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