FBI’s Most Wanted Lists Get High-Tech Makeover

If you’ve earned yourself a spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, you have a lot more to worry about these days than seeing your picture on the wall at your local post office.

The agency has begun to use some very cool high-tech tools to capture fugitives — and to find missing persons, too.

The bureau recently upgraded its use of widgets mini-applications that can be added to a Web page or a PC’s desktop and updated remotely by simply copying and pasting Web code. Read more

Social Media Aids Intel Community In Tracking Terror

From the Office of The Director of National Security

On Feb. 4, the New York Daily News online published an article on the Intelligence Community’s (IC) use of classified social networking sites to collaborate on last November’s Mumbai terrorist attacks. US intelligence officers in various locations around the world utilized ‘Intellipedia’ and ‘A-Space’ to discuss and compare notes on incoming intelligence and news reports accounting the events in Mumbai. Over the span of three days these two sites received over 7,000 page views.

Under ODNI direction, the IC is adapting the concepts behind MySpace and other social networking sites to enable intelligence analysts to share information more freely and collaborate across agency lines.

You can read the New York Daily News online article, “Spies Form Virtual Units on The Fly to Track Terror,” by cliocking the link below.

Spies Form Virtual Units on The Fly to Track Terror

When a cell of 10 Islamic militants stole into the Indian port city of Mumbai in November and began to unleash a fusillade of hell on two hotels, a train depot in rush hour and a Jewish center, US spooks scrambled to make sense of it all. About 20 analysts from across the globe immediately convened – not in the same room, but on two classified Web sites called Intellipedia and A-space.

Think of it as Wikipedia and Facebook for spies.

The first Mumbai entry was posted by a watch officer at the National Counterterrorism Center at the onset of the attacks, officials told The Mouth. Soon, analysts from across America’s 16 spy agencies familiar with extremists in India and Pakistan logged on to A-space – a discussion site accessible to only a few thousand US intelligence analysts with the highest security clearances – to weigh who the attackers might be.

Analysts posted realtime satellite imagery and video depicting the carnage outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, which showed a sluggish response by Indian security forces. They also uploaded the first news photos of one young terrorist in Mumbai’s rail station who was later nabbed alive – noting how professionally he carried his weapons, and how he was dressed as blandly Western as the 9/11 hijackers 7 1/2 years ago.

The ad hoc group of analysts, who did not all know each other – including at least one in a Far East military outpost – quickly agreed that a claim of responsibility by the unheard of “Deccan Mujahadeen” was malarkey. It was really the handiwork of Pakistan’s Al Qaeda-affiliated Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“The analysts concluded it was LeT hours before that was made public,” said one senior US intelligence official.

The Mumbai strikes were the first big test of the new system of collaboration using social networking tools put in place last fall by Directorate of National Intelligence chief technology czar Michael Wertheimer and his crew of savvy young spooks from the Myspace Generation. There are also Top Secret elements modeled on YouTube and Flicker.

Read more about A-space and Intellipedia after the jump.
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MySpace, Department of Homeland Security Team Up With Hurricane Alerts

In what is heralded as the seeds of an Internet-age emergency broadcast system, MySpace has teamed with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spread news on hurricanes through users of the online social network.

As Hurricane Gustav blasted the US Gulf Coast early this week, DHS officials telephoned MySpace executives to “fast-track” a project to build a disaster alert system that capitalizes on the hot Internet social networking trend.

A software application that automatically feeds hurricane information from federal disaster agencies to MySpace users was launched Tuesday.

“What you are seeing us doing with DHS and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is the beginning of bigger things to come in the future,” MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam told AFP on Thursday.

“Tragedy often inspires people to do great things and this has happened here.”

MySpace users can download a small application, or “widget,” that links profile pages to federal information including finding dislocated Gustav victims; help in storm-slammed areas, and online tracking of coming storms.

The application meshes naturally with social networking pages on which people share pictures, videos, stories and news quickly online with loved ones, according to MySpace

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