The following is the CfP for the European Intelligence & Security Informatics Conference 2011, which is due to take place in Athens, Greece, from 12 - 14 September 2011.
It's largely a computer science event, but interesting for all that, particularly for those interested in doing any kind of large N research on terrorism and the Net and/or adopting IT tools for their research. The hardest part, if one isn't a computer scientist and plan on submitting a paper, is the requirement that one use LaTeX templates for same!
Lisa and I presented our paper Jihadi video and auto-radicalisation: Evidence from an exploratory YouTube study at the first EISIC conference in Esbjerg, Denmark, in December 2008.
Anyway, the CfP for EISIC 2011 is as follows:
Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI) research is an interdisciplinary research field involving academic researchers in information technologies, computer science, public policy, bioinformatics, medical informatics, and social and behavior studies as well as local, state, and federal law enforcement and intelligence experts, and information technology industry consultants and practitioners to support counterterrorism and homeland security missions of anticipation, interdiction, prevention, preparedness and response to terrorist acts. The annual IEEE International ISI Conference series was started in 2003, and the first seven meetings were held in Tucson, AZ (2003 and 2004); Atlanta, GA (2005); San Diego, CA (2006); New Brunswick, NJ (2007); Taipei, Taiwan (2008); Dallas, TX (2009) and British Columbia, Canada (2010). Pacific Asian ISI (PAISI) conferences have been held since 2007 in Chengdu, China (2007); Taipei, Taiwan (2008); Bangkok, Thailand (2009); and Hyderabad India (2010).
The goal of EISIC 2011 is to gather people from previously disparate communities to provide a stimulating forum for exchange of ideas and results. We invite academic researchers (in information technologies, computer science, public policy, and social and behavioral studies), law enforcement and intelligence experts, as well as information technology companies, industry consultants and practitioners in the fields involved. EISIC 2011 will be held in Athens, Greece.
Submissions may include systems, methodology, testbeds, modeling, evaluation, policy, and position papers. Research should be relevant to informatics, organization, and/or public policy in applications of counterterrorism or protection of local/ national/ international/global security in the physical world and/or cyberspace. EISIC 2011 will be organized in four main streams focusing on
■Information Sharing and Data/Text Mining
■Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Responses
■Terrorism Informatics
■Computational Criminology
Topics include but are not limited to:
1.Information Sharing and Data/Text Mining
■Intelligence-related knowledge discovery
■Computer or cyber crime investigations and digital forensics
■Criminal investigative criteria and standard of procedure on Computer crime
■Criminal data mining and network analysis
■Criminal/ intelligence information sharing and visualization
■Web-based intelligence monitoring and analysis
■Spatial-temporal data analysis/GIS for crime analysis and security informatics
■Deception and intent detection
■Cyber-crime detection and analysis
■Authorship analysis and identification
■Applications of digital library technologies in intelligence data processing, preservation, sharing, and analysis
■Agents and collaborative systems for intelligence sharing
■HCI and user interfaces of relevance to intelligence and security
■Information sharing policy and governance
■Privacy, security, and civil liberties issues
■Intelligence-computerized community security and surveillance system
2.Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Responses
■Cyber-infrastructure design and protection
■Intrusion detection
■Bio-terrorism tracking, alerting, and analysis
■Bio-terrorism information infrastructure
■Transportation and communication infrastructure protection
■Border/transportation safety
■Emergency response and management
■Disaster prevention, detection, and management
■Communication and decision support for search and rescue
■Assisting citizens' responses to terrorism and catastrophic events
■Computer forensics and crime lead discovery
■Anti-fraud information technology
3.Terrorism Informatics
■Terrorism related analytical methodologies and software tools
■Terrorism knowledge portals and databases
■Terrorist incident chronology databases
■Terrorism root cause analysis
■Social network analysis (radicalization, recruitment, conducting operations), visualization, and simulation
■Forecasting terrorism
■Countering terrorism
■Measuring the impact of terrorism on society
■Measuring the effectiveness of counter-terrorism campaigns
■Crime intelligence and cyberspace crime investigation
■Immigration and security
4.Computational Criminology
■Crime pattern recognition and modeling tools
■Offender social network analysis (infrequent to frequent offenders)
■Crime generators and crime attractors
■Forecasting crime and the impact of crime
■Drug, gang and special crime analysis and modeling tools
■Data mining and data fusion of crime - urban databases
■Dynamic information systems analysis for crime and place
■Privacy and security in crime and justice system data
■Spatial and temporal analysis and software tools
■Law Enforcement decision support systems
■Cybercrime
Paper Submission:
Submission file formats are PDF and Microsoft Word. Required Word/LaTeX templates (IEEE two‐column format) can be found at the conference Web site. Long (8,000 words, 8 pages max.) and short (4000 words, 4 pages max.) papers in English must be submitted electronically via the conference Web site. The authors who wish to present a poster and/or demo may submit a 1‐page extended abstract, which, if selected, will appear in Proceedings.
For more info. navigate to http://www.eisic.eu/.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Phil Seib mentions Conference in Huff Post article
Phil Seib mentioned the conference, which he described as "small but intense," in his Huffington Post opinion piece of 16 September. The piece entitled 'Public Diplomacy and Counterterrorism' revisits some of the issues Phil covered in his plenary address on Day 1 of the conference.
Monday, September 13, 2010
TJ McIntyre on Roundtable 'Monitoring the Internet for Violent Radicalisation'
TJ McIntyre of the School of Law at University College Dublin had the following to say re. the conference roundtable in which he participated:
I was at the fascinating Terrorism and New Media conference in DCU yesterday taking part in a panel discussion "Monitoring the Internet for Violent Radicalisation: Ethical and Legal Issues", along with Mina al Lami (LSE), Paul Durrant (ISPAI) and Sadhbh McCarthy (Centre for Irish and European Security).
The discussion was under the Chatham House Rule so I won't be putting names to views, but the other panelists and the audience had some interesting perspectives which I thought worth jotting down.
There was a definite concern that anti-terror laws (especially in the UK) may make criminals of researchers. Cases such as the recent University of Nottingham arrests have made academics increasingly nervous and uncertain as to whether they can carry out their work in a way which is compliant with the law. From a purely practical perspective (at a conference where the majority of participants were from outside Ireland) there is a fear that the contents of one's laptop might be legal in country A but not in country B.
On a related point researchers were worried as to their legal and ethical responsibilities if they find material which might provide evidence of a crime or indications that a crime might be committed in the future. For Irish researchers section 9 of the Offences Against the State Act 1998 presents particular problems, making failure to volunteer certain information to Gardaí punishable by up to five years' imprisonment unless the researcher has a "reasonable excuse" for that failure. There seems to be a relatively low level of awareness of this and other reporting obligations.
The source material for studies in this area - jihadi forums, bulletin boards, chatrooms, etc. also presented difficulties for researchers. What ethical standards apply to the use of material deliberately published for a global audience? Does it matter whether individuals have used their real name or a pseudonym? Does it matter whether material is on an open forum or requires registration? Are researchers justified in deceit as to their identity or institutional affiliation in signing up to these forums? While there has been a good deal written on these issues (well summarised here) it seemed that these points still trouble researchers.
Finally, there was a substantial consensus that existing EU practice doesn't provide adequate ethical review of research in this area. When funding decisions are being made, there is a narrow focus on legality - asking "will researchers be breaking the law?" - rather than on wider ethical questions such as "is it desirable to develop particular tools of censorship or mass surveillance?" The INDECT project was cited as a prime example of inadequate ethical review, which (perhaps not surprisingly) has led to widespread media criticism.
I was at the fascinating Terrorism and New Media conference in DCU yesterday taking part in a panel discussion "Monitoring the Internet for Violent Radicalisation: Ethical and Legal Issues", along with Mina al Lami (LSE), Paul Durrant (ISPAI) and Sadhbh McCarthy (Centre for Irish and European Security).
The discussion was under the Chatham House Rule so I won't be putting names to views, but the other panelists and the audience had some interesting perspectives which I thought worth jotting down.
There was a definite concern that anti-terror laws (especially in the UK) may make criminals of researchers. Cases such as the recent University of Nottingham arrests have made academics increasingly nervous and uncertain as to whether they can carry out their work in a way which is compliant with the law. From a purely practical perspective (at a conference where the majority of participants were from outside Ireland) there is a fear that the contents of one's laptop might be legal in country A but not in country B.
On a related point researchers were worried as to their legal and ethical responsibilities if they find material which might provide evidence of a crime or indications that a crime might be committed in the future. For Irish researchers section 9 of the Offences Against the State Act 1998 presents particular problems, making failure to volunteer certain information to Gardaí punishable by up to five years' imprisonment unless the researcher has a "reasonable excuse" for that failure. There seems to be a relatively low level of awareness of this and other reporting obligations.
The source material for studies in this area - jihadi forums, bulletin boards, chatrooms, etc. also presented difficulties for researchers. What ethical standards apply to the use of material deliberately published for a global audience? Does it matter whether individuals have used their real name or a pseudonym? Does it matter whether material is on an open forum or requires registration? Are researchers justified in deceit as to their identity or institutional affiliation in signing up to these forums? While there has been a good deal written on these issues (well summarised here) it seemed that these points still trouble researchers.
Finally, there was a substantial consensus that existing EU practice doesn't provide adequate ethical review of research in this area. When funding decisions are being made, there is a narrow focus on legality - asking "will researchers be breaking the law?" - rather than on wider ethical questions such as "is it desirable to develop particular tools of censorship or mass surveillance?" The INDECT project was cited as a prime example of inadequate ethical review, which (perhaps not surprisingly) has led to widespread media criticism.
Kristin's Recap of Day 2 of Conference
The following is a recap of Day 2 of the conference from Guest Blogger Kristin Fleischer who is a Doctoral Student in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University:
Day Two of the Terrorism and New Media conference began with Plenary speaker, Dr. Jarret Brachman of North Dakota State University. Dr. Brachmann, who served as Director of Research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center from 2004-2008, gave a detailed look at the shift in al Qaeda “from a terrorist organization that occasionally uses media, to a media organization that does terrorism.” The discussion, titled “Watching Them, Watching Us, Watching Them,” laid out a fundamental change in the structure and purpose of al Qaeda, and what that means for researchers studying terrorism now.
One of the key points Dr. Brachmann stressed was the increasingly complex nature of the relationship between counter-terrorism practitioners and the subjects of their study. Increasingly, and with greater sophistication, al Qaeda – especially through its media arm As Sahab – is “using our own words against us.” Video clips taken from Western news reports and use of Western resources are now common; edited and used to support the jihadists’ message.
Dr. Brachmann also pointed out that there is still the tendency, in terrorism research, policy making and the mass media, to misunderstand the nature of al Qaeda: Where the West tends to see it as centripetal and cohesive, in reality a large part of that cohesiveness depends entirely on uniting against a common enemy. Without having a clear enemy, regional and ideological differences would do most of the work of pulling al Qaeda ‘apart,’ he suggested.
Once again, I was impressed by the broad range of approaches and topics covered in the panels. In a round table discussion concerning the ethical and legal issues of monitoring the internet for violent radicalization, participants included representatives from the Internet Service Providers of Ireland, the Center for Irish and European Security, London School of Economics and University College Dublin. The differing backgrounds allowed for some really fascinating approaches to the question. One of the parallels brought up was the problem of controlling or combating child pornography, and whether or not ‘blocking’ websites actually had any real effect on the underlying activity. A point was made that – similar to the exploitation of children – blocking websites has little to no effect on their production. A lesson exists here for governments seeking to control violent content on the web, panelists suggested: different approaches may be needed. The issue of surveillance and its ethics was also debated, and one panelist suggested that there is a great deal of ‘monitoring’ on the web that – were it to be conducted offline, say by CCTV – would likely be considered illegal, or at least need much greater permission from the public and legal discussion in the courts.
The panel which I was a member of concerned employing the internet for counter-terrorism and included presenters from George Washington University, and the Consortium for Strategic Communication at Arizona State University. Once again, the topics were diverse. Larisa Breton examined Wikileaks and its changing (and possibly detrimental) role in mainstream news reporting, while Dr. Scott Ruston explored the role of counter-narratives in new media. My own paper examined the online ‘community’ created by al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates targeting Western, English language audiences.
After lunch, the conference concluded with a round table discussion of the nature of online radicalization and directions for future research with speakers Dr. John Horgan, Dr. Jarret Brachman, and Dr. Phil Seib.
Just from my own experience, I would say the conference was a huge success. General discussion between panels and after the conference was overwhelmingly positive. Everyone I talked with got a great deal out of the diversity of panel discussion and the excellent lectures by the Plenary speakers. The opportunities for assessment of current research, networking, different perspectives and discussion were excellent. The only regret most people seemed to have was that they couldn’t stay in Dublin longer!
Thank you once again to everyone who helped plan and organize this conference, hopefully we will all be back next year.
Day Two of the Terrorism and New Media conference began with Plenary speaker, Dr. Jarret Brachman of North Dakota State University. Dr. Brachmann, who served as Director of Research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center from 2004-2008, gave a detailed look at the shift in al Qaeda “from a terrorist organization that occasionally uses media, to a media organization that does terrorism.” The discussion, titled “Watching Them, Watching Us, Watching Them,” laid out a fundamental change in the structure and purpose of al Qaeda, and what that means for researchers studying terrorism now.
One of the key points Dr. Brachmann stressed was the increasingly complex nature of the relationship between counter-terrorism practitioners and the subjects of their study. Increasingly, and with greater sophistication, al Qaeda – especially through its media arm As Sahab – is “using our own words against us.” Video clips taken from Western news reports and use of Western resources are now common; edited and used to support the jihadists’ message.
Dr. Brachmann also pointed out that there is still the tendency, in terrorism research, policy making and the mass media, to misunderstand the nature of al Qaeda: Where the West tends to see it as centripetal and cohesive, in reality a large part of that cohesiveness depends entirely on uniting against a common enemy. Without having a clear enemy, regional and ideological differences would do most of the work of pulling al Qaeda ‘apart,’ he suggested.
Once again, I was impressed by the broad range of approaches and topics covered in the panels. In a round table discussion concerning the ethical and legal issues of monitoring the internet for violent radicalization, participants included representatives from the Internet Service Providers of Ireland, the Center for Irish and European Security, London School of Economics and University College Dublin. The differing backgrounds allowed for some really fascinating approaches to the question. One of the parallels brought up was the problem of controlling or combating child pornography, and whether or not ‘blocking’ websites actually had any real effect on the underlying activity. A point was made that – similar to the exploitation of children – blocking websites has little to no effect on their production. A lesson exists here for governments seeking to control violent content on the web, panelists suggested: different approaches may be needed. The issue of surveillance and its ethics was also debated, and one panelist suggested that there is a great deal of ‘monitoring’ on the web that – were it to be conducted offline, say by CCTV – would likely be considered illegal, or at least need much greater permission from the public and legal discussion in the courts.
The panel which I was a member of concerned employing the internet for counter-terrorism and included presenters from George Washington University, and the Consortium for Strategic Communication at Arizona State University. Once again, the topics were diverse. Larisa Breton examined Wikileaks and its changing (and possibly detrimental) role in mainstream news reporting, while Dr. Scott Ruston explored the role of counter-narratives in new media. My own paper examined the online ‘community’ created by al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates targeting Western, English language audiences.
After lunch, the conference concluded with a round table discussion of the nature of online radicalization and directions for future research with speakers Dr. John Horgan, Dr. Jarret Brachman, and Dr. Phil Seib.
Just from my own experience, I would say the conference was a huge success. General discussion between panels and after the conference was overwhelmingly positive. Everyone I talked with got a great deal out of the diversity of panel discussion and the excellent lectures by the Plenary speakers. The opportunities for assessment of current research, networking, different perspectives and discussion were excellent. The only regret most people seemed to have was that they couldn’t stay in Dublin longer!
Thank you once again to everyone who helped plan and organize this conference, hopefully we will all be back next year.
Kristin's Recap of Day 1 of Conference
The following is a recap of Day 1 of the conference from Guest Blogger Kristin Fleischer who is a Doctoral Student in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University:
First of all, I would like to extend a huge thank you to Dr. Maura Conway and Ms. Lisa McInerney for their efforts organizing this conference and to DCU for hosting. It’s a lovely venue (and especially appealing for someone who has spent the summer in Phoenix Arizona where the average temperature is about 45 C) and an exciting group of researchers.
This morning started with welcome remarks and a presentation by Dr. John Horgan, Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Horgan touched on several topics, not the least of which was the state of terrorism research as an academic field. Despite the popular awareness of terrorism as a ‘hot’ topic in academia, he cautioned that there is still an urgent need for increased rigor and depth of research in the field. There should be greater focus on integrating policy with evidence, and understanding that there are no ‘simple answers’ to these issues. Academic research can contribute a great deal to practitioners and policy makers he stressed, but we – as researchers – need to be asking the right questions, and gain a better understanding of the heterogeneity of the threats terrorism presents.
With these words in mind, conference panels began. I have to say, as a graduate student in the field of Communication, it was absolutely fascinating to see how broad and varied the research being presented was. I think that inter-disciplinary conferences like this one are highly important if for no other reason than they can shake us out of our rut, as it were. The first panel I attended was an excellent example of this. Under the theme of framing terrorism in both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, presentations ranged from understanding terrorism as theatre to an exploration of how the “elite corps” of US press view their role in national security to a look at the transmediation of the ‘Underwear Bomber’ story.
The intersection of terrorism (and its affects) was also examined in pop culture. From movies, to graphic novels, to narrative in video games, each panel explored a facet of the complex phenomenon we label ‘terrorism.’
The day was capped by a fantastic dinner (I had the lamb in a lovely thyme sauce!) put on by the University service, which was a lovely end to a fascinating day.
I hope to organize my notes a bit more and explore in greater depth some of the topics discussed in the panels today, but for now, I will say Sláinte and good night from Dublin.
First of all, I would like to extend a huge thank you to Dr. Maura Conway and Ms. Lisa McInerney for their efforts organizing this conference and to DCU for hosting. It’s a lovely venue (and especially appealing for someone who has spent the summer in Phoenix Arizona where the average temperature is about 45 C) and an exciting group of researchers.
This morning started with welcome remarks and a presentation by Dr. John Horgan, Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Horgan touched on several topics, not the least of which was the state of terrorism research as an academic field. Despite the popular awareness of terrorism as a ‘hot’ topic in academia, he cautioned that there is still an urgent need for increased rigor and depth of research in the field. There should be greater focus on integrating policy with evidence, and understanding that there are no ‘simple answers’ to these issues. Academic research can contribute a great deal to practitioners and policy makers he stressed, but we – as researchers – need to be asking the right questions, and gain a better understanding of the heterogeneity of the threats terrorism presents.
With these words in mind, conference panels began. I have to say, as a graduate student in the field of Communication, it was absolutely fascinating to see how broad and varied the research being presented was. I think that inter-disciplinary conferences like this one are highly important if for no other reason than they can shake us out of our rut, as it were. The first panel I attended was an excellent example of this. Under the theme of framing terrorism in both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, presentations ranged from understanding terrorism as theatre to an exploration of how the “elite corps” of US press view their role in national security to a look at the transmediation of the ‘Underwear Bomber’ story.
The intersection of terrorism (and its affects) was also examined in pop culture. From movies, to graphic novels, to narrative in video games, each panel explored a facet of the complex phenomenon we label ‘terrorism.’
The day was capped by a fantastic dinner (I had the lamb in a lovely thyme sauce!) put on by the University service, which was a lovely end to a fascinating day.
I hope to organize my notes a bit more and explore in greater depth some of the topics discussed in the panels today, but for now, I will say Sláinte and good night from Dublin.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Conference Operating Chatham House Rule
To encourage openness and the sharing of information, the conference—excepting formal paper presentations—will operate under the Chatham House Rule, which states:
"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed".
The Rule and our request for adherence to it will be prominently signposted throughout the conference venue.
For more on the Chatham House Rule, see http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/chathamhouserule/.
"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed".
The Rule and our request for adherence to it will be prominently signposted throughout the conference venue.
For more on the Chatham House Rule, see http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/chathamhouserule/.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Monday is Closing Date for Registration
The last date for registration for DCU's forthcoming Terrorism and New Media Conference is MONDAY, 23 AUGUST. (There will be no on-site registration).
Registration should be completed online at http://www.dcu.ie/~cis/TNM/registration/
Fees are as follows:
NB: Conference fee includes all refreshments, lunch, welcome reception on the evening of Tuesday, September 7 and the conference dinner on the evening of Wednesday, September 8.
Registration should be completed online at http://www.dcu.ie/~cis/TNM/registration/
Fees are as follows:
NB: Conference fee includes all refreshments, lunch, welcome reception on the evening of Tuesday, September 7 and the conference dinner on the evening of Wednesday, September 8.
- Standard = €195
- Graduate Student (Full-Time, ID Required) = €110
- Accompanying Partner (Welcome Dinner and Reception only) = €60
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