Analysis & Commentary:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Regarding Mark Hurd's article on Winning the Information War -- article number 103905, 02.12.02 DSstar

I found Mr. Hurd's article in the 12 Feb issue to be more than a little irritating. While his facts were often dubious, it was the blatantly self-serving and self-promoting references in the article that really rankled. Were his article not filled with references to his company, I would chalk this up to another example of authoritative ignorance by a self-anointed pundit. But to assert that he can solve the problem with the tools he has in his hip pocket is offensive.

For example, Mr. Hurd asserts that "the reservoir of intelligence data" is not so vast and in fact "the problems of developing a government-wide information system have already been solved." These comments are risible. The very notion that he would equate a government-wide information system with a system to deal intelligently and accurately with intelligence data demonstrates either a profoundly embarrassing ignorance of the scope of the problem or a shameful willingness to promote his company's products where they don't belong in the interest of a little post 9-11 hucksterism.

Mr. Hurd goes on to equate law enforcement analysis (forensic information mining, if you will), with the challenges of prospective analysis. It is quite a different challenge to figure which of a thousand different attacks any of a billion people might choose to execute -- before they do it -- than it is to examine the evidence to prove that a specific incident was indeed carried out by an individual or group. Law enforcement is focused on gaining convictions for crimes; much of intelligence is focused on preventing crimes (or atrocities) from occurring at all.

He dismisses the challenges of counterfeiting and aliases as being roughly synonymous with combating credit card fraud. Of course thousands of innocents don't die from a single incident of credit card fraud, but perhaps Mr. Hurd misses the difference. The potential costs of allowing even a single event to slip through the cracks is so much higher in the intelligence arena than it is in the commercial arena. It is the height of hubris to suggest some sort of synonymy between detecting terrorists with weapons of mass destruction and detecting felons in possession of stolen credit cards and identification.

There is much that current technology *can* do for the challenges facing the intelligence community. However, a few million (or even a billion) dollars dumped into the coffers at NCR/Teradata to have them slap a database onto the US Government will accomplish little except enrich Mr. Hurd and his shareholders.

Dan Adams

The opinions in this message are my own. They do not reflect the position of my employer nor of the US Department of Energy.