Predictive analysis of concealed social network activities based on communication technology choices: early-warning detection of attack signals from terrorist organizations

Terrorist threat prevention and counteraction require timely detection of hostile plans. However, adversary efforts at concealment and other challenges involved in monitoring terrorist organizations may impede timely intelligence acquisition or interpretation. This study develops an approach to analyzing technological means rather than content of communications produced within the social networks comprising covert organizations, and shows how it can be applied towards detecting terrorist attack precursors. We find that differential usage patterns of hi-tech versus low-tech communication solutions could reveal significant information about organizational activities, which may be further used to detect signals of impending terrorist attacks. (Such potential practical utility of our method is supported by the detailed empirical analysis of available al Qaeda communications.) The described approach thus provides a common framework for utilizing diverse activity records from heterogeneous sources as well as contributes new tools for their rapid analysis aimed at better informing operational and policy decision-making

Predictive analysis of concealed social network activities based on communication technology choices: early-warning detection of attack signals from terrorist organizations

Terrorist threat prevention and counteraction require timely detection of hostile plans. However, adversary efforts at concealment and other challenges involved in monitoring terrorist organizations may impede timely intelligence acquisition or interpretation. This study develops an approach to analyzing technological means rather than content of communications produced within the social networks comprising covert organizations, and shows how it can be applied towards detecting terrorist attack precursors. We find that differential usage patterns of hi-tech versus low-tech communication solutions could reveal significant information about organizational activities, which may be further used to detect signals of impending terrorist attacks. (Such potential practical utility of our method is supported by the detailed empirical analysis of available al Qaeda communications.) The described approach thus provides a common framework for utilizing diverse activity records from heterogeneous sources as well as contributes new tools for their rapid analysis aimed at better informing operational and policy decision-making

Reducing Uncertainty: Information Analysis for Comparative Case Studies

The increasing integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis has largely focused on the benefits of in-depth case studies for enhancing our understanding of statistical results. This article goes in the other direction to show how some very straightforward quantitative methods drawn from information theory can strengthen comparative case studies. Using several prominent “structured, focused comparison” studies, we apply the information-theoretic approach to further advance these studies' findings by providing systematic, comparable, and replicable measures of uncertainty and influence for the factors they identified. The proposed analytic tools are simple enough to be used by a wide range of scholars to enhance comparative case study findings and ensure the maximum leverage for discerning between alternative explanations as well as cumulating knowledge from multiple studies. Our approach especially serves qualitative policy-relevant case comparisons in international studies, which have typically avoided more complex or less applicable quantitative tools