This paper proposes the use of graph pattern matching for investigative graph
search, which is the process of searching for and prioritizing persons of
interest who may exhibit part or all of a pattern of suspicious behaviors or
connections. While there are a variety of applications, our principal
motivation is to aid law enforcement in the detection of homegrown violent
extremists. We introduce investigative simulation, which consists of several
necessary extensions to the existing dual simulation graph pattern matching
scheme in order to make it appropriate for intelligence analysts and law
enforcement officials. Specifically, we impose a categorical label structure on
nodes consistent with the nature of indicators in investigations, as well as
prune or complete search results to ensure sensibility and usefulness of
partial matches to analysts. Lastly, we introduce a natural top-k ranking
scheme that can help analysts prioritize investigative efforts. We demonstrate
performance of investigative simulation on a real-world large dataset.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Paper to appear in the Fosint-SI 2016 conference
proceedings in conjunction with the 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on
Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining ASONAM 201