Terrorist Right Prints

There is some extremely interesting research going on by a team of 2 dozen Asian, Middle Eastern and European students at the University of Tuscon.  Called the "Dark Web" project, it's a web program that automatically 'combs' the internet in search of militant leaders and their followers.  According to an article in Science News, "New mathematical tools that combine Web-crawling techniques, sophisticated algorithms and human expertise are gaining access to the "dark side" of the Web, where extremists discuss and plot terrorist acts.

The program identifies leaders and their followers through chat forums.  The researchers are able to establish levels of importance among the chatroom users throughout the chatrooms.  Hsinchun Chen, head of the "Dark Web" project, said that 20,000-30,000 features are used to identify the potential terrorists: word length, syntax, usage...until each person on the watch list has what is referred to as a 'right print', which is almost as unique as a fingerprint.  Chen went on to report that an "infection rate for becoming a suicide bomber is 2 in 10,000 (Ehrenberg, 2012).  The information gathering here is amazing! Some identified terrorists are as young as 12 and 13 years old.  Each chatroom author is identified, given a level of dangerousness, level of authority within the chatroom and all of his contacts are identified.  It's an almost unbelievable program.

As with everything we, as a society, come up with to combat terrorism, civil rights leaders are worried about us infringing on rights.  It seems that in Germany, one such 'terrorist' by the name of Holm was discovered through this web-scanning process.  Holm spent a short time in jail (until it was determmined that there was no proof to hold him) and was under constant surveillance.  He believes he is still under constant surveillance.  Here's my theory on that.  If there is nothing to watch, they will stop watching you.  If you go into chat rooms and discuss ordinary, day-to-day life big brother has neither the time nor inclination to identify you.  You are simply one of the masses.

I'm okay with big brother watching me because I know it's not me he's watching: it's me he's protecting.  From a faceless set of eyes that I, alone, can not identify as a threat.

References

Ehrenberg, R. (2012, March 10). Scientists surf Web's dark side: mathematical tools collect information on extremists. Science News, 181(5), 8. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.db24.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA283156713&v=2.1&u=lincclin_spjc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w

The Revamping of San Francisco's City Government Customer Service Line

San Francisco, "The City by the Bay" (now, of course, I will be singing Journey's "Lights" all night!), is home to over 800,000 people according to the US Census Bureau's 2011 report.  With close to a million people walking the streets, riding the buses and trollies, driving their vehicles (just imagine how high that number goes when you take into account tourists and commuters!) the city's government needs a strong handle on the routing of complaints. 

Prior to 2009, complaint calls that were placed to the city government concerning abandoned vehicles among other things, were met with a 'voicemail labyrinth' that the callers often found difficult to follow.  They rarely made it to the appropriate mailbox to have their complaint heard and remedied.  The voicemails that were reached were left messages that were often unintelligible, in the wrong department or with the caller simply saying "hello?' repeatedly, thinking they had an actual person on the line.

Enter Blair Adams, the Chief Consulting Officer of DTIS (Department of Telecommunications and Information Services).  He and his CRM (Customer Relations Management) team created a process change by identifying the problems and services needed then troubleshooting and finally resolving to form a new, more efficient process.  They began by asking, "What do you need to know so you can do your job"?, with that information they troubleshoot problem spots.  In this instance they realized what was needed was a switch back to personal contact and so created a centrallized, one-contact phone call for the caller. 

The customer service agent, much like a 911 operator--only this is non-emergency '311', enters all relevent information into an agency-wide, even city-wide, computer system.  This allows city planners to provide services, track work, and provide the best customer service possible.  San Francisco has acheived interdepartmental collaboration throughout the city thanks to a successful process change.

How nice it must be for those close to a million people to be able to voice a complaint and have someone, an actual person, listen to it, respond to it, and fix it!  According to an article in Marketing, virtually all of the cities in England have switched back to a personal, single point of contact to answer citizen queries and complaints.  Customer satisfaction?  You guessed it--within a matter of months it rose from 40% to well over 90%!  California has seen the need (San Francisco anyway), when will the rest of America follow suit?  Because I'm tired of having to buy a new phone every time mine gets thrown at the wall when, for the umteenth time, the automated operator says "sorry, I didn't quite understand.  Did you say Genevieve Bacardi?"

References

Contact centres: Council connections. (2005, September 28). Marketing, 39. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.db24.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA136760098&v=2.1&u=lincclin_spjc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w