Organized Crime is a threat to our National Security

Various countries and states have recognized organized crime as being a threat to their National Security, or very close to. For instance, here in Canada the RCMP’s top Mafia-hunter advised that the Mafia organization called the ‘Ndrangheta had been raised to a “Tier 1” National Threat.

Telephone Communications

It is well known that the US Government has the ability to eavesdrop in our voice and fax communications. First was Echelon, a spy system that was shared by the US with other allied countries. It was capable of recording conversations that could be reviewed at will. Following this was Mystic, which was capable of recording an entire country’s communications and storing them for 30 days – this is only limited by the storage capacity of the Department currently running the project!

In some cases, collected information was used to help detect or determine those responsible for, or having knowledge of, terrorist attacks. This was determined through an examination of telephone calls made prior to the attack – ‘spikes’ in the number of, or location of, telephone calls made around the globe.

But now it is known that the US Government has been tracking communications since the early 1980’s, at first primarily to track the drug cartels, and then later to help with on-going high level investigations, and now terrorist activities.

Movement to Internet Based Communications

But just as with us, organized crime has also expanded on its capabilities and tech savvy. They have moved away from telephony communications and now focus on Internet tools – using chat, instant messenger, and other forms of communications.

Building Custom Applications / Tools

It is known that Terrorists, of which Organized Crime is becoming partnered with, is using tools such as GMail, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter to communicate through. As well, a short while ago it was found they were using their own “customized” tools to communicate. Terrorists created an encrypted email application called “Mohahedeen Secrets”, a mobile app called “Tashfeer al-Jawwal”, and an Android-based news app called “Alemarah”.

Considering the longevity that Organized Crime has had, and their long-term and stable profits, I wonder if they have also done the same? If so, how would you detect new forms of digital communications? Or find ‘hidden messages’?

Detect Hidden Data / Information – A Partial Solution

In an attempt to instantiate a system to help thwart these types of threats, Darpa created Memex, which serves to index information that is not currently being indexed by search engines. While a step forward, this has done only a little in the ability to map out the Internet, and bring to light some criminal activity (that could have been detected via other means). The real question becomes, “How do we find Organized Crime’s networks, network traffic, and messages on the Internet”?

Potential Full Solution

The NSA can break almost any data encryption methodology currently in use today. Even the anonymity and IP protection provided by TOR has been compromised. Considering the credible threat Organized Crime provides, I wonder if we should monitor, or better yet record the data present on the Internet and analyze it to see if there are any data patterns (representing information), hidden messages, or new communication methodologies being employed by Organized Crime to facilitate hidden communications in “plain sight”?

While the information would still need to conform to a standard TCP/IP packet, the data inside could yield anything. You could mount sniffers on routers functioning on the backbone of the Internet and use analytical software to detect new communication methods. You could extract the data in the packets and reconstruct the full data stream, to then apply pattern recognition to find hidden messages / meanings in larger data segments.

I am proposing that we create an AI that is capable of reviewing ALL of the information available on the Internet and bring to our attention only that information that is suspect for review. Of course, the response of the review would serve to ‘fine tune’ the system – serving to improve the systems ability to detect patterns or information that is meant to be hidden from us. I don’t think this would constitute a breach of privacy, as any data would only be read by an AI application – which would only be reviewed should the system detect something.

Putting perspective on this – we are at a disadvantage that must be reversed. Having the same fiscal resources, yet without the limitations imposed by a dependent public (health-care, transportation, education, etc.), Organized Crime is able to spend more money on the research of technologies that invade our privacy, gather our information, and use it to their advantage. Of course, taking advantage of the same computer exploits as Nation States, they would also be able to infiltrate our communications networks – just as we do them.

I wonder if they are also holding back on the development of privacy defeating technologies, showing us the same respect that we seem forced to show them???

I believe espionage, hacking, malware, and ransomware, are being used to undermine our economy, national security, and ability to compete globally.

As in most countries, organized crime in Canada can be linked to other crime groups world-wide, some of which can be further linked to foreign governments and terrorists.  It is also known that crime groups are penetrating legit businesses, using them to launder money.  These profits are supplemented through the sale of drugs, weapons, human trafficking, and the sale of other contraband.

Therefore by extension, affiliated terrorists and other crime groups are using this additional funding to support their own illegal activities, causing damage in a multitude of levels in the countries they are operating in.

The failure of one country to aggressively eliminate these criminal activities would therefore only serve to strengthen the ‘hold’ that affiliated crime groups and terrorists have in other countries.

This makes me wonder why other countries do not hold the Canadian government partially financially responsible for the costs to police, military, the economic weakening, and any property and other damages inflicted by affiliated crime groups in their countries?  Would the grip crime groups have within economies world-wide would be lessened if financial levies were to be applied between countries sharing those crime groups.

Or perhaps on businesses?  For instance many banks are known to have laundered monies for crime groups – yet it takes years for any financial incentives to be applied against them – which never seem to have any real impact.  What if they were to be held partially financially responsible for the actions of the groups they are allowing to launder money?

It seems that we share information and technologies, and yet we lack the will to share the financial burden to eliminate these threats to our society.  Through this, they become stronger.

I offer a reminder that Organized Crime groups are currently a Tier 1 threat to Canadian National Security and is becoming a threat to the National Security of the United States and Europe.

Posted on The Intelligence Community LinkedIn group.  Read the post and all the comments here.

After reading this article about a man who helped pioneer efforts to use data mining tools to help police locate victims of human trafficking on-line, I became curious about the possibility of using Artificial Intelligence to communicate with human traffickers (arrange ‘sessions’ with victims)?

Currently, investigative units are undermanned and overwhelmed with cases, and with the help of new technologies such as DIG, they are being bombarded with more information than they can handle – considering their limited resources, and the time required to tackle each case.

With computerized voices sounding incredibly realistic nowadays, I was wondering as to whether or not AI could be programmed to communicate with traffickers in an attempt to arrange ‘sessions’ with their victims?  This would give them more time to focus on other activities leading to arrests / convictions.

I would think that AI would be able to handle conversations limited to a narrow scope range pretty well.  Vocabulary would be simple and restricted to ‘street’ type communication. Parameters could be provided (street addresses, names, where the information was sourced, etc.), so that the AI could gain trust and remain credible.

With all of the advancements with Artificial Intelligence, I am curious as to why government spending is not currently being monitored by AI?  I believe this would reduce the cost of oversight, while improving the ability to detect irregular transactions.

It could be incorporated into budgets, helping to enforce proper bidding, and comparing cost with those of regular business transactions, helping to reduce the amount that governments are defrauded, or transactions aimed to benefit ‘friends of government’ – or organized crime. This works to ensure that payments allocated for services to be rendered are not inflated to be above regular business – reducing costs to public services, and making instances where ‘favors’ are performed more obvious and exposed.

It could further then be used to compare the differences between amounts budgeted and payments, requiring analysis to be performed when a difference existed that was above a prescribed tolerance.

AI would be indifferent and unbiased, and would only advise of irregular transactions, thus would not require investigation to discover bias.

With such obvious benefits, I question why this is not already used?

This was posted on the “Economist of the World” LinkedIn group, and has generated some comments – click here to view them all!