Developments to Watch
New Software Aims to Cut Terrorists' Cash
Winning the war on terrorism will involve more than military actions. As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell noted, the challenge for the civilized world will be "going after, and dealing with, the sources of support that they have." Some of their financing comes from money laundered illegally in the U.S.--part of an estimated $500 billion in laundered funds that pass through American banks every year.
HNC Software wants to stem that tide. The San Diego company has developed a new variation of Falcon, its artificial intelligence (AI) program for spotting credit-card fraud. Falcon is now used by 80% of the top credit-card issuing banks--and has slashed fraud rates by more than half. But the new technology had to be even smarter, says Walter Lee, vice-president of risk management. "With credit cards, you almost always know for sure when fraud has occurred," he explains, and the software can study each incident to determine the crook's modus operandi and work out patterns to watch for. But with money laundering, some warning-sign patterns can't be nailed down "because some people never get caught."
Lee says the new program uses several AI techniques to monitor bank transactions, looking for such clues as "lots and lots of small deposits, or lots of small international transfers from unusual places, like Caribbean banks." Another red flag: cash deposits with numerous $100 bills from laundromats, delis, or from other small businesses where big bills are normally rare. When the software gets suspicious, it calls in the bank's sleuths.
By Otis Port
A "Strip Search" That's Rated G
By yearend, researchers at The National Institute of Standards & Technology's Boulder (Colo.) operation expect to have the first prototype of a system that can scan the passengers in an airport departure lounge and spot concealed weapons. The radarlike system uses low-power, 95-gigahertz waves to see through clothes. It generates images showing plastic and metal objects in people's pockets or taped to their bodies--without revealing too much physiological detail.
The research is funded in part by the Federal Aviation Administration, which hopes this system will avoid the controversy that enveloped a similar technology. In the mid-1990s, American Science & Engineering in Billerica, Mass., introduced BodyScan. It produces a sort of X-rated X-ray image. While BodyScan's virtual strip search outraged privacy stalwarts, Ralph S. Sheridan, CEO of AS&E, was confident that airline travelers would be willing to sacrifice some modesty for greater safety. But the prudish FAA never gave air passengers an opportunity to decide: Not one of the $140,000 systems was deployed.
Starting last year, however, the U.S. Customs Service began installing the devices at international airports--at least seven so far. Suspected smugglers are given a choice of a manual "pat-down," or getting scanned by AS&E's machine operated by a same-sex Customs official. Soon, the NIST device may offer a third alternative.
By Otis Port
Modeling a Bombing at Your Building
When terrorists attacked New York and Washington, Rudolph V. Matalucci was showing managers of government buildings a new risk-assessment program called Rampart. Developed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing by Matalucci's team at Sandia National Laboratories, Rampart gauges how well buildings would withstand disasters. Its first version is tailored for the General Services Administration, but Matalucci says Rampart can also be adapted for evaluating commercial buildings, schools, and telecom sites.
Rampart comes with a database of threats and a so-called expert system for determining how particular assaults will affect a building. The threat equations model the destructive force of various-strength tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes--and bombs. Rampart spits out rankings that show how vulnerable the building is to each. To mitigate problems that turn up, Sandia has several risk-management methods adapted from those used to assure the safety of nuclear-weapons stockpiles.
By Otis Port
Innovations
-- Casualties at the World Trade Center would have been lower if the buildings had held up longer. They might have, with a new concrete being developed by Neven Krstulovic-Opara, an engineer at North Carolina State University. Mats woven from recycled stainless-steel fibers reinforce the surface, so large chunks don't break off when a building suffers an earthquake or bomb blast. The mats can also replace conventional wooden forms. And the labor savings from eliminating wood forms can more than offset the cost of the mats.
-- At Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, researchers are developing an artificial-intelligence system to alert security guards when video cameras pick up suspicious behavior. So far, the system's neural-network software can detect people running or making rapid, violent gestures, says computer scientist Maylor K. Leung. Training the system to spot people who have fainted should be easy, Leung says, but getting it to distinguish between airline workers and terrorists sneaking around cargo areas may be tough.
By Otis Port
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Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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