use of technology in the boston bombings

Edward Snowden, Technology Effect, Technology, Technology And Education

Excerpt coming from Case Study:

Technology Boston Bombings

The Use of Technology in the Boston Bombings Investigations

The Boston Marathon bombing occurrence was an act of terror that took place upon April fifteenth, 2013 throughout the annual Boston Marathon. Throughout the event, bombs were positioned in proximity towards the race’s complete line. The bombs slain two individuals and injured over 100 fifty other folks would wherever close by. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were the principal suspects in the case that were identified by the National Bureau of Investigations (FBI). A day following your bombings a massive manhunt ensued to find the individuals. However , one of many interesting factors about the situation is the way the FBI was able to identify the suspects. An unprecedented volume of digital data was available for work with and the FBI and other businesses utilized crowdsourcing techniques to support funnel throughout the data.

The advent of digital technologies in conjunction with the dropping costs of storage capabilities has led to a situation in which large amounts of digital data could be generated at any time. The power of throngs can be harnessed to help sift through troves of information to work towards a common goal. Crowdsourcing have been used in several different conditions to full many not related tasks that want more human resources than any one person, or perhaps one team, could provide. For instance, a crowd can provide enough manpower to complete a goal in hours that an individual could not complete in many years. The effort is divided up and if enough people are involved then a total contribution can reach staggering ratios. This research will consider all of the readily available technologies and opportunities which the FBI got at their disposal during the Boston Bombing and go over how these kinds of technologies had been used to digest the potential foods and what ethical and legal implications may be strongly related this case.

Shut down Circuit Television

Boston a new network of closed circuit surveillance digital cameras in place through the Boston Bombings. The camera network surely could capture images of the potential foods that were described as “grainy” or being of the low quality. Many key U. T. cities possess implemented security technologies to assist patrol cities. These cams increase the likelihood that a think will be found on camera, however , at the same time, these technology can create a massive amount of video clip that is therefore enormous which it can be of little use. However , fresh advancements in facial identification software and other technologies will be increasing the capability for law enforcement officials officers to create more efficient usage of the data being collected (Kelly, 2013 ).

Figure one particular – CCTV Footage in the Suspects (Kelly, 2013 )

Although the use of new technologies may be promising for police force, it also produces a wide range of personal privacy concerns. The debate among national secureness and individual liberties, specifically privacy, offers reached new proportions because technology has increased the ability pertaining to the state to create mass security programs. Terrorist events including those that occurred on September 11th, 2001, have raise the government’s use of different monitoring and monitoring activities through the Patriot Work and other legislations. After the misfortune that occurred on 9/11, the balance between privacy, person liberties, and security was definitely bent towards secureness.

The quarrels in security of limiting various specific civil liberties were made in order try to stop future serves of terrorism in the U. S. Although some countries took similar activities; most are not as complete as some in the policies which the U. S i9000. implemented. Edward Snowden, who worked pertaining to the National Security Company through subcontractor Booz Allen in the NSA’s Oahu office, alerted the world to the extent of the cctv surveillance measures staying conducted inside the U. S i9000. After Snowden fled to Hong Kong, Chinese suppliers, newspapers started printing the documents that he had leaked to them, many of them outlining invasive spying practices against American citizens (Bio, 2014). Snowden was cited as proclaiming that his motivation been a result of the following affirmation:

“I may want to live in a world that really does these sort of things… I do not want to live in a new where every thing I do and say is recorded. Which is not something I actually am happy to support or live beneath. “

Snowden’s, and others, leaking about the level of surveillance getting conducted on the internet and through all communication means, coupled with the simple fact that SECURITY CAMERA cameras are increasingly being used with cosmetic recognition features sparked a national debate about the balance between level of privacy and secureness. Technology allows society to intrusively check out the lives every day citizens. Yet , many query the effectiveness of these kinds of systems. For example , London has one of the most advanced CCTV devices in the world. Yet , in 08, only one criminal offense was solved for every you, 000 digital cameras, according to the city’s police. LOW LUX cameras throughout Britain also cost specialists nearly hundreds of dollars million within the last four years, according to civil liberties group Big Brother Watch (Kelly, 2013 ). If the security systems are not effective used, then this may definitely hint the scales back towards privacy position in the controlling act.

Crowdsourcing

It has been estimated that each day time people all over the world spend six hundred years jointly playing Angry birds game for download. The power of digesting in packed areas is huge and this ordinaire effort could potentially be considered more rewarding work and many instances of people looking to do exactly that. Sebastian Seunga mentor of computational neuroscience at the Massachusetts Start of Technology, is looking to harness the potency of a crowd to generate a “connectome” which is a map of the multitude of cable connections in the head that underlie vision, memory, and disease (Johnson, 2012). The research workers have designed a game that lets players help map the brain by filling in colors that help make a map of the neural operations in the human brain. The those who play the game are actually assisting to create a data map of various slices of the brain picture that have been used with a great electron microscope. In many cases there is absolutely no substitute for man perception. For instance , it has been estimated that concluding this function even with a computer program to assist would consider one individual 1000 years to complete the map from the brain.

Crowdsourcing was definitely one of the tools that was implemented inside the wake with the Boston Bombings as well. Following your Boston Convention Bombing, the FBI applied the power of throngs to help them dissect the massive volume of data that was readily available. “There needs to be hundreds, in the event that not countless numbers, of photos, videos, and also other observations that had been made down at that end line recently, ” -Timothy Alben, superintendent of the Ma State Authorities, said for a press conference (Powers, 2013). Many of the individual citizens that were present that day built websites that allowed them to collaborate, post, and analyze all the digital info that was collected regarding the people in attendance.

Reddit’s “Find Boston Bombers” forum had more than 1, seven-hundred users, that have highlighted suspect persons and objects through collected photos and videos and on -Imgur. com, many have uploaded snapshots in the crowd close to the 26-mile marker (Powers, 2013). The users may upload all their private video tutorials and then put annotations to demonstrate what they considered as being a probably suspicious person or photo. Thousands of possible leads were made this way. Nevertheless , one of the main complications is that persons would identify people that were really not really that suspicious. When the basic population begins to investigate a crime on their own, it is sometimes the case that they can lack ideal to start necessary to discover activity that might be considered really suspicious. As a result, the crowds’ collection of info was immense and difficult to sift through. It truly is unclear in the event that crowdsourcing will probably be an effective exploration technique for virtually any future incidents.

However , matching with the open public was likewise listed among the best practices inside the after action report. There have been four press conferences held as the unified command center (UCC) decided in the beginning that marketing and sales communications with the open public was a crucial success factor in mitigating the consequences of the terrorism incident. The report declares (Boston, 2014):

“The command of the businesses involved in episode response recognized the importance of frequent and coordinated communications with the media and the general public and come to a opinion on the goal of rendering information coming from key metropolis and condition leadership as often as possible. Essential leaders proved helpful together in the UCC to craft crystal clear, concise, specific messages they could deliver to the general public and the multimedia regarding the event, its affects, and actions that were becoming taken in the aftermath. inch

The public was also dispatched notifications about social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. The leaders with the UCC asked citizens to submit any images or video clips that were privately collected before, during, or after the event and it was approximated that more than eight 1, 000 people called the