After Duke Anderson is released from prison after ten years for taking the rap for a scion of a Mafia family, he cashes in a debt of honor with the mob to bankroll a caper. A thief (Duke Anderson) just released from ten years in jail, takes up with his old girlfriend (Ingrid) in her posh apartment. He makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn't know is that his every move is recorded on audio and video tape, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.
Director:
Sidney LumetWriters:
Lawrence Sanders (novel), Frank Pierson (screenplay) (as Frank R. Pierson)Stars:
Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam |
WEST SACRAMENTO CA (IFS) -- What if, an investigation was going on in the Trump Tower, but on another person or group of people all together different, and the Trump people just by happenstances -- crossed into the line of fire or line of investigation -- by coincidence, and their presence and information crossed pollinated.
Major General Michael Flynn registered today as a foreign agent with the Depart of Justice. Even though he was dismissed as the NSC's number one man by President Trump for lying to Vice President Pence. That's a very weak excuse, but a good one -- a little to late. - KHS
In the television show Person of Interest the Machine uses government surveillance data to predict individuals who will be involved in a crime, whether as a perpetrator or a victim. How close are we to a real-life version of the Machine? Current statistical modeling systems suggest we're not far off.
A new article in the Economist examines a handful of systems used for varied predictive purposes. The first is Spatio-Cultural Abductive Reasoning Engine, better known by the ominous acronym SCARE, developed by computer scientists at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The purpose of SCARE is to predict the behavior of a notoriously difficult to anticipate group: guerrilla armies. While military tacticians may have trouble predicting the movements of guerrillas, SCARE relies on analyses of the behavior of guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan to come up with accurate predictions.
For example, when trying to determine where guerrillas plant bombs, SCARE creates models based on previous bombing sites, topographical and street map data, as well as the ethnic, linguistic, and attitudinal data of the people in the region. Today, SCARE can predict a munitions dump within about 700 meters, and project leader Major Paulo Shakarian is upgrading the system to include phone traffic data.
The US Navy has its own modeling system, called RiftLand. RiftLand, which is being developed by computer science professor Claudio Cioffi-Revilla at George Mason University, focuses on East Africa around the Great Rift Valley. Using data from charitable organizations, academic groups, and governments, RiftLand seeks to bring clarity to the complexities of the region, where many of the countries are dealing with civil conflict. In a place where central governments are not the driving force, RiftLand has to make its predictions based on very specific details about much smaller groups — which groups provide certain types of services, which groups value those services, which groups are likely to experience hostilities toward one another, and which groups are likely to owe other groups favors.
Meanwhile, systems like MIT's Condor, Aptima's Epidemiological Modelling of the Evolution of MEssages (E-MEME), and Lockheed Martin's Worldwide Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (W-ICEWS) analyze blogs, tweets, Facebook, news media, and other websites to measure the social barometer. And yes, politicians and governments are using these sentiment analyses to predict the likelihood of protests and demonstrations.
As impressive (and perhaps frightening) as these systems are becoming, they still rely on a strong human element. People must understand how other people operate — their values and interests — and how their behavior can be influenced. So the Machine could someday be real — provided a human is constantly teaching it what all that surveillance data really means.
By Nadja Popovich and Jan Diehm
“Iwill be leaving my great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday. The early morning announcement, which provided no further details but promised a press conference on 15 December, followed weeks of bad press over conflicts of interest posed by the Trump Organization’s international real estate dealings.
“While I am not mandated to do this under the law,” Trump wrote, “I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.”
So far, the visuals haven’t been good for the president-elect. Photos showing his daughter Ivanka Trump – who is slated to take over the family business – sitting in on meetings with foreign leaders raised new concerns over the failure to separate the Trump family brand from the presidency. Days later, a series of Facebook photos showed a meeting between the president-elect and Indian real estate partners, adding fuel to the fire.
Closer to home, the business interests of the Trump Organization will cross paths with the US government on multiple fronts, providing ample opportunity for further conflicts.
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