IT – Social Networking to counter Terrorism

Asoke K. Laha
President & MD,
Interra IT

It was a sheer coincidence that I picked up two books from a book stall and little realizing that these books would trigger me to write a piece in this column. Let me now come to the books that I picked up. One is The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden written by Mark Bowden, and the other titled as Billionaire Boy, an edited excerpt of the letters written by Hacker, Dropout CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the man behind the social network site that revolutionized human interface and sharing of information – Facebook. 

The book Finish is a chilling account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, how he was tracked down and finally killed by the US SEAL at Abbottabad, the sleepy town lying 110 kms north of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. The narratives are gripping and one can read the entire 264 page book without being visited by boredom, if you are a patient reader.

 My topic for this column is not about the excellence of the narratives of the books or how gripping are the descriptions, but to discuss how information technology is put to use these days for different purposes. But there is a contrast in the deployment of information technology as treated in the two books. The preamble of Zuckerberg’s book starts with his quote,” We don’t build services to make money: we make money to build better services. Facebook was not originally created to build a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission-to make the world open and more connected.”

Look at each word in the sentence. That explains the mission and vision of the Harvard drop out. He is using his ingenuity for a networked society. The entrepreneurship that he demonstrates is a method to build a networked society. He translates his dream into reality, leapfrogs his imagination for building a society that cherish relationship and sharing of information. 

Zuckerberg’s philosophy about the social networking is vividly captured in a letter he addressed to the investors at the time of the IPO issue. Let me quote a few excerpts from his letter. He says, “By helping people form connections, we hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information. We think the world’s information infrastructure should resemble the social graph-a network built from the bottom up or peer to peer, rather than monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date. We also believe that by giving people control over what they share is a fundamental principle of this rewiring. We have already helped more than 800 million people map out more than 100 million connections so far and our goal is help the rewiring accelerate.“

The book signifies the need for social networking, sharing information and for bringing more understanding fellowship among people. It also speaks for the strength of the information technology, which not only can make the distance neutral but also build bridges between people. Undoubtedly, it is a remarkable feat of technology and human ingenuity!! 

The other book The Finish, which narrates the nuts and bolt of an offensive strategy and how the US counter terrorism outfit was tracking Osama bin Laden, ever since they had suspected his role in the demolition of World Trade Centre. More gripping is the narrative of the author how they tracked down bin Laden. The mission that took almost a decade had started off with information gathering. Every piece of information, be it credible, incredible, high pitched or suspicions, concocted fictions etc.  were fed to the super computer. Every such entry was treated as vital inputs. 

The part of the narrative in the book which is worth mentioning is, “You begin with scrap. Anything that can be converted into data, those names and numbers and other type of information…All of that and more, intel from every pipeline, detainee interrogations…human intelligence…geospatial intelligence…measurement and signature intelligence…Each bit (data) is a potentially useful dot in the vast matrix … Now add supercomputers. Convert those bits of intel gathered from all over the world over years of efforts into bytes and suddenly the impossible, finding the needle in a million haystacks becomes at least more possible.”

The author says the wily billionaire Arab-Osama bin Laden- was aware of the type of espionage that has been let loose by the US administration to track him down. Indeed, he escaped their close surveillance for close to ten years. How did he manage it? The author explains that bin Laden never used to have an internet connection, nor a telephone line, where it could be intercepted. He always communicated through the crudest ways through a trusted courier, who also died along with him. Bin Laden was also aware of the intelligence gathering through the drones. That was why he used to wear a big hat while walking in the covered garden of the mansion. The images gathered by the drones were blurred on account of the cover that silhouetted the courtyard of the mansion and big hat that he used to wear while walking. Does it mean, primitive techniques can keep the most modern technology at bay?

To me the take away from the Billionaire Boy and Finish are the two sides of the information technology and how they have been put to use. Both signify the strength of the information technology, but for achieving perhaps, diametrically opposite ends. 

Let me conclude this column by quoting Zuckerberg, “Eventually everything connects. Keep calm and hacks on. Fail harder. Move fast and break things. What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Proceed and be bold. Action speaks louder than words. Done is better than perfect. Our work is 1% per cent finished. Stay focused and keep shipping.”