New Digital Attack Map From Google, Arbor Networks (Extreme COOLINT)

Google Ideas and Arbor Networks have recently made available a very interesting "digital attack map" that provides a live data visualization of Distributed Denial of service attacks around the world.  It is pretty cool stuff and well worth the look! (H/T to Rebeka for the link!  Thanks!)

Intelligence And Crowdmapping

I realized today that, while I had written in the past about the idea of crowdmapping, I had never actually used that term in a post before.

That was a mistake.

Don't get me wrong, Group editable maps have been around for some time and are quite successful.  We have used CommunityWalk, for example in a number of projects and it has served its purpose excellently.

CommunityWalk Map - North Caucasus Violence Sep-06 to Nov-06



Likewise, automatically edited maps are also quite helpful.  The comprehensive map at RSOE EDIS, for example, just recently got some new competition with Google Public Alerts.

Crowdmapping, though, is something a bit different.  Here, dozens and sometimes hundreds of people are providing information from a variety of sources (including the web, of course, but also through SMS and Twitter) that are then mapped in real time.

Right now, this space is occupied almost exclusively by Crowdmap.com, an offshoot of the much admired Ushahidi project.  It is not too hard to see a time, however, when other companies and organizations will enter this space with competing offerings.

I, along with a small group of intrepid students, have been experimenting with this system for a few months and, while managing the input has proven to be more challenging than expected, the potential (and the relative sophistication of Crowdmap) is enormous.

The best way to get a sense of the value of a crowdmap, however, is to look at them.  Below are three of my favorites:  Syria Tracker (a map tracking eyewitness accounts of missing, killed or arrested people in Syria in English and Arabic), China Strikes (a map tracking instances of labor unrest in China), and Energy Shortage (a map tracking reports of energy related issues worldwide).  You can see all of these maps below (Syria Tracker is live; the other two maps need to be clicked on to get to the live versions).

Extremely Cool Predictive Analytics On House Prices (Trulia.com via Information Aesthetics)

http://explore.trulia.com/datavis/priceredux/Q1-2011/

One of my favorite data visualization blogs, Information Aesthetics, is featuring a new interactive map from the real estate site, Trulia.com, that should get anyone in the market for a new home (or who is selling their old one) pretty excited.

The map (and I have included a screenshot of the DC area to the right) evaluates recent home sales on a zip code by zip code basis to let you know:

• How many days a house was on the market before there was a price reduction?
• What was the average percent reduction?
• What are the odds of a second reduction?

The data set currently covers most of the US and all of the densely populated areas of the US.

Talk about actionable intel!

While this information is very useful, I hope that Trulia will work to improve the map. For example, I wonder why they decided to use zip codes instead of census tracts (which would have allowed for much finer grain analysis)?

It also makes me wonder how the Paradox of Warning will impact Trulia's product and the buyers and sellers who use it?

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp2_0.pdf

Make Better Presentations, Use Language More Effectively, Pronounce Foreign Words Perfectly And Generally Become A Better Analyst (Link List)

I am determined to play catch up for months of ignoring some really good websites and some really useful tools that have come across my desk:

50 Tips For Better Presentations.  I have always liked Clive On Learning and this list of 50 tips is a pretty good example why.  Some are a little obvious ("Keep off the booze") and some I disagree with ("Spare the thanks"  -- though I do agree that a lengthy introductory "thank you" is unnecessary) and some are clearly from hard-earned experience ("Use humor with caution").  Whatever your level of experience, however, you will find something of use or, at least, interest here.

50 Rhetorical Devices For Rational Writing.  After years in the business of both intelligence and teaching intelligence analysis to students, I have come to think that the art of rhetoric needs more emphasis.  Understanding these tools can really improve your own writing but can also let you better understand the tricks that others are pulling on you.  My favorite?  Litotes.

8 Online Pronunciation Guides That Help You Speak Words Correctly.  Nothing destroys your reputation as an analyst faster than mispronouncing foreign words.  It sends an immediate signal that you are not an expert in the area you are discussing.  While some of these sites are designed to help you pronounce English words better, several of them also offer good foreign language pronunciation guides.

Copy, Paste, Map -- IssueMap.org.  This new tool from, of all places, the Federal Communications Commission and FortiusOne, allows users to relatively painlessly move data from a spreadsheet to a map.  It looks both pretty cool and pretty easy to work with.

The 6 Best Free Online Meeting Tools To Collaborate With Your Team.  While probably not very useful for analysts trapped inside various "bubbles" around the world, these tools might be very helpful for business professionals (particularly entrepreneurs) or student teams working on various projects.

A final tip of the hat to MakeUseOf.com which provided two of today's links -- it is a site worth subscribing to!

Aon Publishes New Terrorism Threat Map (Aon.com)

http://www.aon.com/risk-services/terrorism-risk-map/index.html

Aon Corporation ("... the leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage and human capital and management consulting") has updated and republished their useful Terrorism Threat Map.  

You can see a static screen shot of the map to the right but to access the interactive version or get the full PDF in all its detailed glory, you don't have to pay but you do have to give Aon your email address and answer a few marketing questions.

Related Posts:

Terrorism Threat Map

Interactive Map Of All Of The World's Intelligence Headquarters (Google Maps)

If the recent Washington Post story, Top Secret America, frustrated you and the recent Wikileak's posting of 75,000+ incident reports from Afghanistan made you downright angry, you may not be pleased but you will be hard-pressed not to feel a bit of schadenfreude at a recent Google Map created by Ana out of Portugal (NFI and via Google Maps Mania) that purports to show the location of all of the world's intelligence headquarters (plus other buildings when known).

The US is not spared here either, of course, but the details on the rest of the world (assuming they are correct) presents a pretty interesting insight into intelligence activity worldwide.  You can see the map below or click on this link to get to a full page version of the map.

Ver World Intelligence HQ's num mapa maior


(Note:  If you are trying to track all of the news related to the recent wikileaks story, I am posting interesting articles I find into the "Sam's Shared Items" box to your right.)

What If The Gulf Oil Spill Happened In My Home Town? (IfItWasMyHome.com)

The website, IfItWasMyHome, allows the user to place the BP Gulf oil spill over any town or city in the world.  It is an enormously useful tool for visualizing the current size of the spill and the area it actually impacts.  The picture below is a screenshot taken with the spill centered on Washington DC.  For the interactive version of the site (where you can put the spill over your town, too), go to IfItWasMyHome.com or click on the picture below. 

Memorial Day Isn't About Sales Or Cookouts... (CNN.com via FlowingData)

CNN has created an excellent infographic that brings home the human cost to the US of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Click on the picture below or the this link to see the interactive version.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Iraq and Afghanistan casualities, home and away (flowingdata.com)
• The Real "LOST": CNN's Iraq and Afghanistan War Casualties (kanarick.com)
• More US troops in Afghanistan than Iraq, a first (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

SNOWINT (CommunityWalk)

Want to know the odds that your location will have a white Christmas? Check out this map made using one of my favorite online custom mapping tools, CommunityWalk...

CommunityWalk Map - What are the odds of a White Christmas?

What Would Happen If A Nuke Hit Your Town? (Carloslabs via Google Maps Mania)

Google Maps Mania recently pointed out an interesting applet built by Carlos Labs (see below) that gives an estimate of the amount of damage a variety of nuclear devices would cause if set off somewhere in the world.

The applet uses the Google Maps API and allows the user to take a look at the thermal, pressure and fallout damage (based on wind direction) from a variety of preset yields. At the low end is the 6 kiloton device recently exploded by the North Koreans. At the other end is the Soviet Union's 50 megaton Tsar Bomba which would burn or blow down everything from Washington to Baltimore. Fat Man, Little Boy, suitcase bombs and the dinosaur-exterminating asteroid impact are thrown in "for fun".

(Note: The app does not allow me to pre-set the starting point. It seems to randomly rotate to large cities. If your city pops up in the display, please do not assume that I hate you...)



For us cold warriors this is pretty old news. We were exposed to these kinds of graphics for most of our lives. For the younger generation, I suspect it is a little unnerving.

Anyone want to stay up and watch Special Bulletin tonight?

Excellent BBC Map, Special Report On Afghan-Pakistan Border (News.BBC.co.uk)

The BBC has put together a very useful interactive map regarding the current situation on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The picture on the left is just a thumbnail. You can get to the full map (and report) by clicking here or on the picture.

In addition to the map, the BBC has included some audio reports, related stories and even a methodology(!) section. I am not an expert in this area so I cannot vouch for the underlying accuracy of the analysis but it is an effort that is well worth checking out.

Interactive Map Of Complexity Science (Art-sciencefactory.com via Elearnspace.com)

Complexity science is enormously important for intelligence professionals to understand. It holds great promise, I believe, for helping analysts get beyond the 69% threshhold.

It is, however, a daunting topic to tackle unassisted. I spent many years reading everything I could find on the topic that I thought could help me understand the consequences of what is, in many ways, a new way of thinking. I read James Gleick, of course, but I also read Per Bak, Steven Strogatz and Stuart Kaufmann, etc. (My favorite? Laszlo Barabasi).

Eventually, though, the topic become too broad -- there was simply too much to keep up with. Today the field is crowded with all sorts of new entries. If only there was a guide, a "map" of some kind to help orient newcomers to this field...

Voila!

The picture above is just a partial screenshot of a fantastic, interactive map of the wide range of complexity sciences. The map is part of the larger Art and Science Factory site (worth exploring in its own right...). Links on the map go to important individuals and to key websites that explore the various topics.

Elearnspace (where I first saw mention of the map) comments that the map may be incomplete. They, as I, think, however, that it is a very useful product; particularly for beginners.

Make A Map, Build An Early Warning System, Buy A Laptop, Analyze Insurgencies... (Link List)

I am going to try to do a little bit of spring cleaning today. Most of the time I post interesting sites that I don't have time to write about in the "SAM's Shared Items" box in the right hand column of this blog. Some sites, though, I tag for writing about later as full posts ... and then promptly forget about them.

Today, I am cleaning out the vault of "interesting or useful sites I have not written about but should have". Without further ado (and in no particular order):

Research and Documentation Online (via Lisa Gold: Research Maven). What an excellent collection of authoritative research sites this is! Diana Hacker has done an outstanding job collecting all sorts of good sites into a single database (along with some helpful tips on researching and validating sources in general).

Customizable Map Of the World. This site allows you to easily create maps of the world with custom colors. Boyond the customizable map, the Aneki.com main site contains a number of useful indices and ranking systems for global issues.

The World Value Survey. Want the low-down on what a particular culture values most? The World Values Survey is the right place to start. Featuring such useful items as the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World (See image to the left), the WVS is a good place to know about if you are interested in how values are changing worldwide.

Ushahidi. Ushahidi apparently means "testimony" in Swahili and it is an effort to build a platform that crowdsources crisis information. According to the site, it "allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response." Worth exploring.

Net-Map. Billed as a tool to construct an influence map of a social network, this is another non-profit attempt to get modern analytic methods off the computer and into the hands of people with limited technical skills or equipment. I could easily see this as a classroom exercise that would introduce the basics of social networks and influence mapping to students as well.

CIA's Guide To The Analysis Of Insurgency. The Federation of American Scientists have acquired and are making available a 1980's CIA Manual on how to analyze an insurgency.

23 Sources of User and Expert User Reviews and Laptop Buying Guide 2009. The always helpful MakeUseOf.com has done it again with two great sites. The first is a list of places to go to see what someone else thinks about the gadget you are thinking about buying and the second is an informative laptop buying guide in case you are in the market.

How To Write A Resume That Will Land An Interview. Very solid article with numerous good links to additional resources.

Open Source Communicable Disease Surveillance Tool (Biocaster)

Developed by a Japanesse based team of international scientists, BioCaster is an attempt to text mine a number of open source data streams for breaking information about communicable diseases worldwide and then plot them in an easy-to-access/manipulate format on a Google map.

The applet is not embeddable (of course!) so, if you want to see the tool in action, you will have to go to the website or click on the map below:

Bin Laden Found! (MIT International Review)

...according to two UCLA geography professors in the MIT International Review. Using what sounds a lot like IPB, they figured out where Bin Laden couldn't go, probably wouldn't go and narrowed down their estimate to one of three building complexes in Parachinar, Pakistan.

The image of the buildings is taken from the report (which is free to download) but they are just Google Earth pictures. All of the analysis is based on open sources and some reasonable assumptions and is getting some massive play on a variety of sites right now.

It reminds me a bit of what Jeff Carr did with the Grey Goose Project...

Live Pirate Map! No, Not That Kind... (ICC-CCS.org via beSpacific)

The law and technology blog, beSpacific, points to an interesting product by the International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crime Services division today. It is a Google map mash-up that shows all of the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the International Maritime Bureau in 2008. There is no embeddable version but click on the map below and it will take you to the live site. While you are there, click around a bit. There are some interesting additional links.

Related Posts:

Ship Tracking Resources

Geographic Analysis Of World's Top Social Networks, Search Engines (Oxyweb via Digital Inspiration)

Digital Inspiration pointed yesterday to a very cool map put together by the writers at Oxyweb that shows the top social networking sites by country. You can see the map below (click on it to get a full sized version).

I am color blind so it is difficult for me to make out, but it appears that MySpace is only the most popular social networking site in the US and that Facebook has really good penetration in the Med. It also appears pretty clear that you need to be on Orkut in Brazil or India and something called "V Kontakte" appears to be very popular in Russia and parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Oxyweb has been building this map for the last three months so you can examine some trends as well.

The map of search engine popularity is a little more predictable with Google holding the high ground almost everywhere. The exceptions are very interesting, however. Again, click on the map below to go to the full image. Once you are done, check out the Oxyweb blog. It is fairly new, but with content like this, it looks like it is going to be worth following.

Chinese Repression Of The Uighurs (ISN)

ISN has an interesting brief on China's continued repression of the Muslim Uighur population (in light pink on the map below) in western China under the mantle of counter-terrorism activity. Written by Diane Chido, an independent writer and analyst (and graduate of Mercyhurst!), it covers the basics and provides interesting background to the recent spate of incidents in Xinjiang Province.

Click for a larger version.

Related Posts:
Let Freedom Blog! Chinese Dissidents Write Backwards To Beat Government Filters
China's Demographic Problems

Crowdsourcing Imagery Analysis (Wikimapia)

I have written previously about the value of the Google Earth Community for leads and other hard to find information concerning virtually any geographic location. Tasks like identifying and describing geographic locations on a map are perfect for crowdsourcing, where lots of people throw a little bit of time at a project. While I would not center my business, law enforcement or military plans around such data, it can provide very useful leads.

Wikimapia, which is very much like the Google Earth Community, allows users to post data concerning any place in the world. When this service first came out, I didn't think it would be able to compete with the Google Earth Community. Apparently, I was wrong.

I gave Wikimapia a second look today (Thanks, Rachel!) and was very impressed with the quantity of information and detail available. Take a look at the image of Bushehr Iran below.
Of course this is just a screenshot and I added the title and the website but the yellow box highlighting the Iranian HAWK site is all Wikimapia. Yeah. I thought it was pretty cool, too.

All of the little white boxes are sites that have been identified as something by someone. A good number of the sites identified are in the native language of the country making this a useful training tool for linguists as well.

Related Posts:
Excellent Competitive Intelligence, Law Enforcement World News Mapping Resources
NGO Intel: Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Groups Map
COOLINT Part Deux: "The World Through The Eyes Of Editors In Chief"
COOLINT: Heat Map Of Search Terms By Country
9 Great Map Resources
Terrorism Threat Map
Famine Early Warning System
Excellent African Map Source
High Priced Oil Adds Volatility To Power Scramble (NY Times)
World Port Index

Environmental Intelligence (DotGovWatch)

DotGovWatch, a blog about government activities, is featuring a "mash-up" (a combination of two or more online databases into a single product) today that combines the Google Maps software with the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory. The result is a scary but useful map of US Toxic Air Emissions in 2006.