Math Can Prevent Terrorism Deaths

July 25, 2010 - PRLog -- Math Can Prevent Terrorism Deaths //  Goldilocks Searches, Power Law Curves, Fuzzy Grouping, Cooperative Game Theory, Lattice Theory All Work

Powerful but obscure mathematical tools now known -- as well as those being developed -- are proving to be very effective weapons against terrorism because they show how small and inexpensive changes in existing anti-terrorist techniques can multiply their effectiveness and save innocent lives, says Professor John Banzhaf, who is helping to promote use of the Goldilocks Principle to make secondary airport screenings both more effective and less time consuming for flyers.
http://www.pr-inside.com/racial-profiling-effective-and-legal-say-r1040858.htm

However, their tremendous and largely untapped power is not adequately being exploited because many policy makers don't understand it, says Banzhaf.

One example of an effective mathematical technique is a new computer algorithm developed to help predict the location of hidden caches of improvised explosive weapons around Baghdad.  It successfully pinpointed their location to within about 0.7 kilometers -- according to a paper about to be published.

After finding that a basic technique called Social Network Analysis was not very effective in finding terrorist kingpins, mathematicians incorporated a newer technique termed Fuzzy Grouping to substantially improve the analysis by including interstitial members.  Cooperative Game Theory is also being used to analyze what makes terrorist cells and networks resilient.

Math, mathematical analysis, and math-based techniques have always been effective weapons in wars.  As the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about mathematician John Nash noted: "Mathematicians won the war."

Terrorism is often effective because it seemingly consists of random acts of violence, but the mathematics of the Power Law Curve have shown that these acts are not truly random, and often can be predicted.  The math worked when applied to terrorist groups as diverse a the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Peru's Shining Path, the Palestinian intifada, Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, and rebels in East Timor.

Dr. Jonathan D. Farley, who, like Banzhaf, is from MIT, has used Lattice Theory (including Boolean Algebra) to make efforts to break up terrorist cells more effective.  He notes that Palestinian leader George Habash's said that "terrorism is a thinking man's game," and says that "it's better to fight smarter, not harder."

Banzhaf agrees, but notes that many policy makers including politicians simply don't understand basic mathematical concepts.  "Suggesting that we should not concentrate airport screenings for terrorists on young Muslim males because some bombers haven't been Muslims is like suggesting that we shouldn't concentrate efforts to screen for breast cancer on older women because some younger women and even men develop the disease," argues Banzhaf.

Prof Banzhaf has shown that applying the Goldilocks Principle to secondary searches at airports would substantially improve the likelihood that they will detect and stop a terrorist passenger trying to board.  It would also speed up the process and reduce costs, he notes.

Instead of the current philosophy under which a young Muslim male is no more likely be be searched than an elderly Asian female, or concentrating almost exclusively on passengers from largely Muslim countries, a policy of selecting passengers for searches based upon the square root of their propensity to be terrorist bombers would save lives and reduce both costs and waiting times, insists Banzhaf.  All that stands in the way is political correctness, he says.

PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
FELLOW, World Technology Network
2013 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006, USA
(202) 659-4310 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/