IBM, HP, HCL, Wipro, Oracle and TCS pitch for project to track suspects online

New Delhi: Project O-sint ( Open Source Intelligence) has gained momentum with police receiving expression of interest from as many as 18 global IT giants for its implementation.

The firms include IBM, HP, HCL, Wipro, Oracle and TCS among a dozen others, an officer told TOI on July 9.
Project O-sint is a strategic initiative by Delhi Police to let them snoop on social networks and the internet for tracking anti-social elements . It has raised eyebrows as many view it with suspicion following the recent controversy involving the United States’ PRISM. While police argue that criminals and terrorists are increasingly using social networks and the internet for communication and planning, there have been concerns about people’s privacy.

Even the firms, which have shown interest in the project, have been sceptical about the nature of data they will need to access. Police claim they intend to only collect information which is available in the public domain. Sources, however, say the data extraction will be across Facebook profiles, groups, communities, Twitter pages, blogs, news portals, online forums and chat groups on the internet.

The geographical identification feature of this project would enable police to track a criminal’s or suspect’s movements through his presence on the internet. The sentiment analysis feature of the project poses a hurdle. Applicants don’t find it practical as criminals communicate in code.

Sentiment analysis identifies the positive or negative vibes in a communication. The applicants say it is more practical to have a mechanism for detecting criminal intent.

“If police can identify the Twitter hash tag of a suspected criminal, they can use the technology to carry out a search across all posts which they have tweeted or retweeted to see new and emerging concepts. Grouping of similar concepts—be it in ordinary or coded language—will be more feasible,” says an officer.

Another problem faced while infiltrating the online world is that Twitter data is available only through thirdparty content providers and is selective, which may not serve the purpose of Delhi Police. Facebook data is not available commercially and is only accessible to government bodies on legal representation .

Restricted blogs and websites can only be entered via usernames, passwords and digital signatures. Commercial sites will block web crawlers, making it difficult to track movements . Many of these sites have security restrictions on accessing of content. Although you can analyse targeted information in real time, handling new and unanticipated information is not that easy. Delhi Police needs to look into each of these security restrictions separately.

Problems project o-sint may face

Facebook data only available to government bodies on legal representation Restricted blogs and websites can be accessed only with passwords or digital signatures Twitter data is selectively available through third-party content providers Sentiment analysis of criminals’ coded messages may be difficult Commercial sites will block crawlers Many websites have security restrictions on accessing content There will be new and unanticipated types of information Geographical tracking of criminals on the internet will have limitations.