AI Lab Recognition
Research findings from the Artificial Intelligence Lab have been featured in Science, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Business 2.0, KMWorld, Government Computer News, NCSA Access Magazine, WEBster, HPCWire, Police, Law Enforcement Technology, The Police Chief, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Citizen, The Washington Post, Life Week Magazine, Time Magazine Global Business Supplement, Newsweek Magazine, ABC News and The Boston Globe.
The University of Arizona is now recognized by DHS and NSA as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE). The August 2017 Daily Wildcat article mentions the roll of the SFS scholarship program and cybersecurity research. This designation is expected to not just bring in more educational opportunities, but also more research opportunities. According to Hsinchun Chen, UA Regents professor of MIS and director of Eller’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, this designation came about due to the university’s SFS designation, ongoing cybersecurity research, cybersecurity publications and representation at cybersecurity conferences.
In an interview with UANews about the relevance of cybersecurity to the Empire in the Star Wars universe, Dr. Chen reflects on the relevance of cybersecurity in modern life with a general recommendation to take "stronger preventative security measures from the start."
Read the full article here: New 'Rogue One' Film Provides Interesting Study in Cybersecurity
The Eller Progress Magazine ran a full page article on the AZSecure SFS Fellowship Program in the Fall 2016 issue touting the relevance of the cybersecurity training provided by the AZSecure program and how competitive the program has become. Read "Offensive Strategy".
Dr. Chen delivered a lecture at the Institute for Digital Research and Education at UCLA called “The Hacker Web Project: Exploring the Dark Side of the Web”. You can read an overview of his talk here: Hacking the Hackers.
Six Easy Ways to Avoid Theft Online: This article published by the University of Arizona's Office of Research and Discovery outlines six simple ways Dr. Hsinchun Chen recommends to avoid becoming the low hanging fruit targeted by thieves . By following these strategies, people can make themselves less vulnerable online. Read the article here.
October 4, 2016
Cybersecurity Innovation in the Artificial Intelligence Lab: Dr. Hsinchun Chen and Ph.D. student Sagar Samtani discuss the AI Lab's innovative cybersecurity research in an interview aired on Arizona Public Media's Arizona Week (program title, "Post-Snowden: More Conversations About Privacy, Cyber Security Innovation at The University of Arizona"). The interview begins at time signature 10:23 and follows a recap of the University of Arizona panel discussion, "A Conversation on Privacy." Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp4eRFMvu0k&list=PL8306C8F702BE72FE&index=3.
April 8, 2016
"When hackers talk, this research team listens." This article, featured in NSF's Discovery news website, describes Dr. Hsinchun Chen's efforts in studying how hackers build and maintain communities and share information. Using sophisticated data collection and analysis techniques, he and his research team in the AI Lab are pursuing the goal of being able to identify new and emerging threats. See the original news article on the NSF website.
October 8, 2015
"Pulling out all the shots: UA affiliates create website to help improve lives of diabetics, utilizing better management techniques." This Daily Wildcat story features the DiabeticLink project, intended to support patients with diabetes. DiabeticLink is a website that accommodates Type 1, Type 2 or a prediabetic patients with tools that can help them self-manage their disease. It was started by Hsinchun Chen, director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the UA, and Dr. Randall Brown, a physician at University Medical Center who was the medical advisor for the project. See the full story on the website of The Daily Wildcat.
April 29, 2015
Faculty not only create, but also mentor: Dr. Hsinchun Chen and Haily De La Cruz are featured in the Fall 2014 issue of Eller Progress magazine. Haily (Computer Science and Eller MIS 2014) recently started work as a program manager at Microsoft, and credits his accomplishments in part to the mentoring he received from Regents' Professor Chen while working in the AI Lab as a research assistant. See the complete story in the Fall 2014 issue of Eller Progress.
September 2014
"CyberTrack: MIS Department hosts area high school students at BioSphere2" Fifty high school students received full scholarships to attend the residential MIS GenCyber camp at the BioSphere2 this summer. The scholarships were sponsored by the National Security Agency and awarded via the National Science Foundation. The GenCyber camps were developed by MIS professor of practice Bill Neumann, who partnered with the UA STEM Center, MESA (Math Engineering Science Achievement), and the Girl Scouts, to hold the week-long camps. Hands-on teaching covered diverse topics including computer and network basics, threat assessment, career paths, and encryption. See the complete story in the Fall 2014 issue of Eller Progress.
"New Grant Focuses on Intelligence and Security Informatics" Congratulations to Dr. Hsinchun Chen and his team for receiving a $1.5M grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their “Data Infrastructure Building Blocks: DIBBs for Intelligence and Security Informatics Research Community” project. The infrastructure will consist of online archives and analysis tools. The archives themselves contain a wide array of open source data including discussions in online forums run by hackers, data from botnet command and control servers used to stage computer attacks, video streams and tweets, and news summaries from economically and politically unstable states and regions. See the DIBBs project research page and the NSF project abstract page for more information.
MIS Bulletin, October 2014
"15 Top Cybersecurity Professors" AI Lab Director Hsinchun Chen appeared on the Forensics Colleges list of top 15 cybersecurity professors. "Cybersecurity may seem like a sophisticated concept, and ... can include strategies for protecting identities and private information on the web as well as making the transference of information more secure on e-commerce sites. Our list of Top 15 Cybersecurity Professors includes those teaching and researching in the field or doing both," says the Colleges blog. See more here.
Arizona Daily Star, October 26, 2013
"Positive Patterns | Hsinchun Chen" The University of Arizona created and compiled a brief video of Dr. Chen's accomplishments and achievements from his time at the U of A. This was played at the Regents Professorship induction ceremony during Dr. Chen's recognition on stage. See the video on the Artificial Intelligence Lab's YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/FJl1a__nN1g.
University of Arizona, November 21, 2013
"University places higher emphasis on cybersecurity" While the world we perceive occupies a physical space, the advent of the Internet and other technologies have caused many people to frequent a different type of place: cyberspace. “[Maintaining] cybersecurity has become a big problem for government, for industry and also for the general public,” said Hsinchun Chen, Regents’ professor and Thomas R. Brown Chair of Management and Technology in the Eller College of Management’s Management Information Systems Department. See more here.
Arizona Daily Wildcat, November 13, 2013
"UA training cyber security experts for FBI, CIA and NSA" With cyberspying in the news daily, several students at the University of Arizona are already committed to working as experts for U.S. agencies such as the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency. “We are training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals,” says UA Regents’ Professor Hsinchun Chen. The students are working in the research center AZSecure Center for Cyber Analytics, where they are looking at IP addresses and the vulnerabilities of various devices. See more here.
Arizona Daily Star, October 26, 2013
"$5.4M in Cybersecurity Big Data Grants Awarded" Congratulations to MIS faculty Hsinchun Chen, Paulo Goes and Mark Patton for being awarded two security big data grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) totaling $5.4 million. The projects will address the significant cybersecurity research and education challenges facing the U.S. and the international community today. The first project, Cybersecurity Scholarship-for-Service at the UA or AZSecure, has been funded through 2018 with $4.2 million in total. The second project focuses on understanding cyber attackers and attacks via social media analytics. The project is funded through 2016 in the amount of $1.2 million. (PDF copy of MIS Bulletin story available here).
MIS Bulletin, September 2013
"$5.4M in Cybersecurity Grants Awarded to UA Regents' Professor Hsinchun Chen" Researchers in the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management have been awarded two grants from the National Science Foundation, totaling $5.4 million, for projects that will address significant cybersecurity research and education challenges facing the U.S. and the international community. Hsinchun Chen, Regents' Professor and Thomas R. Brown Chair in Management and Technology in Eller's management information systems department, is principal investigator on both projects. See more here.
UA News, September 12, 2013
"Interview with Hsinchun Chen on the Dark Web" At the University of Arizona, a group of researchers is working to catalogue the single largest databank of terrorist writing on the web, from social media to chat rooms. This searchable databank is part of a project called the Dark Web, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Department. Hsinchun Chen, a computer scientist who is heading the project, spoke with the Medill National Security Zone about his work, which he believes could provide unique insights into terrorist networks.
War 2.0, September 2013
"Insight: West struggles to cope with online recruitment for Syria jihad" Chen's Dark Web portal relies on multilingual data mining and content analysis to gather and sift through terrorist web content. He said a similar systematic method of collection is currently used only by Israel and one U.S. security agency. "(Intelligence agencies) are experts in investigations but most of them are not experts in computer science. They don't have the resources or the will or the capability to collect large amounts of information on a systematic basis," Chen said. "They should have it, and it's available." See more here.
Reuters, September 4, 2013
"BizTucson: Innovator of the Year" The ingenuity, intellect, vision, tenacity and entrepreneurship of University of Arizona Professor Hsinchun Chen produced crime fighting and healthcare tools used throughout the world - making him a multimillionaire in the process. An international leader in the development of artificial intelligence, Chen has resisted the lure of Silicon Valley and remains dedicated to his work at the UA. See more here.
BizTucson, Summer 2013
"Eller Buzz: Hsinchun Chen Caps off Year of Achievement with Regents' Professor Designation" Hsinchun Chen, professor of MIS, has been named a Regents’ Professor by the Arizona Board of Regents Academic Affairs Committee. The title is reserved for faculty members with exceptional achievements that have brought them international distinction. Only three percent of UA faculty may hold this distinction at any given time. Chen is the second Eller faculty member to hold the title; MIS department founder and former head Jay Nunamaker is also a Regents’ Professor.
Eller Buzz, June 5, 2013
"Coplink Training Video." This video is an example demonstration of i2 COPLINK in action.
COPLINK organizes vast quantities of seemingly unrelated data to provide users with access to shared data. Its proven ability to quickly identify investigative leads helps agencies solve crimes faster, thereby helping to keep officers and communities safer.. View on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8dUdHxQOTI (opens in a new window).
IBM
"Predicting the Future: Dr. Hsinchun Chen of the UA’s Artificial Intelligence Lab." On an afternoon in late March, Dr. Chen, 54, is sitting with his wife and son, Hugh, in a large ballroom at the university, smiling and looking dapper in sports jacket and tie. More dapper than one might expect for a MIS professor, but fitting attire for the successful tech entrepreneur that he also happens to be. Dr. Chen has a very good reason to smile — he has just been named 2013 Innovator of Year at the University of Arizona. It is his second such award. The first one came in 2004. In a room full of world-class researchers, educators and entrepreneurs, he is the only one recognized twice. (PDF copy of story from StartUp Tucson available here).
Startup Tucson, March 28, 2013
Dr. Hsinchun Chen awarded the Thomas R. Brown Chair in Management and Technology. The chair is awarded to those whose professional accomplishments mirror those of its namesake, MIT and Harvard alumnus Thomas R. Brown, who co-founded Burr-Brown Research Corporation in Tucson in 1956, and headed it until his retirement in 1998.
The University of Arizona, March 28, 2013
Dr. Hsinchun Chen was elected as China Thousand-Talent Program Scholar 千人计划學者, in affiliation with the Tsinghua University Computer Science Department, October 2012.
Dr. Hsinchun Chen ranked #1 among all MIS faculty in the world according to Google Scholar's "h-index," along with senior faculty member Dr. Andrew B. Whinston at UT-Austin. (PDF copy of MIS Bulletin story available here).
"100 days of science: UA professor, TPD advanced crime analysis." For 100 days, the Arizona Daily Star is recording a "Centennial salute to science" by presenting a milestone in the state's scientific history. This story features Dr. Hsinchun Chen and his work with the Tucson Police Department in developing COPLINK(TM), followed by later work on the Dark Web terrorism research project. COPLINK(TM), is a software suite that helps law enforcement agencies analyze leads, find information, and solve crimes. In September 2011, the KCC/i2 firm which further developed and distributed it was acquired by IBM for $500 million. View the PDF.
"Thinking the Impossible." This video, made to commemorate the Arizona centennial, features Dr. Hsinchun Chen and "COPLINK," the innovative crime-fighting software initially developed in the AI Lab. Other UA scientists and their innovative research are also featured. View on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAYJpwaKK-8 (opens in a new window).
The University of Arizona, March 20, 2012
"Scientists probe terrorist talk on 'Dark Web.'" Deep within the recesses of the Internet, extremists discuss and plot terrorist acts. But new mathematical tools that combine web crawling techniques, sophisticated algorithms and human expertise are gaining access to this “dark side” of the Web and may help predict and prevent violence. Researchers engaged in the “Dark Web Project,” a program started partly in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, have developed methods for tracking the spread of dangerous ideas through certain rogue and jihadi Web forums.
Science News, March 10, 2012
"Probing the dark web." Listen to the interview with Dr. Hsinchun Chen as he discusses how the Artificial Intelligence Lab collects, studies, and analyzes data relating to the "Dark Web." (Listen to the podcast available from +plus magazine. (For full article, click here.)
+plus magazine...living mathematics, February 28, 2012
"Social media has changed the demographic of potential jihadists..." Dr. Chen was a speaker at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where one of the topics was how "Social media drives less protest than previously believed..." The Artificial Intelligence Lab has been involved in studying the international terrorism (Jihadist) phenomena and the "Dark Web" since 2002. The Lab has "generated one of the largest databases in the world about extremist and terrorist-generated Internet site, blogs and forums." (For full article, click here.)
Toronto Star (thestar.com), February 18, 2012
"Hsinchun Chen's Perfect Example of Tech Transfer" "...Now, just one year later, IBM announces that it has agreed to buy i2...Through Dr. Chen's technology expertise, know-how and development he and his team were able to effectively transfer "lab" results into a new product that improved an old process and provide employment for several hundred people."
MIS News, September 6, 2011
"Tucson tech: UA team out to expose 'phishers' "'Phishers' - fraud artists who try to gain personal information like bank-account numbers from unsuspecting Internet users - are constantly trolling for their next catch. A new technology developed at the University of Arizona is attracting some attention as a way to blunt one big phish-hook: fake websites. A team led by current and former members of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the UA's Eller College of Management has developed a prototype system to automatically detect fake sites." (For full article, click here).
Arizona Daily Star, September 6, 2011
"UA researchers track terrorists on the Dark Web." "TUCSON - The war on terror is being fought in cyberspace, from right here in Tucson… Most people engage in social media to communicate, and perhaps meet new people. Terrorists also use social media, but to breed anger and hatred, recruit Jihadists, and plot the unthinkable. Experts say there are thousands of them out there, right now. "You have that many people engage in discussion, they reveal their opinions, their sentiment, their anger, their displease using their own language and in their own context," says Dr. Hsinchun Chen, UA professor and founder of Dark Web…On the day we visited the Dark Web team, the program was tracking 15 million messages, sent by a quarter-million users in five different languages."
Tucson KVOA Channel 4 TV Station, April 29, 2011
"Using artificial intelligence to predict short-term stock market performance." "Those who are savvy in the numbers and data used by traders like to think they’ve got some special talent, but it may not be that way for long - they may be challenged by artificial intelligence...."
AZBiz.com: Inside Tucson Business, July 2, 2010
"Using Artificial Intelligence to Digest News, Trade Stocks." "Watch out, stock pickers. Researchers have been working on an artificial-intelligence computer program designed to mimic the way an analyst uses financial news...." (For full article, click here.)
Wall Street Journal Digital Network: Blogs, June 21, 2010
"AI That Picks Stocks Better Than the Pros." "The ability to predict the stock market is, as any Wall Street quantitative trader (or quant) will tell you, a license to print money. So it should be of no small interest to anyone who likes money that a new system that works in a radically different way than previous automated trading schemes appears to be able to beat Wall Street's best quantitative mutual funds at their own game...."
Technology Review (Published by MIT), June 10, 2010
"Web spy software hacks into secretive online forums." "The dark corners of cyberspace are being illuminated by indexing software that can reach into secretive websites that are normally inaccessible to search engines...." (For full article, click here.)
New Scientist Tech, April 13, 2010
"An Emotional Response: Software That Can Tell When People are Getting Upset." "Some agencies are using tools developed at the University of Arizona’s artificial intelligence laboratory to map intense, violent emotion in online forums frequented by political radicals in order to identify surges of bad feelings and even potential terrorists. Hsinchun Chen, director of the laboratory, says that out of 8m postings, his software might be able to isolate hundreds of postings by just 20 or 30 individuals that warrant a closer look." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
The Economist, Online, Oct. 6, 2009
學者素描》陳炘鈞 MIS界的台灣之光 (For full article, click here.)
跨洋合作》文字探勘計畫 嗅出商業情報 (For full article, click here.)
udn.com, Jul 27th, 2008
"National Dragnet Is a Click Away." With Coplink, police investigators can pinpoint suspects by searching on scraps of information... They can find hidden relationships among suspects and instantly map links among people, places and events. (For full article, click here (pdf).)
Washington Post, Mar 6th, 2008
"Researchers are using Web spiders to track down terrorists online." The first version of our spider could collect only 10 to 15 percent of the content. Now we can get about 85 to 95 percent. (For full article, click here (pdf).)
PC Magazine, Feb 27th, 2008
"American Project Promises to Hunt Terrorist on the Internet." In a first reading, the name may even cause terror: Dark Web Project. (For translated article, click here (pdf - translated).)
O Globo Online, December 12th, 2007
"New Tool Automates Analysis of Jihad Sites." (For full article click here (pdf).)
(Associated Press) Philadelphia Inquirer, November 18th, 2007
(PDF available here.)
World Journal, November 12th, 2007
"Arizona Team’s Tool Could Help Law Enforcement Link Online Postings and Track Down Terrorists." (For full article click here (pdf).)
(Associated Press) International Herald Tribune, November 12th, 2007
"Dark Web Tool Seeks Online Terrorists."
(Associated Press) Business Week, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts."
(Associated Press) Forbes, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts."
(Associated Press) Chicago Tribune, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts."
(Associated Press) Miami Herald, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts."
(Associated Press) Newsweek, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts."
(Associated Press) ABC News, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts." (For full article click here (pdf).)
(Associated Press) Washington Post, November 11th, 2007
"Researchers Say Tool Could Help Trace Online Posts to Terrorists." (For full article click here (pdf).)
(Associated Press) USA Today, November 11th, 2007
"Project Seeks to Track Terror Web Posts." "Researchers at the University of Arizona are developing a tool that uses these clues to automate the analysis of online jihadism. The Dark Web project aims to scour Web sites, forums and chat rooms to find the Internet's most prolific and influential jihadists and learn how they reel in adherents." (For full article click here (pdf).)
Associated Press, November 11th, 2007
"University of Arizona Tool Could Help Fight Terrorism." "You might think all terrorism research is done by the big guys in Washington D.C., but researchers at the University of Arizona in Tucson have their eyes on the Dark Web. Dr. Hsinchun Chen is the director of The Artificial Intelligence Lab at U of A, says members of radical terrorist groups are using the web as a mechanism to recruit people, train them and possibly even to conduct actual terrorist operations."
ABC:15.com, KNXV-TV, November 5th, 2007
Jane Linder Recognized Coplink in her Book "Spiral Up". "Maybe the reason so many well-intentioned management initiatives fall short is because typical "best practice" methods only help managers avoid failure, rather than produce genuinely spectacular results. Jane Linder proposes a new way of managing. Jane Linder dedicated a chapter to the success of Coplink in her new book Spiral Up". (For full the chapter click here (pdf).)
Spiral Up, October 31st, 2007
Germany in the Crosshairs of Terrorism - Tracking Down Extremists. "Osama Bin Laden is back. He is calling on insurgents in Iraq to concentrate their efforts against America. That call runs, as usual, on Al Jazeera, and soon on web sites on the Internet - worldwide - that is clear. A unique project in America tracks down those secret communications." In a documentary about German residents turned Islamists turned extremists, the Dark Web project was featured in developing tools against information overload.
Second German Television (ZDF), October 23nd, 2007
Dark Web Project Takes on Cyber-Terrorism, "In recent years, the anonymous nature of the Web has turned it into a boomtown for all sorts of radicalized hate." (Read full article as PDF )
Fox News, October 12th, 2007
UA Effort Sifting Web for Terror-Threat Data, "Terrorists use the Web as a virtual university of how-to videos for making bombs, enticing recruits and plotting attacks - but UA researchers are zeroing in on them." (PDF of Arizona Daily Star story available here.)
Arizona Daily Star, September 24th, 2007
UA Researchers Targeting Terrorists Over the Web, "Web researchers at the University of Arizona are busy these days tracking down potential terrorist-led Web Sites and following their every move." (For full article click here (pdf).)
Associated Press, September 24th, 2007
Mathematicians Work to Help Track Terrorist Activity, "Researchers in math, computer science and criminology met this week to discuss the ways math could be used to track terrorist activity." (To listen to the audio click here (html).)
National Public Radio, September 14th, 2007
Scientists Use the "Dark Web" to Snag Extremists and Terrorists Online. "Terrorists and extremists have set up shop on the Internet, using it to recruit new members, spread propaganda and plan attacks across the world. The size and scope of these dark corners of the Web are vast and disturbing. But in a non-descript building in Tucson, a team of computational scientists are using the cutting-edge technology and novel new approaches to track their moves online, providing an invaluable tool in the global war on terror." (For full article click here (html).)
National Science Foundation, September 10th, 2007
The Dark Web, "The internet's ability to leap borders, thwart censorship and preserve anonymity is making it a crucial tool in recruiting jihadists."
The Bulletin Australia, August 2007
Inside the Dark Web of Terrorism, "Terrorist groups can't hide on the Web. A team of university researchers have quietly collected the largest digital library of information on terrorist groups. A look inside the part of the Web most of us never see." (read full article.)
Digital Journal, July 16th, 2007
How Terrorists Use the Internet, "The internet is very useful for terrorists. Hsinchun Chen says he can get inside the websites of terrorists and follow conversations. He describes recruitment methods, and the psychology employed. He says the internet has given terrorists a global reach and influence."
The Science Show, March 31st 2007
Dark Side of the Web, "It seems like the internet can do almost anything. You can read the news, go shopping, help the kids with homework- or recruit terrorists. In a KGUN 9 On Your Side investigation, Craig Smith shows us a local project that's mapping the dark side of the web."
KGUN 9 News, Febuary 6th 2007
Digital Fingerprints, "Hsinchun Chen, a researcher in information systems at the University of Arizona in Tucson, realized that such analysis could be applied to a quite different problem. "It could be used to track anyone who is trying to hide their identity on the Web," Chen says. "They'll leave a trace."
Science News, January 13th 2007
Mining The Dark Web, "MIS department develops terrorism informatics." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
Eller Progress, Fall 2006
Global Jihad Online, "Jihadi terrorist and their followers have taken to the internet like freshmen to Facebook. But the authorities haven't noticed that the front line is now online." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
WIRED Magazine, December 2006
U of A Honing Online Intelligence, "Hsinchun Chen goes where terrorists gather. He monitors what they say and, particularly, how they say it. He tracks who they are talking to, and whether they are spreading propaganda or providing training. "They're hiding," Chen said. "You need to dig them out." (For full article click here (html).)
East Valley Tribune, September 17th, 2006
UA Scientists Probe 'Dark Web' to Uncover Potential Terrorist Threats, "For the past four years, scientists at the University of Arizona have been aiding U.S. government intelligence agencies in their efforts to make sense of the terrorist-related information that is floating around on the Web. As part of the Dark Web project, University of Arizona Eller College of Management professor Dr. Hsinchun Chen and his colleagues have worked out formulas and algorithms for measuring social interactions of terrorists online, and the degree of hatred and violence that is expressed in their communications. Dark Web is now the largest computer database on terrorist Web sites and chat forums." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
KVOA News 4 Tucson, September 12th 2006
Trolling for terrorists, "If the face of terrorism has changed dramatically in the past five years, so too has the profile of those who combat it. Working from a windowless room accessed after passing through a labyrinth of security systems at the University of Arizona, Hsinchun Chen typifies the new breed." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
Toronto Star, September 8th 2006
ScienCentral Video News features the Dark Web Project, "The Internet's popularity for connecting people has a dark side. It's also become a major planning tool for terrorists. As this ScienCentral News video explains, one computer scientist is using artificial intelligence to "connect the dots" between terrorist groups." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
ScienCentral, August 8th 2006
UA's 'Dark Web' Team Combing Internet to Track Terrorism, "University of Arizona computer scientists say they have quietly assembled the world's largest digital library of intelligence on extremist and terrorist organizations culled from the Web." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
The Arizona Republic, July 28th 2006, pg A1 & A13
Dark Web Project featured in Discover Magazine cover article "The Future of Terrorism", "At the end of a long hallway in a gray and cavernous block at the University of Arizona in Tucson sits a closet-size windowless room secured by complex access codes and sealed with bulletproof glass. The room is chilled to a steady 60 degrees and filled with rack-mounted monitors, blinking red lights, a squat supercomputer, and three "spidering machines" that crawl through the Internet, quietly spooling data from the shadowy digital realm inhabited by terrorists, hackers, and cybercriminals. Welcome to the Dark Web. These machines store Web data from roughly 1,500 terrorists and extremists organizations, including 500 groups with roots in the Middle East, explain University of Arizona computer scientist Hsinchun Chen, who designed this digital sleuthing tool. Accessible only to those who pass fingerprinting and extensive background checks, the Dark Web Project constitutes the largest collection of online terrorist data on the planet and maybe the key to cracking future plots. It is, literally and metaphorically, a portal to the underworld."
Discover Magazine, July 2006, pg 32-42, 76
Extremist Social Movement Groups And Their Online Digital Libraries. (For full article, click here.)
Information Outlook, June 2006, pg 57-65
L.A. to deploy crime-analysis software. "Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials are planning to use sophisticated commercial crime-analysis software to help them piece together intelligence across millions of records and multiple databases. The department will deploy Coplink technology, developed by Knowledge Computing, based in Tucson, Ariz., through several phases. It will initially integrate more than 50 million records across four systems." (PDF of Federal Computer Week story available here.)
FCW.com, April 28th 2006
Dr. Chen was ranked #1 in publication productivity in Digital Library in an Information Processing & Management study (2005) (For full article, click here.)
Dr. Chen was ranked #8 in publication productivity in MIS in Communications of the Association for Information Systems study (2005) (For full article, click here.)
The Terrorism Knowledge Discovery Project has its origins in the technology behind COPLINK, a collaboration-based crime-fighting tool invented in the Artificial Intelligence Lab. In expanding to counterterrorism, AI Lab researchers are constructing a Terrorist Network Portal to visually map terrorist networks, and a multi-lingual Dark Web portal to create access to the "Dark Web" - the alternate side of the Web used by terrorists to spread their ideas.
Eller Progress, Fall 2004
2 UA professors get cash awards, "Management Information Systems Professor Hsinchun Chen was honored by the UA with the inaugural Technology Innovation Awards at a ceremony at the UA Student Union Memorial Center. The awards, which come with a $10,000 cash prize, recognize UA faculty members who have excelled in moving technology out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. They are to be given annually." (For full article, click here (pdf).)
Arizona Daily Star, September 16, 2004
Artificial Intelligence lab works to hunt terrorists, cure cancer (For full article, click here (pdf).)
Arizona Daily Wildcat, September 15, 2004, October, 2003
Longitudinal Patent Analysis for Nanoscale Science and Engineering: Country, Institution and Technology Field, " Nanoscale science and engineering (NSE) and related areas have seen rapid growth in recent years. We experimented with several analysis and visualization techniques on NSE-related United States patent documents to support various knowledge tasks. This paper presents results on the basic analysis of nanotechnology patents between 1976 and 2002, content map analysis and citation network analysis."
National Science Council (NSC, Taiwan), October, 2003
LAPD Hopes to Add High-Tech Partner to Force, "COPLINK is part of a new science of data-mining algorithms that allows a computer to make high-speed connections that would take a human weeks. More than 100 agencies nationwide use COPLINK. The latest to sign up is the San Diego Police Department, joining Boston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, all the police agencies in Alaska, and the first agency, the Tucson Police Department... The systems, [LAPD Assistant Chief] Gascon said, provide a kind of instant institutional memory, like a veteran detective who never forgets. Gascon said high-tech law enforcement tools such as COPLINK are the wave of the future...COPLINK was born in a university lecture room, the fortuitous result of a police office who went back to college..." (For full article, see HTML version here.)
Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2004
"Cops Could Hit the Links Soon: New Search Engine Would Catalog, Interpret Data for Investigations." "Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief George Gascon is seeking $750,000 in grants and donations to purchase a new computer application that consolidates nationwide crime data and arrest reports, which would aid local detectives in solving criminal investigations. Coplink searches through millions of pieces of data in various computer arrest reports, crime records, field interviews and traffic citation reports, and delivers a list of leads to detectives instantaneously.... Coplink, developed at an artificial intelligence lab at the University of Arizona in 1996 and procured through a $1.2 million grant through the U.S. Department of Justice in 1998 is being implemented in cities, counties and federal government agencies nationwide.
Los Angeles Daily News, December 6, 2003.
"Software Joins Cops on the Beat. "COPLINK program links databases, speeds police investigations in the state of Alaska.
Anchorage Daily News, November 23, 2003.
Webber Seavey Award for Quality in Law Enforcement,Tucson Police Department's COPLINK project (in collaboration with the University of Arizona Artificial Intelligence Lab and funded by NSF and NIJ) was named a finalist of the prestigious Webber Seavey Award for Quality in Law Enforcement (among a field of 144 nominations).The award was sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and Motorola. The award was announced on October 23, 2003 during the annual IACP meeting in Philadelphia. (PDF of Motorola press release available here.)
Motorola.com, December 3, 2003
"Alaska adopts criminal data mining." A consortium of Alaskan law enforcement agencies today announced a new information sharing initiative that uses the commercially-available Coplink system to analyze disparate pieces of data for investigative leads. Seven agencies, including the Alaska Department of Safety and the Juneau and Anchorage police departments, participate in the Alaska Law Enforcement Information Sharing System (ALEISS). The organization will get federal funding for the first phase of the Coplink initiative."
Federal Computer Week, October 21, 2003
Northeast Kansas Law Enforcement to Use Program to Sift Through Records, COPLINK is a database that stores and searches through police records ranging from traffic stops to murders, quickly generating a list of leads for police officers.
Dodge City Daily Globe, August 19, 2003
Software Helps Police Draw Crime Links, Coplink allows detectives to pose complex search challenges to help law enforcement find even the most subtle connections between people and events. (PDF)
The Boston Globe, July 17, 2003
‘Google’ for Cops, software helps police search for cyber clues to bust criminals. (PDF version here.)
ABC News, April 15, 2003
Crime: A Google for Cops, a computerized way for police to coordinate crime databases. (PDF available here.)
Newsweek Magazine, March 3, 2003
In 2002, the COPLINK project received "The PTI Technology Solutions Award" in the Public Safety category for mid-size cities. The Technology Solutions Award is a national program recognizing local governments that use technology to improve service to the community, decrease costs, or increase revenues. Entries were judged in several categories including Public Safety, Environment, Energy, Telecommunications and Information Technology, and Transportation. PTI, formerly Public Technology Inc., is now known as Public Technology Institute.
Public Technology Institute, 2002
"Data Miners." Americans got a glimpse of how such a system might work this fall during the Washington-sniper investigation. Two weeks into the shootings, Knowledge Computing, an Arizona company whose COPLINK system has integrated police databases. (For full article, see here.)
Time Magazine Global Business Supplement, December 23, 2002
"A.I. Cop on the Beat." Coplink, an artificial-intelligence–driven search engine for crime characteristics, scans multiple databases for connections among names, vehicles, physical descriptions, and other aspects of a crime or criminal. (For full article, see here.)
PC Magazine, December 17, 2002
"A Sherlock Holmes for the Internet Age." Content in Chinese. (For full article, see here.)
Life Week Magazine, November 18, 2002
"A Missing Link Most Wanted" Linking facts in the sniper case will be a big test of what Coplink can do. Just for this project, all information from Maryland, the District and Virginia and from federal databases such as the FBI's Rapidstart is being collected in a single, searchable data file. (For full article, see here.)
The Washington Post, November 7, 2002
"An Electronic Cop That Plays Hunches" It is an Internet-based system called Coplink, developed at an artificial intelligence laboratory, that allows police departments to establish links quickly among their own files and to those of other departments. (PDF version here)
The New York Times, November 2, 2002
"Tucson Cops, local software to help in D.C. sniper probe" A computer database system that Tucson police employ in crime investigations will be used in the hunt for the Washington, D.C.-area sniper or snipers. (For full article, see here.)
Tucson Citizen, October 23, 2002
"Sniper probe to get help from Tucson" A program developed by the University of Arizona will be used to try to capture the Washington, D.C., area sniper. (PDF)
Arizona Daily Star, October 23, 2002
"Regional Information Sharing Project for Huntsville, Texas Law Enforcement Agencies" The city of Huntsville, TX recently granted a contract to implement COPLINK, a law enforcement records-sharing tool, in an initiative to improve Community Oriented Policing. (PDF available here.)
The Innovation Groups
"Making a Digital Government" Lawrence Brandt's latest job is to get federal agencies to share technology and information. (For full article, see here.)
Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2002
"KMWorld" Law enforcement is an information-intensive process, beginning with data collection at crime scenes and extending through records management and analysis of data to support crime-solving. (For full article, see here.)
KMWorld, Vol 11, Issue 3, March 2002
"Super Detective" When University of Arizona professor Hsinchun Chen combined police databases for a consortium of city police agencies, a super-detective was born. (For full article, see here.)
DG Online, December 2001
Key Professor: E-commerce expert Hsinchun Chen is a pioneer in the knowledge management and IT areas.
Business 2.0, November 2001
National Conference on Digital Government Research Convenes in Los Angeles.
Digital Government 2001 Conference
Coplink Shifts and Shares Information - Fast.
POLICE, July 2001
Software For Data Searchers. (For full article, see here.)
Law Enforcement Technology, April 2001
Article related to Self Organising Maps (SOM) and Spiders - Article in Spanish
Revista Digital de InfoVis.net, April 2001
Information Sharing System "Coplink" (For full article, see here.)
AI Lab's Chinese semantic retrieval system is the engine behind UDN's (United Daily News) acclaimed intelligent news search service.
United Daily News (Taiwan), February 2, 2001
"Use of COPLINK spreads, fuels company's growth."
Tucson Citizen, January 17, 2001
"Technology developed in Tucson is helping police catch criminals faster. COPLINK products let police agencies rapidly share crime information across jurisdictional lines and analyze the data...". (PDF copy available here.)
Arizona Daily Star, January 7, 2001, Business Section, front page
Changing the Rules of the Game. How Coplink is Helping Police Departments Match Evidence Across Boundaries of Time and Space.
FCW.com, April 03, 2000
Map of the Month is based on the ET-Map created by a team led by Dr. Hsinchun Chen. National Science Foundation. (For full articles, see here.)
Mappa Mundi Magazine, February 2000
A Cybermap Atlas: Envisioning the Internet.
TeleGeography, Inc.
Cartes interactives ou dynamiques (Dinamic and Interactive Maps) (Article in French.)
Science & Vie
"The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the Management Information Systems Department at the University of Arizona at Tucson drew a map of more than 100,000 entertainment Web sites pulled from Yahoo's database using an automatic-indexing system." (For full article, see [NYT].)
The New York Times September 30, 1999, Technology Circuits Section, front page
Beyond Geography: Mapping Unknowns of Cyberspace. Mapmakers Stretch the Definition of Cartography to Help Visualize the Web. (For full article, see HTML version here.)
New York Times, Business Day - Technology, September 30, 1999
It's called a "Web-based intuitive integrated interface." But in layman's terms it's called "Coplink." What if will do is help put an end to a serious problem faced by law enforcement every day... the inability to exchange information about criminal cases across jurisdictions. (PDF of TechBeat issue available here.)
"Expert Prediction, Symbolic Learning and Neural Networks: An Experiment in Greyhound Racing."
Backpropagator's Review, April 17, 1998
"COPLINK intranet [designed by the AI Lab] will bring Arizona crime fighters to the data they need. In fact, there's no reason it couldn't connect all the police departments nationwide."
Government Computer News, January, 1998
"Towards Concept Search...Concept spaces and vocabulary switching [developed by Dr. Hsinchun Chen] will need to be part of the fundamental infrastructure if digital libraries are to support correlations between information sources at all these levels."
"Bring Search to the Net"
Science, 17 January, 1997 Cover Article
"Now, with little fanfare and no sonic boom, Schatz and Hsinchun Chen of the University of Arizona have opened what they claim is the `first crack in the semantic barrier.' What they've done is lay the groundwork for a system that would provide a user with key words needed to search for information across fields."
"Computation Cracks `Semantic Barriers' Between Databases"
Science, 7 June 1996
"A year ago, no one would have thought of information sciences as posing a supercomputer problem, and here it is, overnight, blossoming into one of the largest users of supercomputer time at NCSA. And, since the results of the computation will be useful to many of the faculty and students accessing the Illinois Digital Library testbed, the results of this work have wider applicability than any previous supercomputing application."
Larry Smarr, Director
NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications)