Those of you who know me personally will know that I have a passion for social network analysis (SNA), it's a topic I research both in my spare time and professionally, as head of Gibraltar Labs.
Since 1925 SNA has been used to help scientist better understand networks of all types: from anthropological tribal groups, to industrial, manufacturing teams. From the mid "Noughties" scientists have been using it to examine human interaction and marketing opportunities presented by online networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
In that time SNA has been a passive endeavour, one where the scientist observers and analyses the observations. Recently, I've been looking at the possibilities of taking a more aggressive stance, using SNA to disrupt networks of various types.
I have no connections to either the security or law enforcement services, but in this presentation we'll take a theoretical look at how these agencies might use SNA techniques to disrupt terrorist and criminal networks. Who knows, we might even examine the question of whether or not it would be possible to use the same techniques to disrupt competitors in a commercial environment, and if it were, would it be ethical? :-)