KARNAC is an acronym for Knowledge Aided Retrieval in Activity Context; it is a system being developed in the United States for use in profiling different categories of terrorist attacks to determine the components of possible future terrorist incidents.
Information for KARNAC is generally to be derived from structured, semi-structured and unstructured databases. This would include information derived from e.g. gun registrations, driver's licences, residential and criminal records, as well as the Internet, newspapers and county records.
For example the system might raise an alert if someone attempted to buy components for bomb making, hired a car and rented a hotel room near the White House. The southern side of the White House The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. ...
The system can have profound implications for civil liberties, however events such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack have indicated the need for a proactive mechanism for anticipating terrorist atrocities. But tests of current systems show that they generate an extraordinary number of false-positive events. Damage to the Murrah building before cleanup began. ... The World Trade Center on fire The September 11, 2001 attacks were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. ... A false positive, also called false alarm, exists when a test reports, incorrectly, that it has found a signal where none exists in reality. ...
Trivia
The acronym KARNAC is probably a reference to a popular recurring character on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson; "Carnac the Magnificent" who would claim to use powers of prognostication.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was the full name of NBCs The Tonight Show during the years that Johnny Carson hosted. ...
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KARNAC will raise concerns about privacy of information, but Bagdonis counters that the prospect of terrorist attacks on the scale of the World Trade Center disaster is more terrifying than losing one's privacy.
But the data KARNAC is drawing attention to in tests is the same information that FBI agents have identified as important after an event, he says.
Nonetheless, in gaining acceptance, KARNAC may have an even greater obstacle the realisation since the 11 September that even very smart technology can be rendered impotent by terrorists intent on carrying out previously unimaginable atrocities.
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