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Here are a few tips and tricks to help you use DIG quickly and more efficiently.
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DIG treats all unstructured text similarly, so it doesn't matter whether the text is in a Word document,
Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, or on a website! A single entry under Text/Web Documents can be configured to search multiple websites and local documents simultaneously. |
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As you select items to search, you may notice some items in the data sources tree turn red. The red color is an indication that you will not get records back from that source
based on the search criterion. For instance, a search for only "First Name" will not get records back from a data source that only contains information on companies. |
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The DIG text search engine supports advanced functions like stemming, phonic, fuzzy, and synonym searches. |
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What's New?
Digital Information Gateway (DIG) was recently selected as the preferred technology in a pilot program to
share information in real-time between six HIDTA locations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC,
Florida, and Puerto Rico.
Last month we described the initial deployment of DIG at the Philadelphia/Camden HIDTA (P/C HIDTA).
Since then, the P/C HIDTA has expanded its DIG deployment to include more than 15 agencies. In cooperation
with the Baltimore/Washington HIDTA (B/W HIDTA), the P/C HIDTA has initiated a pilot program to use DIG as
the information sharing platform for East Coast HIDTAs.
DIG will allow real-time access to databases at all involved agencies. In Phase I of this pilot,
investigators at participating agencies will access data combined from all the participating agencies.
Access to data is guarded through permissions given by the DIG administrator and by the administrators
of individual databases. This type of information sharing will enable investigators to get the "Big Picture"
of criminal activity across multiple agencies.
Often, criminals intentionally cross state and local jurisdictions because they believe that criminal
data are not dynamically shared between agencies. Most organized criminals do not commit crimes in the
jurisdictions where they live. Additionally, related criminal acts are typically committed across
jurisdictions as well. For instance, a drug dealer who lives in Baltimore may purchase drugs in New Jersey
and sell them in Philadelphia.
If a suspect is arrested in Philadelphia for selling drugs, investigators typically don't check all
other affiliated agencies for related records because the current process is labor intensive and slow,
taking hours or even days to complete. Thus, information in other jurisdictions about a suspect's illicit
drug activities, violent crimes, theft, etc. may go unnoticed. Having access to such data assists
investigators in building cases and in gaining convictions. The DIG pilot project will provide
unprecedented data sharing to law enforcement agencies.
In this pilot, DIG will allow investigators to quickly search large volumes of data, across multiple
agencies, by simply logging into their agency's DIG server. DIG will be available to investigators
from both desktop and in-vehicle computer systems. As evidenced in Philadelphia, searches that once
involved multiple people, at multiple agencies, which were often conducted via telephone conversations,
are now performed in seconds by way of a simple query interface.
Due in large part to the successful operational deployment at P/C HIDTA, DIG and VisuaLinks have been
added to the list of available technologies under the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC) program.
See http://www.epgctac.com for more details on this program.
The DIG information tree (sample shown here) is dynamically created for each user at logon based on their
individual access to agency data sources. This preserves security while making it very efficient to get needed information.
To search an information source, users first check the boxes for data sources they want to search,
and then build their search in the DIG search builder pictured below.
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