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Data are Data are Data
This saying was made popular in the book Data Mining Solutions* and can also be used to describe many current events. There has been a lot of eyebrow-raising news over the past several months in regards to the types of data mining capabilities being deployed throughout the government. Recently, the National Security Agency (NSA) was exposed for collecting over 2 trillion call data records (CDRs) on US citizens, while the Treasury Department was found tapping into the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) database, which processes over 12 million transactions each day.
There are lots of different approaches and techniques for performing data analysis on large volumes of information. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) provided a report in 2004 detailing approximately 200 government-based data mining projects. In 2005, they issued a follow-up report discussing privacy protections. The reports showed that there are many controls in place to ensure the systems are documented, audited, and accountable for the types of analytics they are delivering.
Unfortunately, there have also been a considerable number of cases where sensitive, personal data has been stolen from banks, governments, and universities. Many times, these incidents are the result of carelessness; laptops are stolen from home break-ins, data sources are not removed from public servers, or simply the wrong files were sent out in an email. These include, among many others:
- Department of Veterans Affairs (26.5 million records)
- American International Group (930,000 records)
- Ohio University (367,000 records)
- Hotels.com (243,000 records)
- University of California, Berkley (98,000 records)
- National Guard and Reserve (28,000 records)
- US Agriculture Department (26,000 records)
- District of Columbia Government (13,000 records)
- US Federal Trade Commission (110 records)
- Equifax (2500 records)
Continued on VAI News page
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Summer is here, and so are the highly anticipated VisuaLinks 4.1 and DIG 4.0 releases!
Despite the rising temperatures and occasional thunderstorms, we here at VAI have been working
hard to fulfill your data analysis and pattern detection needs with the release of our new
software solutions. So take a break from the summer heat and check out all the cool, new features VAI has to offer.
We are also pleased to announce our new VAI web site has finally hit cyberspace.
Our web site has a new, sleek design that makes it easier to navigate.
Our Support Site has also changed dramatically; sign up today to check out our product tutorials,
white papers, link charts and more!
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VAI has adopted a higher standard of quality to provide our customers with cutting-edge pattern discovery and graphical
analysis technology. We are constantly improving our products by offering new features and enhancements while refining our
existing software.
We are pleased to announce that VisuaLinks 4.1, the latest addition to the VAI family of software solutions, is now
available for download through the VAI Support Site.
Check out our VisuaLinks News page
to find out more about all the amazing, new features. |
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| DIG 4.0 includes all the same, great features of DIG with extra capabilities that improve your productivity and efficiency without
significantly increasing your user's ramp-up time. However, with that in mind, the successful release of DIG has brought many changes for
DIG administrators currently using the DIG Enterprise Manager. The DIG Enterprise Manager consists of some additional
features including adding hyperlinks to files or images that were converted to a binary string, and a new Security Manager
area that controls access to data sources through user accounts, groups, and roles. Additionally, we have
integrated Microsoft's Active DirectoryTM with DIG.
Visit the DIG News section to learn more about this new feature.
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VAI is always looking to broaden our horizons across various industries and countries.
With the VAI Partner Program, you can become a registered reseller of all of our VAI technologies.
For information about how to become a VAI Partner, see the
Partner Program section on our web site.
Remember to check out our VAI News
section to see just how much we have grown.
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"We chose VisuaLinks because it is a very powerful analytical tool and is able to support large scale deployments."
-- Official, Turkish Law Enforcement Agency
Do you have any comments, feedback, or insight you'd like to share with other users? This is the place to do it!
Drop us an e-mail (at newsletter@visualanalytics.com) and see your comments published here in our next issue.
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