Search specialist stakes its claim on names | CNET News.com

Gee--should we all be re-assured that the security world is just now using "See also" references and authority control as an important tool in fighting terrorism? Confused by what I mean?

Go to your library catalog and type in the author name Mark Twain or Twain, Mark (whichever tickles your fancy).
The subject for this person is
Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 and you may also see a "note" or "see also"

In my catalog you'll see a button that says note and the note tells me:

For works of this author written under other names, search also under
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne, 1835-1910,
Snodgrass, Quintus Curtius, 1835-1910
Louis de Conte, 1835-1910

Libraries have been using this technique since...well since the old fashion card catalogs (the one's with cards and drawers). Maybe we should start marketing our "trade secrets" to a wider market?

Search specialist stakes its claim on names | CNET News.com: "Why would a company or government agency need to adopt specialized search technology just for finding references to a person's name?

Among other reasons: Because Raouf Gadi, Elraouf Djeddi and Abdulrauf Aljadai might be the same person--and a regular search engine wouldn't reflect that.

Language Analysis Systems, or LAS, of Herndon, Va., has devised a series of tools for solving one of the thornier, but often overlooked, problems in search: finding data on a particular individual in a multicultural, error-prone world. The company's software takes into account alternative spellings, cultural nuances and other linguistic issues as part of an attempt to return the most relevant information for a search query, rather than a laundry list of close matches.
Jack Hermansen
Jack Hermansen

The company's tools are mostly sold to law enforcement, intelligence and border agencies, but financial institutions and other businesses--hoping to ferret out fraud or merely improve their customer databases--have begun to adopt the technology too, said Jack Hermansen, chief executive and co-founder of LAS.

Since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, security and intelligence agencies have been hunting vigorously for technology that will help them gather information on potential terrorists. Pixlogic, for instance, has developed software meant to spot anomalies or suspicious individuals in videotape from security cameras. Language Weaver, meanwhile, has come up with an Arabic-English real-time translation tool.

"The penalties for missing a name are enormous," Hermansen said. "Someone could die.""