Security and technology have become joined together since the time of the first published accounts of the use of fingerprints as a method of identifying people back in the 1800’s. Advances in the technology driving personal and enterprise-level security systems are making the world safer, but these technologies are constantly changing, and the rate of change is in a state of perpetual acceleration. Presently, change occurs at a pace that is difficult for the average person to follow.
This acceleration in the rate of change in security related technologies places a burden on those whose job it is to keep up with all of it. Helping security managers stay current with this pace of change is a method that utilizes still more technology.
This method confers up the user more control over their existing data stream that would otherwise overwhelm them. The name given to the new brand of tools used in this emerging orthodoxy is “productivity enhancers”, and the science behind the idea of using them is known as “structural adaptivity”.
Lessons Learned From 9/11
Terrorist attacks on New York city and the Pentagon has made a significant impact on the science of forensics. The urgency of dealing with the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks is said to have advanced forensic technology by decades in just a few short years.
Methodologies useful in quickly identifying victims when their DNA has been degraded by burning chemicals and elevated temperatures have been developed by science as a direct result of the 9-11 attacks. Prior to that, there was no known way to establish the identity of more than a few dozen victims related to one incident. Where there are no protocols, researchers are forced to learn as they go along.
Within days of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the National Institutes of Justice created a panel and tasked them to come up with a response to the problem of how to possibly identify the remains of so many missing and dead persons. From those meetings the Kinship and Data Analysis Panel (KADAP) was formed.
Acting on a directive from the NYC chief medical examiner’s office the KADAP became the organization responsible for analyzing reference DNA samples to be matched against DNA recovered from the Pentagon and World Trade Center sites. Articles published in the journal Science, have reported that DNA-based efforts have confirmed the identification of 25% of all the people who were reported missing in the New York City attack.
Similar published works have included scientific recommendations on how to improve DNA identification in the event of future disasters involving mass casualties. This rapid development in the improvement in the ways that researchers can extract more data from smaller sample sizes, and quickly match them with reference samples for identification is one more good example of structural adaptivity being carried out within the field of security technology.
Author’s bio – Anthony Allen with all his dexterity in writing articles related to security is an author for the company Homesecurity.org.
