ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Computer Modelingclaimed protection of classified information under theClassified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), and thecourt granted the government’s motion.❚ FURTHER READING:PERIODICALS:Hentoff, Nat. “The FBI’s Magic Lantern.” Village Voice. 47,no. 22 (June 4, 2002): p. 35.Huleatt, Richard S. “EPIC May Never Learn Details ofGovernment Keystroke Monitor.” Information IntelligenceOnline Newsletter 22, no. 10 (October 2001): 5–6.ELECTRONIC:FBI Confirms “Magic Lantern” Exists. MSNBC. (January 27, 2003).SEE ALSOClassified InformationComputer Hardware Security❚ JUDSON KNIGHTComputer ModelingModeling, in the technical use of the term, refers to thetranslation of objects or phenomena from the real worldinto mathematical equations. Computer modeling is therepresentation of three-dimensional objects on a computer,using some form of software designed for thepurpose. Among the uses of computer modeling are wargames and disaster simulations, situations in which computersoffer a safe, relatively inexpensive means of creatingor re-creating events without the attendant loss of lifeor property.Mathematics, Computers, andModeling SoftwareMathematical modeling dates to advances in geometryand other disciplines during the late eighteenth century.Among these was the descriptive geometry of Frenchmathematician Gaspard Monge, whose technique was sovaluable to Napoleon’s artillery that it remained a classifieddefense secret for many years. Nearly one and a halfcenturies later, at the end of World War II, mathematiciansand scientists working for the United States war effortdeveloped a machine for readily translating mathematicalmodels into forms easily grasped by non-mathematicians.That machine was the computer, and during the lasttwo decades of the twentieth century, varieties of threedimensionalmodeling software proliferated. These includedany number of computer animation and gamingEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Securitypackages, as well as varieties of computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems. CADallowed engineers and architects, for instance, to createelaborate models that allowed them to “see into” unbuiltstructures, and to test the vulnerabilities of those structureswithout risking lives or dollars.One notable variety of three-dimensional software isvirtual reality modeling language, abbreviated VRML andpronounced “ver-mal.” Necessary for representing threedimensionalobjects on the World Wide Web (that portionof the Internet to which general users are most accustomed),VRML creates a virtual world, or hyperspace, thatcan be viewed through the two-dimensional computerscreen. By pressing designated keys, the user is able tomove not only up, down, right, and left, but forward andbackward, within this virtual world.Disasters, Wars, andOther SimulationsAfter the space shuttle Columbia crashed on February 1,2003, analysts at the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA) used modeling software appliedby the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) forstudying crashes. In applications such as those for theNASA and NTSB studies, the purpose is to understand notonly what happened, but how and why it happened, andwhat caused it.The more data available on a disaster, the better themodel, and this in turn gives investigators more accuratetools for analysis. In the end, however, there is no substitutefor human reasoning. For example, an NTSB simulationof the Swissair Flight 111 crash in September 1998tracked the course of a fire from the cockpit that eventuallybrought down the plane, but it did not explain what causedthe fire.Still, the simulation is invaluable inasmuch as it provideshuman minds with an extraordinarily accurate andvivid source of information as to the exact sequence ofevents that took place during a disaster. NASA analystsused computer modeling to study the first great shuttledisaster, that of Challenger in 1986, but the technology of2003 was vastly superior. Not only was a $2,000 computercapable of running simulations that required a $75,000machine 17 years earlier, but advances in graphics—spurred, ironically, by the seemingly frivolous demands ofgaming and the movies—had resulted in a vastly moreaccurate picture of what happened.War games and terror simulations. The connection betweenentertainment and simulation in general, as well as computermodeling technology in particular, has not been loston the U.S. security and defense leadership. In the immediateaftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack,federal officials brought together a team that includedDavid Fincher, director of Seven and Fight Club; Steven E.259