Stopping Traffic: Anti Drug Network (ADNET)

July 2001

A middle-aged man in a light blue Mustang is about to enter the United States from Mexico at one of the numerous Customs checkpoints along the Southwest border. He's confident no one will suspect he's transporting more than 10 pounds of heroin in secret compartments within his vehicle; he's done it before and he plans to do it again—and again.

But, a Customs system operator at a site near El Paso, Texas, uses the Anti-Drug Network (ADNET) system to access data on the driver and his car via his license plate. It's just routine and takes a few moments.

The agent quickly learns—through a system that accesses a large data warehouse of information on crossings, seizures, and motor vehicles—that the driver makes this trip on a regular basis, at a regular time, but this trip is different. She decides it's worth her time and trouble to continue the inspection. Ten minutes later, she finds more than a dozen small packages of white powder the drugs are seized and the driver is arrested.

Situations like this occur almost daily across the many ports of entry along the Mexican/U.S. border and other entry points into the United States. Sophisticated data-sharing systems developed by the ADNET community (i.e., Department of Defense, U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Justice, Department of State, Department of Treasury, Federal Communications Commission, and the intelligence community) give U.S. drug and law enforcement officials an arsenal of information needed to stem the flow of illegal narcotics and other dangerous substances into our country.

A National Priority

" ...MITRE computer scientists are providing high-level technical support in the exciting areas of data mining and large-scale database management."

The drug epidemic reached the national spotlight during the Reagan administration in the early and mid-1980s. Then-President Ronald Reagan declared a "War on Drugs"—and put national resources behind it—in an effort to deter drug traffic into this country. While officials can be proud of interdiction efforts, the situation remains pandemic. In fact, Former President Bill Clinton in an address to the United Nations General Assembly called for international cooperation to address the threat posed by money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and terrorism, noting that the forces of international crime "jeopardize the global trend toward peace and freedom, undermine fragile democracies, sap the strength from developing countries, [and] threaten our efforts to build a safer, more prosperous world."

MITRE has aided the U.S. War on Drugs effort and ADNET for more than a decade. During that time, the company has supported the multi-billion dollar initiative by helping its sponsor, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), develop communications and information networks and other capabilities that allow users to share sensitive data regarding drug trafficking.

Data Mining Technologies at Work

The ADNET community uses high performance workstations connected to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) by routers or by Secure Data Devices. There are approximately 140 sites and 350 workstations in the ADNET community. ADNET uses standard protocols (HTTP, SMTP, POP, etc.) to ensure interoperability across communities. More than 200,000 web page hits per month occur among the 65 ADNETLINK servers.

Over the years, MITRE has increased its involvement in the program—working in the areas of system architecture, long-range planning, technology insertion, advanced prototype development, and proof-of-concept demonstration. Explains MITRE's program manager, "As the program has grown in scope and complexity, our role and participation have changed and grown, too. For example, several years ago, the company helped ADNET move from Unix-based workstations to a Windows NT platform. ADNET was an early adopter of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and firewall technology—and MITRE assisted with the arduous product evaluations and technology studies related to these implementations. Also, MITRE helped put together ADNET's first Internet when web technology was still very young."

In more recent years, the company has helped DISA and other agencies in the counter drug community take advantage of the data that helps identify possible drug traffickers and trafficking activities. "Through various mechanisms, the counter drug organizations have access to an increasing amount of information. But the really difficult task is using that data to improve effectiveness," notes MITRE's technical lead on the data mining task for ADNET. What's needed now is a way for these groups to sift through all this data—most of it unimportant—and find the larger patterns, trends, and anomalies that ultimately lead to seizures."

To support this increased need for manageable information, MITRE computer scientists are providing high-level technical support in the exciting areas of data mining and large scale database management. In particular, MITRE is working on a now-fielded prototype targeting system that analyzes passenger vehicle crossing data and develops data mining rules and tools that help operators perform real-time analysis to identify potential counter narcotics targets. Today, this system is integrated into everyday enforcement as well as special operations. "In data mining, we're involved with systems that automatically search through large amounts of data for meaningful and interesting patterns. We need to provide end users with a system that will quickly indicate if an individual coming into the U.S. is worthy of further inspection," adds the MITRE technical lead.

Notes the program manager, "Our role at MITRE has been to help DISA research and evaluate various data mining technologies to determine their effectiveness in targeting illegal narcotics trafficking. This has included the extensive evaluation of commercial data mining software as well as the development of a set of customized, innovative algorithms."

The technology we're developing is also used to provide ways to search databases for links between individuals and organizations, which is useful for not only counter drug, but also counter terrorism," adds the technical lead. "Now, the challenge for the counter-drug community is managing all this ever-increasing data—and developing the best ways to incorporate this technology into their operations."

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