Briefs

New York Times (05/22/05); Kolata, Gina

The public disclosure of reams of email messages investigated in the Enron probe gave scientists the opportunity to test their theory that a group's intentions could be inferred by tracking emailing and word usage patterns without actually reading the messages. After just a few months of scrutiny, about six research groups say they can capture important data and are polishing their data categorization and analysis ability.

Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Dr. Kathleen Carley says the Enron data showed an explosion of activity among top executives before the investigation, while the sudden cease in communications between each other and the accompanying uptick in communications with legal counsel after the probe began indicated growing nervousness. Queen's University computer scientist Dr. David Skillicorn says analysis revealed a junior-level executive of significance who was not listed in Enron's organizational charts, and such a detection could be applied to probes of terrorist networks.

Each crisis was marked by a surge in email, and certain messages featured word choices, routing patterns, and other indicators that enabled analysts to separate these emails from extraneous business or personal messages.

Here is ACM News Summary of this story and the New York Times story "Enron Offers an Unlikely Boost to E-Mail Surveillance" (reg. required).