Physicists Look to Higher Math to Predict Terrorist Movements

Deadly actions by “lone wolf” or self-radicalized terrorists claiming allegiance with the Islamic State (ISIS) in the last year have inspired a group of researchers to pursue novel methods of trying to stop the next Paris, or Orlando. In a study published in the June 17 issue of Science, authors from multiple disciplines at the University of Miami in Coral Gables detailed how they examined the online activities of small, pro-terrorism online groups to create a mathematical model that could eventually become a kind of early warning system for new attacks.

A report on the study in the New York Times contained cautious and somewhat skeptical responses from experts in terrorist activities like the author of ISIS: The State of Terror, J.M. Berger.

Berger told the Times that the team had come up with “an interesting approach” that was “potentially valuable” but “to jump ahead to the utility of it, I think, takes more work.”

The authors of the study explained in their abstract that support for a terrorist group like ISIS “somehow manages to survive globally online despite considerable external pressure and may ultimately inspire acts by individuals having no history of extremism, membership in a terrorist faction, or direct links to leadership.” By taking a close look at “longitudinal records of online activity” between January and August of 2015, they found an “ecology” that evolves on an incremental, daily basis supporting terrorist actions. The authors developed a mathematically-supported theory to describe how “self-organized” small groups assembled on Facebook or a social network like Russia-based Vkontakte—also known as VK—flourish before terrorist activity then adapt to stay connected even after they’re shut down.

Dr. Neil Johnson, the lead author, gave the Times an example from the natural world to illustrate what his team concluded about tracking terrorists online. He indicated transitions from talk to action are akin to flocking behavior among birds or fish. “There’s no one fish saying, ‘Hey, I want everyone to be about five inches away from someone else, and we’re going to have this shape,’” Johnson told the paper. An example similar to schooling fish might be the wildly shifting and flowing murmurations of flocks of starlings.

As for providing early warnings that something deadly might be afoot, Johnson and his fellow authors found evidence that before the Islamic State’s shocking attack on Kobani in September of 2014, there was a sudden mini-explosion in pro-ISIS groups online. When the team retrofitted their predictive algorithms to the known sequence of events, it predicted the siege on Kobani.

This is just one study and as the Times article made clear, there are plenty of reasons to greet it with skepticism. But in the ongoing fight against terrorism worldwide, it’s beginning to feel like it isn’t wise to summarily reject anything that might work toward preventing the next murderous assault.

Physicists Look to Higher Math to Predict Terrorist Movements