VIM: A Framework for Intelligence Analysis

Abstract

Intelligence analysts receive thousands of facts from a variety of sources. In addition to the bare details of the fact — a particular person, for example — each fact may have provenance, reliability, weight, and other attributes. Each fact may also be associated with other facts, e.g. that one person met another at a particular location. The analyst’s task is to examine a huge collection of such loosely-structured facts, and try to "connect the dots" to perceive the underlying and unknown causes — and their possible future courses. We have designed and implemented a Java platform called VIM to support intelligence analysts in their work.