CINA Brochure

OUR MISSION

SHARED EXPLORE OUR SHARED MISSION:

The CINA Center serves as a strategic innovation partner for Homeland Security Enterprise (HSE) stakeholders, enhancing their efforts to combat networked criminal activities. By concurrently pursuing scientific advancements and practice breakthroughs, CINA assists the HSE to better comprehend, anticipate, and respond to challenges posed by evolving illicit operations, and shapes a workforce that will excel in this complex operational landscape as it strives to protect our homeland.

CINA sponsored research and events

George Mason University 4400 University Drive, MS 2A1 Fairfax, VA 22030 Email: cina@gmu.edu Phone: 703-993-4409 Web: cina.gmu.edu @CINAatMason

HOW TO WORK WITH CINA

cina.gmu.edu

provide the latest insights on topics of interest to the Homeland Security Enterprise, and feature expert speakers from a variety of mission relevant disciplines.

Contact us to schedule a CINA capabilities briefing, project demo, or to obtain more information about CINA-sponsored events.

Your Strategic Innovation Partner

Disclaimer: The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Grant Award Number 2017-ST-061-CINA01; Grant Solutions – 17STCIN00001-02-00

cina.gmu.edu

WHAT IS CINA?

MANY WAYS TO COLLABORATE WITH CINA

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security created the Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center of Excellence (CINA) to convene leading experts and researchers to pursue multidisciplinary approaches to disrupt criminal activities across the physical and cyber spaces.

CINA researchers, practitioners and Science Advisory Committee members come from varied backgrounds in law enforcement, national security, industry practice, and academia. The diverse CINA team offers research and instructional expertise in:

Core competencies of the CINA network data analytics and visualization Network Analytics

human trafficking and smuggling artificial intelligence and applications

Patterns of Criminal Activity & Impact Assessment

transnational criminal organizations traditional and digital forensics

Multimedia Support for Investigative Processes

Open Source Information Integration

With its core location close to Washington, D.C. at George Mason University, CINA offers prominent research domain expertise combined with convenient collaboration opportunities, holding onsite product demos and needs assessments in realtime to match DHS component operational units’ fast-paced demand, and identify and understand the technology and challenges of tomorrow.

geospatial intelligence cyber security

Talks and Briefings: Close to D.C., George Mason University hosts events which can also be scheduled at DHS facilities as requested, and the CINA website features a digital archive of past talks as a resource for the HSE community.

CINA talks, seminars, and conferences have addressed cyberspace and illicit supply disruption operations, online extremism, mass shootings, analyzing the movements of people and information, privacy in cryptocurrencies, interviews and interrogations, the business of transnational crime, migration and gangs, and evidence based crime policy. Send suggested broad or component-specific briefing topics to cina@gmu.edu.

Workforce Development: CINA also has an established and growing network of research contacts at universities, industry, and laboratories throughout the country that can be accessed as needed for specific topics.

Research Projects: CINA collects current and anticipated challenges from DHS components and other sources, then funds research projects to develop solutions and facilitate integration with operational elements.

Typical projects are 6-24 months in duration and may be funded by the Center or from component resources.

A skilled, trained, and experienced workforce is the key to any successful operation. CINA places and funds internships at DHS components, and also provides training and academic programs through our home institution and partners across the country.

Data Sets:

Quality data is the foundation of scientific research and advancement, yet much HSE-relevant data is sensitive. If sharing sensitive data is not possible, CINA can store and share full or redacted data securely, or even generate synthetic data tailored to your description to facilitate research on your operational problems of interest.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ALIGNED WITH DHS PRIORITIES

CINA coordinates multidisciplinary research among dozens of the most innovative academic experts in criminal investigations and network analysis to address complex and emerging challenges including human trafficking, money laundering and cryptocurrencies, digital wallet artifacts on mobile devices, predictive analytics for opioid abuse, and underground dark web markets.

Current CINA-sponsored research projects also include:

Digital Video Data Extractions CINA researchers at Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame are developing a system to help DHS components extract, summarize, and reconstruct critical information from digital video data. The techniques use both face and full-body re-identification methods, and the tool is scheduled for testing at a DHS component this year.

Voice Recording Identification Systems CINA researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are building technologies and systems for deducing person- and location-specific descriptive information from voice recordings.

These recordings may be from a wide variety of sources, such as hoax calls, wiretaps, telephone conversations, and voice evidence from a multitude of crimes.

Transnational Criminal Organization Investigations CINA researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are creating new analytical methods to help augment law enforcement investigations of transnational criminal organizations. These methods help predict missing or incomplete data about the organization, help detect ‘communities’ of criminals to reveal the roles of individual criminals within the networks of the organization, and help prescribe tactics to disrupt the criminal organization by modeling the interactions between network elements.

Digital File Fragment Analysis CINA researchers at George Mason University developed algorithms and software tools to find and associate residual fragments of digital files relevant to an investigation. The tools are scheduled for testing at a DHS component this year.

Cartel Activities CINA researchers collaborated with groups from our fellow COEs at the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency (CAOE) and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) to form a multi-site team that pursues the derivation of actionable knowledge for cartel activities from open-source content.

Throughout the year, DHS components can submit operational challenges or topics to shape CINA research RFP themes at cina.gmu.edu/RFPfocus