Big data – a journey 90 years back
Some weeks
ago, when I was in a hotel in South East Asia just about getting ready to
check-out, the TV was still on and the movie J. Edgar, directed by Clint
Eastwood was being shown. Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the move as J. Edgar
Hoover, the powerful head of the FBI for nearly 50 years. There is a scene
pretty early in the movie when J. Edgar Hoover is fighting for more competences
for the Bureau, which so far has not been granted any teeth. All his passion
goes into fighting and solving crimes. Maybe the most important weapon in his
view is central access to data. For instance, he fought for a centralization of
nationwide available fingerprints.
Just a few
scenes after the hearing, you can see J. Edgar Hoover in the FBI premises when
huge loads of finger print files arrive. This was just a first step and shortly
thereafter an identification unit was formed. This all happened in as early as
1924 – almost 90 years ago.
To me this is
an early example of big data. No internet, no satellite communication, no
computers, not even copy machines as we know them today existed at that time.
Can you imagine the amount of data in physical paper that was collected with
the fingerprint files in just one location? However, this kind of data volume would
probably fit on just one server blade of today’s computing centers. We can
consider this as one of the early examples of big data, however, not in any way
comparable with the data amounts collected nowadays – whether by corporations
about their customers or state authority based on whatever motive. By current
standards this kind of data collection would not even be considered “small
data”…
The next
problem after the collection of the data, is analytics and data mining. There
was no electronic index and you can find the right data just with three key
words or two mouse clicks. A sophisticated filing system had to be in place to
enable agents to work with the fingerprints. Frankly speaking, for a non-expert
like me, it sounds incredible how they worked on comparing finger prints from a
crime scene with file data in their archives.
Within a
short period of time from some feared bureaucratic organization the FBI has been
transformed into a highly respected agency based on this new approach of
fighting crime. Data collection and development of new techniques in crime
scene investigation represented key factors for the success of the agency.
Today, the FBI employs more than 36,000 special agents and support
professionals, overseeing a budget of more than 8 billion US dollars. Besides
its US operations, the FBI now runs field offices around the world.
Watch the
trailer of “J. Edgar” (2011) on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1616195/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
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