A UConn Stamford business professor has developed software that can comb the internet, including the dark web, and identify radical, violent content. Source: Shutterstock Photo A common link among mass murderers and terrorists is that they often leave behind a detailed account (a manifesto of sorts) of what inspired them to act. Using this material, UConn operations and information management professor Ugochukwu "Ugo" Etudo has developed software capable of locating websites disseminating terroristic ideologies that could spur acts of violence.

"I'm interested in the ideologies that could drive people to commit such terrible acts," says Etudo.

Although the internet (both the mainstream and dark web) has fast become a platform where terrorist groups spread these ideologies, many of the lone-wolf terrorists — those inspired by the rhetoric of terrorist organizations — are harder to detect and intercept. However, according to Etudo, most lone-wolf terrorists share a common characteristic:

"Almost all lone wolves leave a memoir," he says. "They like to broadcast their intent."

Analyzing materials from groups such as Al Qaeda; the Animal Liberation Front; the Ku Klux Klan; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and, most recently, ISIS propaganda, Etudo looked for patterns in word sequences and negative tones to train the software to detect warning signs.

With an 87 percent rate of accuracy for locating these patterns, the software can, according to Etudo, review lengthy manuscripts in minutes — something that might take the average reader days to accomplish.

"A goal of this system is to make sense of radical, terrorist propaganda at scale. It can 'consume' massive amounts of information requiring far too much human effort," Etudo says. "Most analytics work involves numbers, but this is unique because it analyzes text."

"Access to this information, in the data analytics world, is kind of similar to the wild, Wild West," he adds.

Etudo hopes to expand on the software, creating a version that is multilingual to improve the accuracy of the system.

"Using these tools should be as simple as using a colander," he says. "This should be a filtering tool that detects those that may be espousing radical ideology."

"Recent events underscore the need for us to gather as much intelligence as we can on the make-up of these radical ideologies," Etudo says. "Such intelligence is particularly useful for identifying emerging targets and the rationale of terrorist violence."