Posted on 07/28/2003 2:44:18 PM PDT by DittoJed2
Defense Dept. Program Taking Terror Bets Program Models 'Futures' Markets
POSTED: 3:20 p.m. EDT July 28, 2003
A new Department of Defense program allows traders to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks.
The department's "Defense Advanced Research Project Agency" designed what it calls the "The Policy Analysis Market."
The program works much like the financial markets where traders buy and sell "futures" based on the possibility of a specific event in the Middle East, 11 News reported.
Some of the examples listed on the agency's Web site include the assassination of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat and a missile attack by North Korea. Bidders would profit if the events for which they hold futures occur.
Defense officials said the market-based system is highly accurate when assessing such things as political and civil stability, economic health and military disposition of Middle East countries.
Participants would only have to pick a username and password to participate and the agency said it won't have access to their identities or funds.
But critics said this allows terrorists who are planning an attack to profit on the assault or even make false bets to mislead authorities.
Members of Congress said the market idea is not only wasteful, but repugnant.
"I think this is unbelievably stupid. That is a gentle thing to say about a program that is so devoid of value," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, said. "It combines the worst of all our values in my judgment. It's a tragic waste of taxpayer money. It will be totally offensive to almost everyone."
"[The] idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridicules and grotesque," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said. "The bizarre plan we are describing today is a waste of taxpayer money and it needs to stop immediately. The program's intent is clear: the federal government is encouraging people to bet on and make money from atrocities and terrorist attacks."
Registration for the site begins Friday and will be limited to the first 1,000 traders. Actual trading will begin Sept. 1 and the Department of Defense plans to open the site to 10,000 traders by Jan. 1, 2004.
Stay with TheWBALChannel.com and WBAL-TV 11 News for the latest news updates.
Especially dim-witted politicians who don't understand "Efficient Market Theory "
I bet 15 Quatlu's on the newcomer.
PAM is intended to have a globally distributed population of traders. Individuals interested in the Middle East and in the involvement of the United States with the countries of the Middle East are welcome to register as PAM traders. Individuals who are interested in the use of market processes to manage risk are also welcome to participate in PAM. Whatever a prospective traders interest in PAM, involvement in this group prediction process should prove engaging and may prove profitable.
Trader registration will open on August 1, 2003 and will be accessed exclusively through this web site. There will be three steps to the trader registration process:
Acceptance of various terms governing access to and use of PAM, the principal of which is recognition that PAM is a prototype and that the registrant is agreeing to participate in the test of this prototype.
Selection of a username and password by the registrant.
Deposit of funds into the registrants PAM trading account. On-line training will begin for registered traders on September 1, 2003. Live trading will begin on October 1, 2003.
As a means of ensuring the smooth and efficient start of live operations, registration will be limited initially to 1,000 traders. As system operations are tuned to the trading load, this limit will be increased. By January 1, 2004, the limit will be raised to at least 10,000 traders.
During this first phase, we appreciate input from prospective PAM traders. These comments will assist in development of the interface as well as general information about PAM. More information and details will be added to the site in the next few weeks, however, we welcome hearing your thoughts and interest through the button below.
The amount it will cost to get involved is not revealed, but I'm guessing not every Tom, Dick and Harry will have the funds to play on this market.
I wonder why Vegas isn't running this racket?
There's a longstanding sports/event book, tradesports.com, that operates its business on this same model, and their players' betting on the timing of Saddam's fall was FEROCIOUS -- almost 100K open contracts at one point in March.
Plus, of course, the dummies in the gov't are missing a bet (no pun intended) if they DON'T use UIDs to track down would-be terrorists. Some of these bozos (the terrorists, that is) are just dumb enough to plunge heavily on an event they ''know'' to be upcoming, and might very well give the game away on some number of occasions.
At any rate here's the site for those who are insterested:
That's what I was thinking. Then I saw this "rule" on the website:
U.S. government agencies will not be allowed to participate in PAM and DARPA will not have access to the identities or funds of PAM traders.
I thought this whole thing might just be a set-up to track terrorists and rogue states who may have designs in playing this market and making the predictions come true. If this clause is accurate, I would say this is a very stupid and potentially dangerous exercise.
It seems that most of you guys don't "get it". This project is extremely good at identifying below-the-radar terrorist activities, but it has nothing to do with the people actually playing the game, hence why the identities are irrelevant. The players are required to generate a good model of the information dynamics behind the gameplay.
The mathematics is pretty complex, but this "game" allows a very sophisticated traffic analysis of information that can provide the DoD with the ability to identify "hotspots" that are not directly observable. It sounds a bit weird, but it means that they can use this information to identify terrorist plots even if none of the players of the game are specifically aware of a terrorist plot. For it to work reasonably well, they need to allow the general population to play anonymously so that they don't inadvertently bias the model, which is also why the DoD personnel can't play. They need a really nice statistical baseline from the general population.
I happen to be acquainted with the guy who originally came up with this idea, which is actually many years old. He is an economist with very savvy math skills, and definitely one of the smarter humans walking the planet at the moment.
What you are looking at is the DoD using extremely advanced mathematics that is capable of identifying terrorists even if the terrorists don't play the game and hide themselves very well from the general population. You just have to recognize it as yet another example of wicked cool technology coming out of the DoD to give the USA an edge against everyone else. The people against this are clueless, but I don't think it has been explained very well (and a REAL explanation is fairly esoteric).
My local talk radio guy was just talking about this .. he says Poindexter is behind that and this betting thing
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