Introduction

Jeff Cares, Alidade Inc.

See Histroy of Search Theory Summary
See PowerPoint Presentation

Jeff began the day with an overview of Search Theory and the evolution of the issues studied by the group overview the last four years, emphasizing that this workshop would focus on “Hider” Theory.

See enlargement

In addition, his presentation covered previous workshops. Jeff explained how some in the Newport military community started back in 1999 looking at different topics, among them complex systems. They spent some time at the Santa Fe Institute and realized there is a very robust non-military community out there studying Search Theory. This gave rise to the Newport Center for Information Age Warfare Studies and also involved the researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and BiosGroup, Inc. There was a mix of academic and military folks, including such luminaries as Stu Kauffman, Jose Lobo, Bill MacReady, Wayne Hughes, Brian McCue, and Don DelBalzo.

The premise for the workshop series became this:

Search Theory, as understood by military researchers, had not fundamentally changed in many decades, although the platforms and operational concepts were under extraordinary transformation.

See PowerPoint Presentation

2001: From Abstraction to Application

In the first year of the Search Theory Workshop Series, academic Search Theorists were brought together with the military to see if the academic side could inform the military Search Theorists and to see if both sides shared any commonalities. Academics had only heard briefly of Koopman, upon whose work the military based their classic Search Theory. At the end of the first conference, the group determined that there was indeed a desire to continue meeting.

2002: Search Theory, Invented Now

The second conference concentrated on new mathematical results and modeling techniques. Specifically the group examined the changes in operational concepts, mathematical tools and platform technologies.

Since the original Search Theory work was produced using the tools of the time, Jeff posed the question, “If we were to use the tools and methods available to us now, would we invent the same Search Theory now as we did then?”

Guests included Josh Epstein, Fred Glover, Rob Axtell, Brian McCue, Ralph Klingbeil, and Ray Hill, and involved agent-based modeling approaches to Search Theory.

2003: Networked Searches, Searches in Networks

Last year, because people were building netted search systems and databases, the workshop explored the aspects of searches using networks, as well as searches within networks. Methods for efficient ways of searching within large complex systems were discussed. Participants included Dave Davis, Peter Dodd, Brian McCue, Ray Christian, and Ray Hill.

“Hider” theory emerged as the topic of interest for this year. The challenge became finding speakers who were experts on the topic. We discovered that there are almost no experts in this field to speak of, and almost no literature. In investigating Hider Theory, Jeff listed the examples below as types of common problems such a theory would address:

• A ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) that does not want to be detected while on deterrence patrol;

• A downed pilot in enemy-controlled territory who does not want to be found by the enemy but does want to be rescued;

• An embezzler who does not want to be discovered for a long time;

• An in-country terrorist waiting for orders or opportunity to strike within some time duration;

• An encrypted electronic message that is perhaps buried within a benign or noisy transmission;

• A pollution event—hiding who did it and perhaps blaming someone else.