Final Summary

Comments generated at the end of the day focused on concentrating on the Hider again for the next session. Some felt it would be advantageous to enable the searcher while others felt that publishing hider information might enable the hider. Overall, researching the Hider would help to reduce the timeframe of the search.

See enlargement

Some thoughts to research further include focusing on the trustworthy containers as a place to hide. An interest in the unexpected things such as the combined search/hider effect and how that might be modeled would also be something to look into. It would be beneficial to see what behavior emerges in the simulation of searching behaviors and hiding models. Maritime Domain Awareness approaches the problem from the searcher perspective whereas there is much value to gain perspective from the hider mentality.

A concern was expressed regarding trustworthy containment as targets. There is a naval saying, “Treat remaining undetected as the absolute”. There have been cases where a small number of subs have not kept to that maxim with catastrophic results.

Are there better ways to present the hider principles to the Commanding Officer? Agent based modeling would help to bring some objectivity. Live op 4 in homeland security exercises could bring to light vulnerabilities that we may not want to see. A lot could be learned from the cartoon view of the world by putting ourselves into search games. We should keep calling it Search Theory because that's what people know to look for. Either keeping hider in the name or not but keep Hide in the content. The question of who would benefit from Hider Theory was posed. There is some trepidation in publishing information on hiding because of the benefits that it might provide to the wrong side.

The numerical concepts and modeling were of great interest to many of the attendees. Measurements and probabilities would be useful to figure out success on how well we're doing in searching. The group expressed interest in applying predictions to fine-tune the whole search process. From the search side of things, this workshop coincides with a lot of the projects that are currently being worked on. It would be good to bring in the modeling to gain further insights that are not looked at from the navy point of view. The different perspective would provide value.

Jeff concluded, “There is something to hider theory; it is not just the mirror of search theory. When we put a wrap on this and finish the white paper we will have a better opportunity to further the conversation. Search and hider encompasses the schizophrenic character of this concept.“