Force-Directed Display of Catalano/Vidro social structure on June 1. Graph displayed with radius 2 around node Ferdinando Catalano. Node for David Vidro highlighted, with immediate neighbors shown in gold.
Edward Swing, Vision Systems & Technology, Inc.
Student Team: NO
The Prajna Project is a Java toolkit designed to provide various capabilities for visualization, knowledge representation, geographic displays, semantic reasoning, and data fusion. Rather than attempt to recreate the significant capabilities provided in other tools, Prajna instead provides software bridges to incorporate other toolkits where appropriate. Prajna will be released to the Open Source community in the near future.
For this challenge, I applied the various tools that had been developed for the four mini-challenges. Each of these tools was built using Prajna. Several of them also used software bridges to Prefuse and JFreeChart. In addition to the four applications developed for the various mini-scenarios, I built a lightweight utility which scanned the different data sets for common name elements in an attempt to identify common personalities. However, a significant part of the analysis involved interpreting the information that had already been extracted in the various mini-scenarios.
The Prajna Project is a toolkit developed by Edward Swing. The custom applications for all contests were built at VSTI. Other VSTI programs have since incorporated some of the new components that were developed for this contest.
| Activities | Names |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia Propaganda and Editing | VictoriaV (Victoria Vidro?), RyogaNica, Savanna, others |
| Mexican Sweat-shops | Eduardo Catalano, Jesus Vidro |
| Coordinating High-Level Activities | David Vidro, Juan Vidro, Jorge Vidro, Esteban Catalano |
| Bombing of Dept. of Health building | Ramon Katalanow (Catalano), Maxwell Lopez, Cecil Denison |
Combined and discussed with next question
In 2002, Ferdinando Catalano published the Paraiso Manifesto. This sociopolitical doctrine included a number of controversial beliefs, including male supremacy, absolute family autonomy, mandatory home schooling for girls, and home health care. Pedro Vidro also contributed to the tenets of Catalano's Paraiso Manifesto Movement (CPMM). Devotees of the Paraiso Manifesto believe the Paraiso movement to be a religion, while opponents consider the movement to be a dangerous cult. The movement was founded on the Isla del Sueño, a small island off the coast of Florida.
Ferdinando Catalano was no stranger to controversy. He had been involved in several other controversial movements before founding the CPMM. Wise to the ways of revolutionaries such as Che Guevara, he used Pirate Radio stations on Isla del Sueño to spread his doctrine. Through these efforts, and the activities of his family and the members of the Vidro family, the movement spread across the Caribbean and southern United States over the next few years.
The controversial movement met early opposition from Isla del Sueño natives and Floridians. The opponents of Paraiso claimed Ferdinando Catalano forced children to work without pay. Ferdinando also grew wealthy from donations from devotees, which he used to broaden his power base. The CPMM also clashed with people that were more progressive, over its position on women and girls. It also clashed with health organizations over its advocacy of home health care.
In 2005, the government of Isla del Sueño began to crack down on Paraiso activities. As a result, many devotees fled the island in increasing numbers. Initially, the migrants attempted to enter Florida, but since the U.S. maintains a policy of interdiction, the Coast Guard intercepted many vessels.
During this crackdown, the Isla government attempted to disrupt the Catalano-Vidro network. In early June 2006, the government’s actions forced Ferdinando Catalano and several of his family members and associates to go into hiding. Because of this, Ferdinando’s influence over the movement began to wane. His brother Esteban and the Vidro family continued their coordination of CPMM activities, but Ferdinando himself assumed a less important role.
Despite the efforts of the US Coast Guard, the CPMM continued to spread through southern Florida. CPMM devotees also migrated to Mexico in large numbers beginning in Spring, 2006. The movement also spread as far as Canada and Europe, briefly gaining religious recognition in Spain.
During 2006, proponents of the CPMM continued to expand their influence. Members of the organization promoted their agenda and beliefs. Paraiso followers pushed their beliefs both in person and online. For instance, on wikipedia, devotees such as VictoriaV (Vidroñ) manipulated entries related to the movement in an effort to de-emphasize controversial activities. Members also spread information through other social internet sites such as YouTube.
Despite this propaganda effort, the controversy surrounding the movement remained in the spotlight. Mainstream media figures and celebrities, including Michael Moore, began to raise public awareness about the activities of the movement. The movement even faced ridicule on an episode of The Simpsons.
Eventually, the controversial policies of the movement caught caused several governments to take action against the CPMM. In the US, the movement clashed with the Dept. of Health over their belief in home health care. In September of 2006, this activity turned violent, when a confrontation between Paraiso supporters and the Dept. of Health resulted in the deaths of several doctors and nurses.
In Mexico, the activities of the CPMM turned to predatory commercial activity. The Paraiso movement has been accused of forcing its followers, including children, to work without compensation. By operating these illegal sweat-shops allowed the CPMM leadership to dominate local businesses. This controversial commercial activity resulted in the banning of the movement in Mexico by the end of the year. Despite this ban, Mexico remained a popular destination for CPMM members. Eduardo Catalano and Jesus Vidro entered Mexico in early 2007.
Belgian authorities also prosecuted Paraiso members for various controversial activities in August and September of 2006. Devotees in Canada and Spain also courted criticism and controversy.
Sometime between June and November 2006, Ferdinando Catalano perished. In his wake, the Paraiso movement began to splinter into various smaller groups. Some of these groups moved more toward the mainstream. However, other groups, likely controlled by members of the Vidro and Catalano families, increased their violent activity. In August 2007, Paraiso supporters, led by Ramon Catalano/Katalanow, bombed a Dept. of Health facility in Miami.
We believe that at this time, David Vidro is the de factor leader of the Paraiso movement. Family members Juan and Jorge Vidro likely serve as lieutenants. Jesus Vidro and Eduardo Catalano are the leaders of the movement in Mexico, likely coordinating with the rest of the family. Ramon Catalano was responsible for the Dept. of Health bombing, while Carlos Vidro (another employee) seemed uninvolved. If Carlos is involved with the rest of the Vidro family, this hints that he may have manipulated Ramon into the terrorist activity. This further suggests that the Vidro family may have taken over the general operations of the Paraiso movement, and the Catalano family might have become marginalized following the death of Ferdinando.
The U.S. State department is reviewing various reports that suggest that the Paraiso movement is involved in directing these various violent activities. As part of this investigation, we suggest several additional courses of investigation:
In order to determine the Paraiso social network, we reviewed all available data from each of the various scenarios. By assembling the various nuggets of information, we began to piece together the activities and social network of the Paraiso network.
The first set of data we reviewed was the cell phone network. This seemed to be a logical place to start, as we could establish a social network containing the five personalities. Using the tool that we developed for the Cell Phone mini-challenge, we identified the five personalities with their cell phone IDs at both the start and the end of the scenario, which ended on June 10th, 2006.
Force-Directed Display of Catalano/Vidro social structure on June 1. Graph displayed with radius 2 around node Ferdinando Catalano. Node for David Vidro highlighted, with immediate neighbors shown in gold.
During the analysis of this cell phone network, we noticed that David Vidro’s subordinates generally contacted him regularly. These subordinates included family members Juan and Jorge Vidro. We knew that David Vidro coordinated various high-level Paraiso activities.
We also noticed that at the end of the scenario, Ferdinando Catalano’s role in the organization appeared to be waning. He had no direct contact with any of the other primary figures on June 10th, though his activity level on the 9th was significant. At this time, we do not know a reason for the change in activity.
We also noticed that David Vidro rarely communicated directly with Esteban Vidro, generally communicating instead through either Ferdinando or an unknown intermediary (cell phone ID 107). However, David Vidro did have frequent communication before the change in cell phone IDs that occurred between June 7th and 8th. We assume this contact would likely continue.
When we began to review the wikipedia edits, we discovered one other important fact. Sometime between June and November of 2006, Ferdinando Catalano died (or was killed).
From this information, we had what we assumed to be the nucleus of the Catalano-Vidro network. We then began to examine the personalities in the other scenarios. When we reviewed the records of the migrant boats, our application showed that Eduardo Catalano and Jesus Vidro tried to leave Isla del Sueño three different times. The two always traveled as a pair, and ultimately succeeded in landing near Cancun, Mexico in early 2007. Obviously this pair had close ties.
Landing attempts of Eduardo Catalano and Jesus Vidro.
When we reviewed the data from the Evacuation Traces scenario, we determined that Ramon Katalanow was our prime suspect. Other surviving suspects were Maxwell Lopez and Cecil Denison. We believe that Lopez and Denison (and Cleveland Jimenez, who did not survive) were aware of the plot to bomb the Dept. of Health building. They possibly coordinated the event. We also realized that Katalanow was a homonym for Catalano. Ramon likely changed the spelling of his name to avoid drawing attention to himself when he entered the United States.
Ramon Katalanow pauses to set the bomb. His location, and the location of the bomb, is highlighted with a red hand-drawn overlay
We also noticed that one of the other employees at the Dept. of Health was Carlos Vidro. However, we did not notice Carlos exhibit any suspicious behavior. He simply evacuated with all of the other employees. It is certainly possible that Carlos Vidro was aware of the bombing plot, but we have no evidence to support this.
Moving onto the Wikipedia Edits scenario, we were initially stymied. The wikipedia editors usually did not use full names, making it impossible to identify any individual’s real identity. However, we did notice several Paraiso devotees who had a significant number of edits. Among them were Amado, Estirabot, Savanna, Socorro, and VictoriaV. We reviewed the identities of other known members of the Paraiso movement, but none seemed to match the names. However, we guessed that VictoriaV might be short for Victoria Vidro.
Particularly active discussion group. VictoriaV took part in many edit-wars and pushing propaganda
We matched most of the other active editors to VictoriaV. We noted that her (?) activity frequently seemed to involve Paraiso propaganda and minimizing controversy about the organization. Other Paraiso supporters followed a similar pattern, or simply contributed significant elements to the wikipedia article.
At this point, we had identified several potential Paraiso inner circle members. We decided to explore any other possible links between personalities involved in the various scenarios. We developed a lightweight utility to scan through all available names, and identify name elements common to multiple scenarios. Aside from Catalano and Vidro, several other family names appeared. However, either the names did not offer any clues, or we discovered too many matching names to identify any other Paraiso leaders.
At this point, we decided to investigate the various possible activities of our various personalities. We knew that David, Juan and Jorge Vidro were involved with the leadership of the organization, along with Esteban Catalano. VictoriaV was obviously devoted to propaganda and minimizing criticism of the organization. This propaganda activity follows a similar pattern that many sociopolitical organizations follow, particularly those associated with religious movements.
We did find it curious that VictoriaV and several other Paraiso supporters on wikipedia had feminine names. According to some of the discussion comments, Paraiso shelters its women, Since most of the Paraiso movement shelters its women, not allowing them to watch movies in many regions. Either VictoriaV is actually male, or she lives in Florida or a similar area where the attitude toward women is a little more progressive.
Obviously, Ramon and his accomplices were involved in the bombing incident. The source material mentions several other incidents involving confrontations with Dept. of Health officials. Since the Paraiso movement believes in Home Health Care, this would obviously create tension between the Dept. of Health and Paraiso.
When we examined the wikipedia edits, we noticed several comments about activities in Mexico. The Mexican government had banned the Paraiso movement because of predatory commercial practices. We noted from the Paraiso Movement wikipedia page that Ferdinando Catalano allegedly forced his followers to work without compensation. This suggested that Paraiso was operating a number of illegal “sweat-shops” in Mexico.
The Paraiso creed likely supports the concept of violent opposition. One of the tenets of the Paraiso Manifesto is that the autonomy of families supersede the role of government. Unfortunately, this philosophy implies that a male's wishes, as absolute head of a family, must take precedence over the government's regulations. Because of this belief, Paraiso members are less likely to respect the authority of a government. Furthermore, since Paraiso states that disputes should be resolved among family heads, the philosophy actually encourages men to take matters into their own hands. This philosophy leads to anarchy.
We explored several different ideas to try to identify relationships between personalities in the different scenarios. Unfortunately, we do not have any strong evidence to verify any of these direct connections. Obviously, family members would likely contact each other on an occasional basis. We did note several figures in the cell phone network which might correspond to other Catalano and Vidro family members. Each of the central figures in the organization had contacts which could correspond to the other personalities in the overall scenario.
To identify the geographic extend of the Paraiso Movement, we viewed references to various nations within the Wikipedia edits. There, we noticed several references to various nations. Comments mentioned Spain, Belgium, Canada, and Mexico, and referred indirectly to activities there. Most of these entries corresponded to late 2006, after the exodus from Isla del Sueño began.