Entry Name: "DAC-GC"
VAST
2014 Challenge
Grand Challenge
Team Members:
Parang
Saraf, Virginia Tech, parang@cs.vt.edu -- PRIMARY
Patrick
Butler, Virgnia Tech, pabutler@vt.edu
Dr Naren Ramakrishnan, Virginia Tech, naren@cs.vt.edu
Student Team: YES
Analytic Tools Used:
Google
Maps
D3
Everything
else developed in-house
Approximately how many hours were spent
working on this submission in total?
Around 400 hrs (150 hrs MC1, 150 hrs MC2, 100 hrs MC3)
May we post your submission in the
Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository after VAST Challenge 2014 is complete? Yes
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8pKPNB_M6o&feature=youtu.be
Link to the Tool:
http://embers.cs.vt.edu:60051/
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Questions
GC.1 – Summarize and describe the events of
January, 2014 relating to the disappearance of the GAStech employees. Focus on
the disappearance of the employees, and the events immediately before and
afterward. The summary should include the following:
a. Who: Individuals and
groups involved and their roles
b. What: A description
of what happened over the time period
c. Where: Associate
events with locations
d. When: Specific times
of activities, particularly as it relates to planning and execution
e. Why: A description of
the motives or motivations of the individuals or groups involved
f.
How: What, if any, notable entities provided
support for or facilitated the events that took place? These could be people,
places, or things that helped those responsible for the disappearance in some
way.
Do not reproduce the overview or MC1 materials concerning
background knowledge, although you may reference this information if needed.
Visualizations illustrating how you determined the summary points above are
encouraged. Please limit your response to no more than five images and 500
words.
|
Explanation |
Supporting
Evidence |
|
Protectors of Kronos (POK) is
the prime suspect behind the disappearance of GAStech employees. POK receives
its financial support from Asterian People’s Army
(APA), which is involved in drug trafficking. In order to harvest insider
information about the whereabouts of GAStech employees and their security
procedures, it seems POK has spies working as GAStech employees in the
security department. The GPS data indicates that five of the GAStech security personnel Hennie Osvaldo, Loreto Bodrogi, Isia Vann, Minke Mies and Inga Ferro have
been following GAStech executives at night by having a coordinated watch
outside executives’ houses. Further, during the day around noon they also
appear to visit suspicious locations, either in-group or individually (figure
1). These locations are suspicious as they are frequented only by these 5
personnel and doesn’t appear to host any
recreational point of interest. In addition to this, Loreto Bodrogi also went to the Kronos Capitol on January 18th
along with other senior members of the security department of GAStech. In all
probability, GAStech personnel visited Kronos
Capitol to take account of the security procedures as GAStech executives
were supposed to meet Kronos Government officials there on January 20th.
Three out of these five are recent recruits, two share their family name with
POK founders and another with a girl Juliana Vann who died because of benzene
related cancer and is now considered as a symbol for POK. They also appear to
be sharing emails from ARISE (the mouthpiece of APA) amongst themselves
(figure 2). On
January 20th during the annual GAStech International meeting, a
fire alarm went off around 10:20 am. Abila Fire Department responded quickly
by sending the fire trucks and doing a thorough search for fire, only to
report that it was a false alarm. However, following this, it was found that
10 GAStech employees are missing. Besides the GAStech employees, a few caterers
dressed in black were also present at GAStech headquarters. Speculation is
that the fire alarm was used as a means of distraction, in order to kidnap
the employees. The role of caterers is still not clear and no information
about questioning them for their role behind disappearance of the employees
has been released. Meanwhile, GAStech president Sten Sanjorge Jr. escaped the
kidnapping and was safely flown back to Tethys. There were reports of a
private aircraft departing from Abila International Airport to an unknown
location carrying around 7-8 business type people, however, no further
information was available. Later during the day, federal law enforcement
agencies arrived in Abila to help with the investigation. On January 21st,
POK released a statement claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of
GAStech employees and also demanded $20 million ransom (figure 3). On
January 23rd, POK held a rally in Abila in the evening (figure 4).
Though this is unclear how they were able to hold the rally publicly when
they already took the responsibility for kidnapping and demanded a ransom.
The rally was peaceful with several motivational speakers and a music band.
During that time, a suspicious black van was chased after by the police and
was finally blocked near Gelatogalore parking lot
(figure 5). The van had hit a cyclist earlier. During the standoff, the van
occupants claimed that they had hostages and started firing at the police
officers in which a cop was shot. The SWAT team was called at the location and
after a brief negotiation the van occupants, a male and a female, surrendered
and were subsequently arrested. The hostages, 2 females, were evacuated. No
information about the names of the van occupants or the hostages was
released. Around the same time, a building “Dancing Dolphin Apartments”
caught fire, but this event doesn’t seem to be related to the disappearances
of the GAStech employees. |
Figure 1: POI Distribution of Cars
belonging to Ferro, Bodrogi, Osvaldo and Mies
Figure 2: Email Network showing the
same group engaged in ARISE related email
Figure 3: Brief timeline of events
for January 20th – 21st
Figure 4: Selected messages showing
POK Rally timeline
Figure 5: Selected messages showing
Van timeline |
GC.2 – Describe at a high level the most significant networks that
exist, and how they have influenced each other to produce the current
situation. Please limit your response to no more than three images and 100
words.
|
Explanation |
Images |
|
1. 1993:
Government of Kronos
Strikes deal with GAStech International for the development of Tiskele Bend gas fields 2. 1998: Formation of Protectors of Kronos as an
activist group in response to increasing cancer related cases 3. 1998:
Wellness For All tests
the Tiskele river upstream
and downstream of gas wells and reports that that water is getting
intoxicated due to wastes released by GAStech plants. It slams both the
Kronos Government and GAStech 4. February
2009: Sten Sanjorge, president
of GAStech, followed by the Kronos Government declares POK as terrorists
after they protest outside GAStech Headquarters. WFA possibly defunct now 5. March
2009: POK leader Elian Karel
arrested on tax evasion charges and subsequently dies in jail in 2009 6. 2013: Asterian People
Army starts supporting POK 7. 2014: POK kidnaps GAStech employees 8. Additionally, during the POK rally held on
23rd January, Dr Audrey McConnell
Newman, who is an award winning activist and conservationist, Professor
Lorenzo Di Stefano of University of Abila and Lucio Jakab
of Save our Wetlands also came out in support of POK. These people are not
shown as nodes because they are just individuals and it is not known whether
their organization supports POK or not. |
Figure
6: Network 1993 – 2009
Figure
7: Network 2011 – 2014
Figure
10: Supporting Evidence |
GC.3 – Identify three of the most significant
information gaps that remain at the end of the time period covered by the data.
Describe why this missing information would be important to the investigation.
Highlight in your visualizations where these knowledge gaps are present. Please
limit your response to no more than three images and 250 words.
|
S. No |
Information Gap |
Supporting Image |
|
1 |
Missing Names ·
Names
of the missing employees has not been disclosed ·
Names of the occupants of the black van which was involved in a
standoff with police along with the hostages has not been disclosed. |
Figure 11: News and message snippets showing that names
have not been disclosed |
|
2 |
Missing Points of Interests ·
No
“points of interests’ were provided in the geo-spatial data which makes it difficult
to identify suspicious locations. A suspicious location is one, which is not
a recreational or home or office location. ·
Hence
there was a need for the identification of Recreational POIs. ·
Credit
Card Swipe times, POI Frequency over time, POI distribution over time and
Visual map of Abila were used to identify POIs |
Figure 12: Identification of Recreational and suspicious
POIs |
|
3 |
Missing link between ransom demand from POK and holding a
public rally On January 21st POK has release an official
statement claiming responsibility of the missing employees and also demanded
a ransom of $20 million. However, they were still allowed to hold a public
rally on January 23rd.. There appears to be missing information on
why the POK leaders were not apprehended but were rather allowed to go public
with the rally. |
Figure 13: News and message snippets showing the POK took
responsibility of kidnapping and still are holding public rally |
GC.4 – The police have sufficient manpower to
investigate up to two different locations simultaneously. Provide your best
recommendation to the police chief as to where the police should be deployed,
and why. Provide visualizations that
help describe the importance of this action. Please limit your response to no
more than two images and 100 words.
|
Explanation |
Supporting Images |
|
Following are the suspicious locations that were
frequented by the four of the five suspicious security personnel of GAStech: ·
N Tackan Ave / N Acera St ·
N Gerantoni St / N Aveny St ·
N Agentes St / N Maskin St ·
S Evripidou Ave / S Eleftherias St ·
N
Camino St 5600 5652 N Agentes St/ N Maskin St is the location that is very close to the
Dancing Dolphin Apartments where the fire broke out at 18:40. Soon after that
the whole area was covered with police personnel and they started evacuating
the nearby buildings as well. As they were present in the nearby building
they thought they might get captured, and hence decided to flee. Because they
had to take a spontaneous decision, they were really shaken and while fleeing
first hit a car near N Souliou St 1424 1498 and then a bike near N Edessis St / N Menelaou,
from where the cops started chasing them. It seems they were headed towards
their suspicious location on S Evripidou Ave
/ S Eleftherias St but because of police
intervention they decided to flee from there to either one of these two
locations which is near GelatoGalore (N Gerantoni St / N Aveny St or N
Camino St 5600 5652). Because location N Gerantoni St /
N Aveny St is closest to Gelatogalore, we will mark that as second suspicious
location. So, the two suspicious
locations are as follows: 1. S Evripidou Ave / S Eleftherias St 2. N Gerantoni St / N Aveny St |
Figure 14: Location where the van hit a car, followed by a
bike and then went to Gelatogalore
Figure 15: Suspicious locations frequented by the
suspicious security personnel |
