The Dark Web, developed by researchers at the University of Arizona’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, is “is a long-term scientific research program that aims to study and understand the international terrorism (Jihadist) phenomena via a computational, data-centric approach.” Using a combination of tracking software and advanced algorithms, the Dark Web mines and sorts terrorist writing on the Internet. The Dark Web uses a combination of social network analysis, sentiment analysis, link analysis, and other tools to identify patterns and connection between groups and people on the Dark Web. The Dark Web has collected information from over 10,000 sites, and contains 2 terabytes of data. The National Science Foundation, the CIA, the Defense Department, and the Department of Homeland Security have funded the project, according to the university. The Dark Web is believed to the largest non-governmental open source repository of terrorist postings.
Source(s): University of Arizona, National Science Foundation