Geek War On Terror; It's hard enough to digitally detect bad guys. Try doing it in a way that protects the privacy of everybody. This entrepreneur, funded by the CIA, thinks he has.

Publication: Newsweek

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Byline: STEVEN LEVY

Not long after 19 terrorists boarded four airplanes on a rendezvous with infamy, Jeff Jonas asked himself a question: did officials have the necessary information to identify these killers before they took their seats back on September 11, 2001? Since Jonas's livelihood is fingering bad guys--the Las Vegas firm he founded, Systems Research and Development (SRD), helps casinos shut their doors to mobsters and card counters--he had his own ideas for exploiting information that had, in fact, been available before 9/11. First, he found that two of the terrorists, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, flying under their real names, were on a State Department watch list. A third had the same address as Alhazmi; two others (including Muhammad Atta) shared a residence with Almihdhar. Five others had the same phone number as Atta. Another had the same frequent-flier number as Almihdhar. All in all, using the techniques that Jonas has perfected at SRD, 14 of the 19 terrorists might have been flagged as risks.

Given that experience, it's no surprise Jonas now finds himself at the center of a raging debate over...

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