European Intelligence
and Security Informatics Conference (EISIC) 2016
August 17-19, 2016
Uppsala, Sweden

The Premier European Conference on Counterterrorism and Criminology

Keynote Speakers


  • Barbara Perry
    University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
    Patrick Lin

    Barbary Perry is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology. She has written extensively on social justice generally, and hate crime specifically. She has published several books spanning both areas, including Diversity, Crime and Justice in Canada, and In the Name of Hate: Understanding Hate Crime. She has also published in the area of Native American victimization and social control, including one book entitled The Silent Victims: Native American Victims of Hate Crime, and Policing Race and Place: Under- and Over-enforcement in Indian Country both of which were based on interviews with Native Americans (University of Arizona Press). She was the General Editor of a five volume set on hate crime (Praeger), and editor of Volume 3: Victims of Hate Crime of that set. Her work has been published in journals representing diverse disciplines: Theoretical Criminology, Journal of Social and Behavioural Sciences; Journal of History and Politics; and American Indian Quarterly. Dr. Perry continues to work in the area of hate crime, and has begun to make contributions to the limited scholarship on hate crime in Canada. Most recently, she has contributed to a scholarly understanding of anti-Muslim violence, hate crime against LGBTQ communities, the community impacts of hate crime, and right wing extremism in Canada.

    Keynote:Hate in the Peaceable Kingdom: Right-Wing Extremism in Canada

    Canada's relatively strong commitment to multiculturalism in policy and practice has not it from the emergence of pockets of right-wing extremism. On the contrary, a national study of RWE in Canada reveals that a loosely knit "movement" is evident across the country. Cumulatively, the data revealed that the presence of right wing activists is much more diffuse and that they are much more numerous than is generally thought to be the case. The study also uncovered both endogenous and exogenous factors that simultaneously operate, by turns, to facilitate and constrain the growth and sustainability of the movement. I conclude with recommendations for how we might exploit their weaknesses and challenge their strengths in the interests of countering violent extremism.

  • Nico Prucha
    International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), King‘s College London, UK
    Nico Prucha

    Dr. Nico Prucha is a Postdoctoral Researcher and obtained his PhD from the University of Vienna, Austria. He is currently a Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at the Department for War Studies, King’s College London. He recently joined the ICSR after being awarded the VOX-Pol's Research Fellowship under its Researcher Mobility Programme. His research for VOX-Pol comprises ‘Viral Aspects of Jihadism: The Lingual and Ideological Basis of Online Propaganda and the Spill Over to Non-Arabic Networks.' Furthermore, part of his work for VOX-Pol at the ICSR includes establishing a lexicon of Arabic key words frequently used within Arabic and non-Arabic propaganda videos and writings.

    His work focuses on the analyses and deciphering of primary Arabic-language jihadist propaganda content on- and offline. He specializes in jihadi online activities related to Syria, Iraq and the organized opposition. Main aspects of his research cover the textual and audio-visual content of jihadist activity online and how the ideology in parts morphs from Arabic to English and German language clusters. The analysis of social media strategies used by groups such as the “Islamic State” to incite and recruit using a blend of languages and elements is one area of special interest. Another area of interest is the lingual and theological analysis of extremist Sharia law interpretation of hostage taking and executions and how videos as well as social media outlets convey these acts.

    Keynote: "Finding Sunni Extremist Needles in the Big Data haystack" or: Why Extremist Content Matters

    Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaeda (AQ) and the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (IS) use the Internet as the main communication hub to broadcast their messages. Online jihad is a phenomenon that has spread on a massive scale and pace in the past fifteen years and is an essential part of the modern-day Internet. Since the terror attacks on September 1, 2001, the Internet has turned into the general platform for – at the time – AQ to spread the Sunni extremist ideology, referred to as “jihadism” or “jihadist". The ideology of IS, AQ and any other Sunni extremist group, however, is based on Arabic-language religious scriptures, not just Qur’an and Sunna, but also references pieces of the rich 1,400 year long tradition of Islamic writings. IS claims theological principles for itself and has the power to implement the jihadist theology where the self-appointed “State” has control over territory. The “narratives” of IS and related groups are based in wide parts – within the Arabic language spectrum even more so – on theological concepts and principles.

    IS in particular offers a coherent interpretation of Arabic language religious elements and holds the power to project this coherently to a global audience by the videos published sometimes on a daily basis. Consumers who do not necessarily understand Arabic can comprehend the videos of the “Islamic State”, at least partly. Anyone who seeks initiation into the Sunni extremist definition of Sunni Muslim identity can visually follow role models and receive explanations – in videos and writings - from foreign fighters from Europe or self-appointed religious authorities who consider explaining the extremist religious identity to a non-Arab audience part of their jihad by conducting missionary work or da’wa.

    Sunni extremist media strategy has evolved substantially since its first appearance in Afghanistan in the 1980s. What used to be filmed with analog video cameras and penned in ink was manually reproduced and published in a network, dependent on a face-to-face basis, is morphed since the early 2000s on a large scale to the Internet. Especially the self-designated "Islamic State" has mastered the use of the Internet to maintain flows of information - mainly in Arabic and targeted non Arabic content - on a scale that is unprecedented. The coherent messages projected by IS are disseminated on a infrastructure made up of networks on social media platforms such as Twitter and telegram, with the impact of "counter-narratives" or account take downs being limited and far from damaging the extremist networks.

    The talk will focus on the Sunni extremist content and how this content is distributed on various information highways.

  • Rolf van Wegberg
    TNO, the Netherlands
    Rolf van Wegberg

    Rolf van Wegberg. MSc is a cybercrime researcher at the Technology, Policy and Management Faculty of Delft University of Technology and the Cyber Security & Resilience division at TNO. Originally trained as a criminologist, he received his MSc-degree (cum laude) in Criminology from Leiden University in 2011 with a thesis on money laundering and the funding of terrorism in the Netherlands. After graduation, he joined the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Leiden University as a researcher and lecturer. His research interests are in the cross-section of financial-economic and cybercrime. More specifically he researched Dutch financial economic crime policy and the (legal) information exchange possibilities by law enforcement and the intelligence communities. In 2013 he joined TNO, where he works as a research scientist on the economics of (financial) cybercrime. Predominantly he is involved in TNO’s Dark Web program, wherein he researches new and evolving criminal business models, in particular crime-as-a-service models on underground markets. As a researcher at Delft University of Technology, his research is embedded in the MALPAY project wherein he studies the criminal strategies used by cybercriminals in banking malware attacks and the interactions between these strategies and the (security) policies of the financial service providers

    Keynote: The Dark Web Evolution
    On the origin of the criminal business model

    The dark side of the internet can be easily accessed, and it is getting more and more popular amongst (cyber)criminals to deploy criminal activities. Using the TOR-protocol (The Onion Router) anonymous browsing is available for the general public, and increasing amounts of criminals see the advantages of moving their activities to the Dark Web. Ranging from drugs- and weapon trade to cybercrime-as-a-service, the Dark Web is the new anonymous, place-to-be for an increasingly large group of criminals.

    This keynote covers concrete examples of (novel) criminal activities as well as the evolution of criminal business models on the Dark Web. Trends and patterns in Dark Web-facilitated crime are identified using big data approaches and new insights on emerging ‘threats’ are presented. Finally, the question arises: are the lessons-learned of tackling (traditional) crime still valid when analyzing this new platform wherein anonymous criminal marketplaces exist and entirely new criminal business models are used.

  • Ronald F Tunkel, ATF
    Supervisory Special Agent Ronald F. Tunkel, M.A., Head of Desk, US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
    Liaison Office, Europol, The Hague, The Netherlands
    Ronald F Tunkel

    Ronald F. Tunkel, M.A., is a Supervisory Special Agent/Criminal Profiler with the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), currently assigned as an Attaché, and Head of Desk of the ATF Liaison Bureau at Europol, in The Hague, The Netherlands. He has over 29 years’ experience as a special agent and served nearly 18 years of his career assigned as a criminal profiler at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) elite Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), located at Quantico, Virginia. He was an original member of BAU’s Counter-Terrorism/Behavioral Threat Assessment Center and is considered an expert of international repute in the field of criminal profiling, threat assessment, statement analysis, bombers, and lone wolf terrorists. He has provided on-site operational consultations and training throughout the United States and in 18 foreign countries. He has been a regular instructor at the FBI and ATF National Academies, as well as a presenter for the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP), the European Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (AETAP), and Europol. He co-authored a book chapter published in International Handbook of Threat Assessment, (Oxford Press), entitled, “The Assessment of Anonymous Threatening Communications.” This work has become a standard model for threat assessment professionals investigating these crimes.

    Keynote: Behavioral Analysis Techniques for Investigating Cases of Anonymous Threatening Communications

    This presentation’s focus will be on techniques used by criminal profilers when analyzing and assessing anonymous threatening communications. The presenter will draw on related research and his anecdotal experience of over 17 years assigned to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, in Quantico, Virginia. Topics to be highlighted will include statement analysis, analyzing potential motives, assessing the offender’s commitment to and abilities in carrying out a violent act, identifying the presence and significance of verbal leakage and staging, and developing an unknown offender profile and overall threat assessment.

    The presenter will draw on numerous case studies and offer behaviorally-based investigative techniques for investigating these types of cases, such as the use of statement-generating questionnaires and proactive media strategies.

  • Sylvia Spinnewijn
    Netherlands Police department, the Netherlands
    Sylvia_Spinnewijn

    Sylvia Spinnewijn, Superintendent of the Regional Intelligence Organization - Oost-Brabant, entered the police force as a Bachelor of Arts student in policing in 2004. During her years at the police academy, she also worked as an operational police officer in emergency response and community policing.

    After finishing her studies in 2008, Ms Spinnewijn worked as a sergeant with a focus on youth-policy for several years. As a police representative, she participated in several municipal initiatives to reduce youth nuisance and crime. Later, after becoming the youngest network inspector in community policing in the police force, she specialised in approaches to domestic and honour-related violence.

    In 2014 Ms Spinnewijn took on the role of acting superintendent of a general policing team and led her team through the first steps of the reorganisation of the Dutch national police.

    One year later she switched to the field of intelligence, becoming superintendent of three teams in the Dutch intelligence organisation in Oost-Brabant. She currently oversees international mutual legal assistance, as well as real time intelligence on emergency response to enhance safety and the ‘catch-them-in-the-act’ capabilities of the police force. In addition, she is responsible for intelligence on themes such as counter-terrorism and radicalisation, drugs trafficking and production, organised crime, outlaw motor gangs and high impact crime.

    Ms Spinnewijn hopes to complete her Executive Master in Tactical Policing in 2016. She is also participating in the ‘Candidates Programme’ of the Dutch police force, which is a programme for promising tactical and strategical police leaders. Ms Spinnewijn has participated in several international initiatives. During her studies she paid a visit to the Vienna Police (2007) to make an international comparison on the approach to domestic violence. As a delegate from the student board, she also visited the French police academy and Interpol in Lyon (2008) to study the French police system and international police co-operation.

    In 2010 and 2011 she took part in a Leonardo da Vinci European learning programme on community policing and visited and received colleagues from Spain, England and Italy to this end. Later she was invited to be a keynote speaker at an international symposium on gender violence in Valencia, Spain (2011). In return Ms Spinnewijn organised a 12-day ‘Leonardo da Vinci mobility project’ on the Dutch approach to Gender Violence in the Netherlands (2012) for Spanish police officers.

    Keynote: Real time intelligence: the power of social media in emergency response and crime fighting

  • Patrick Lin
    Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, USA
    Patrick Lin

    Patrick Lin, Ph.D., is the director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, based at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he’s an associate philosophy professor. He has other current and previous appointments at: Stanford Law School’s Centre for Internet and Society, Stanford’s School of Engineering, University of Notre Dame, US Naval Academy, Dartmouth College, New America Foundation, and Australia’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE). Dr. Lin has published extensively in technology ethics, especially on robotics, cybersecurity, human enhancements, nanotechnology, and more. He has delivered briefings and invited talks to government, military, industry, and academia, including: United Nations, US Department of Defence, CIA, US National Institutes of Health, US National Academies of Science, Google, Apple, Tesla, Nissan, Bosch, Daimler Benz, Harvard, US Air Force Academy, and many others.

    Keynote: Ethics of Connected and Autonomous Technologies

    As our world becomes more wired—more connected and with more autonomous technologies—new issues arise in ethics, law, and policy. These can affect areas from market share to national security. This talk gives an overview of those key issues, looking at the Internet of Things, self-driving cars, and other examples in technology.

  • Hsinchun Chen
    Univeristy of Arizona, USA
    Hsinchun Chen

    Hsinchun Chen, Ph.D.; Arizona Regents’ Professor, Thomas R. Brown Chair Professor in Management and Technology, University of Arizona; Director, Artificial Intelligence Lab; Fellow, ACM, IEEE, AAAS. Dr. Hsinchun Chen graduated with BS at the National Chiao-Tong University (Taiwan), MBA at SUNY Buffalo, and MS and Ph.D. at New York University. He is the University of Arizona Regents' Professor and Thomas R. Brown Chair Professor in Management and Technology. He is also a Fellow of ACM, IEEE and AAAS. Dr. Chen recently served as the lead Program Director of the Smart and Connected (SCH) Program at the NSF (2014-2015), a multi-year multi-agency health IT research program of USA. He is author/editor of 20 books, 280 SCI journal articles, and 150 refereed conference articles covering digital library, data/text/web mining, business analytics, security informatics, and health informatics. His overall h-index is 81 (22,000 citations for 840 papers according to Google Scholar). Dr. Chen founded the Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Arizona in 1989, which has received more than $40M in research funding from NSF, NIH, NLM, DOD, DOJ, CIA, DHS, and other agencies (90 grants, 40 from NSF). He has served as Editor-in-Chief of major ACM/IEEE, and Springer journals and conference/program chair of major ACM/IEEE/MIS conferences in digital library, information systems, security informatics, and health informatics. He is also a successful IT entrepreneur. His COPLINK/i2 system for security analytics was commercialized in 2000 and acquired by IBM as its leading government analytics product in 2011. Dr. Chen has served as an advisor to major federal research programs and was a Scientific Counselor of the National Library of Medicine (USA), National Library of China, and Academia Sinica (Taiwan). He is a visiting chair professor at several major universities in China (Tsinghua University) and Taiwan (National Taiwan University). He is internationally renowned for leading the research and development in the health analytics (data and text mining; health big data; DiabeticLink and SilverLink) and security informatics (counter terrorism and cyber security analytics; security big data; COPLINK, Dark Web and Hacker Web) communities. See: http://ai.arizona.edu/hchen

    Keynote: The Hacker Web Project: Exploring and Data Mining the International Community of Hackers

    In this talk I will review our highly-acclaimed NSF-funded Hacker Web research, which develops advanced data, text and web mining techniques to explore the international underground hacker community. Selected research in identifying key hackers, important hacker assets, and emerging threats in the carding community will be presented. Via collaboration with the intelligence community and industry, we have also developed tools and datasets for assisting the law enforcement and security analytics community.

    For more project information, see: https://ai.arizona.edu/research/cyber; For recent NSF press information, see: https://nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=136513&org=NSF

  • Babak Akhgar
    Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research , Sheffield Hallam University, UK
    Babak Akhgar

    Babak Akhgar, PhD, FBCS, is Professor of Informatics and Director of CENTRIC (Centre of excellence in terrorism, resilience, intelligence and organised crime research). Babak has more than 100 referred publications on security, OSINT, counter terrorism and cybercrime. He is principal investigator and technical lead in several multimillion Euros international security initiatives. Prof Akhgar is technical coordinator of two major EU security projects on Dark web (identification of terrorist generated content) and Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism policy and research agenda development. He has co-edited two books on intelligence management – Intelligence Management: Knowledge Driven Frameworks for Combating Terrorism and Organised Crime, and Strategic Intelligence Management: National Security Imperatives and Information and Communications Technologies. Prof Akhgar latest books are titled Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism, An investigators handbook and Application of Big Data for National Security are published by Elsevier. His forthcoming book is titled Open Source Intelligence investigation processes for Law enforcement agencies. In addition to his scholarly activities; Prof Akhgar is trustee of Police National Legal Database (PNLD), Advisory board member of West Yorkshire Police Independent Advisory Group for Cyber Crime, board member of European Organisation for Security and member of SAS UK academic board.

    Keynote: Development of Situational Awareness Capabilities using Open Source Intelligence

    One of the most important aspects for a successful police operation is the ability for the police to obtain timely, reliable and actionable intelligence related to the investigation or incident at hand. As well as traditional investigative techniques and information sources, data available openly has the potential to be transformed into open-source intelligence (OSINT). OSINT, which includes intelligence garnered from social media and the cyber space, can provide a credible avenue to access intelligence beyond that which can be found only in closed sources. Furthermore, the combination of OSINT with real-time analytical capabilities can provide law enforcement agencies with a powerful situational awareness capability to combat terrorism and organised crime. Using a number of practical case studies, this talk will address:

    1. An overview of OSINT
    2. Critical success factors for combining OSINT with real time analytics
    3. Identification of the core requirements for a situational awareness platform
  • Toni Männistö
    Toni Männistö

    Toni Männistö is a researcher and consultant in logistics risk management, supply chain security and trade facilitation. Dr. Männistö obtained a PhD in supply chain security at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in January 2015. Before embarking on the PhD program in late 2011, he graduated (MSc) in Industrial Engineering and Management from Aalto University of Technology, Helsinki. Since 2009, Dr. Männistö has been working for Cross-border Research Association, a Swiss based research institute, and during this time he has contributed to numerous research and consulting projects and published several studies at academic and industry journals. He has also carried out independent consulting projects at postal, pharmaceutical and defense sectors and edited two practice-oriented periodicals, the Network Industry Quarterly and the Postal Industry. His current research interests include coordinated border management, customs risk management, critical infrastructure protection and air cargo security.

    Keynote: Fighting cross-border crime with information and intelligence

    Global logistics networks enable transport of physical goods at a large scale that is necessary for modern international trade and commerce. It is unfortunate, however, that the same logistics networks seem to enable transnational crime and terrorism, as well. This keynote speech discusses a broad range of criminal activities that are associated with the global transport and logistics. Highlighting recent technological developments and regulatory reforms, the keynote illustrates why access to new databases, intelligent analytics, and powerful hardware is unlocking new promising ways to combat cross-border crime and terrorism in the global supply chains. With case examples from business and government organisations, the keynote summarises future prospects of data-driven and risk-based law enforcement and supply chain management.

  • Stephane Duguin
    Officer of the French National Police, France

    Officer of the French National Police, Mr. Duguin held positions in several departments: Judicial Police, Public Safety, and International Cooperation Office. Starting in 2009 in Europol, he led key operational projects, such as the setup of the Europol Operational Centre and the creation of the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). He is currently the head of the European Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) within the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in Europol.

    Keynote: The spread of terrorist/ violent extremist propaganda online and Europol’s EU Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) as a response to this threat

    Europe is currently facing the most significant terrorist threat in the past decade. While the so-called digital revolution has empowered citizens in unprecedented ways, technological developments and the emergence of Social Media have changed behavior, interaction, modus operandi and ways of communication of terrorist groups. Recent terrorist attacks and thwarted attacks have shed light on how the Internet is currently used by terrorists as a key element to disseminate propaganda, recruit, radicalize, coordinate terrorist activities and glorify their atrocities.

    Given the size and the complexity of this phenomenon, a coordinated European response was indispensable to address this threat. Within this background, Europol launched in July 2015 the EU Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU). The Unit is part of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) and is mandated to fight terrorist and violent extremist propaganda on the Internet.