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Using source material from public documents of academia, the US-military as well as from the Snowden publications I will show that Social Graphs and graph-analysis are central for the War on Terror.
In this context Drones have at least two functions: 1. they act as data-gatheres, collecting visual and SIGINT (phone) data necessary for graph-generation and -updates. 2. they are deployed to shape Social Graphs: that is destroy particular nodes with kinetic means where the kill decision are made on the basis of graph analysis.
I will show that there is a rich academic literature on graph analysis of terror networks revealing an ongoing debate about algorithms able to inform such decisions.
On this basis I will argue that in the War on Terror Drones and Social-Graphs need to be understood as interdependent systems and that the debate needs to be informed by a deeper understanding of the history and current state of graph-analysis.
The talk will conclude with questions regarding the strategic and geopolitical role of Social Graphs.