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> Middle East to predict locations of IED.

Would be interesting to know how that would work.

They use existing IED locations and layers of GIS data to determine where terrorists would be likely to place them. For instance, they use events as training data and then measure distance to light posts, distance from school, distance from whatever to create heat maps of high risk IED areas. The problem is the terrorists algorithm changes as we get better at stopping them. Cat and mouse.

http://www.army.mil/article/125989/JIEDDO_launches_redesigne...

>> "DOD has a tendency of creating shell companies to buy up these startups without the usual oversight."

Have an example of this?

Here's one of the shell companies:

http://www.strategiclinkpartners.com/

What is the difference between a shell and a defense contractor?

Only thing I see so far is the DigaForce deal; co-founder's profile on LinkedIn lacks any "oddness" in my opinion.

Predicting IED location from social media data sounds like such a brittle strategy.