Company in the spotlight: Distillery Software
to overall knowledge holdings by providing a fusion view of operations and core intelligence.”
Indeed Intelligence Hub (which was previously known as the InterQuest Intelligence Server) is not only utilized by security agencies but has developed in conjunction with them. The product’s security framework, for example, has been developed over a number of years in collaboration with Australian and New Zealand national intelligence organizations. This security framework includes functions such as signposts, tripwires and access certificates. It also provides for compartmentalization and controls access to information from the record group level to individual field values.
The Australian Defense Signals Directorate (which is the Australian information security authority) has placed systems using Intelligence Hub at the highest levels of classification.
In brief, Intelligence Hub provides a platform for:
- intelligence collection, analysis, production and dissemination,
- tasking, briefing and coordination,
- incident management,
- profile matching, security vetting and risk assessment,
- fraud and compliance management.
Intelligence Hub possesses various modules specifically focusing on identity search, vetting, investigation management and intelligence-centric case management. Its entity and link model enables the capture and linking of information to generate intelligence.
Another of Distillery Software’s products, the Analyst Desktop, is closely integrated with Intelligence Hub and provides web-delivered document analysis and visual charting capabilities. It also provides round trip link charting to ensure that the capture of any relationship analysis performed by users are retained for ongoing use. This integration of the efforts of multiple analysts increases the spectrum of potential avenues of examination — both stimulating and channeling their experience and professional creativity.
Analyst Desktop is designed to be user-friendly — simple to use and roll out across a wide user base with different levels of training and experience. According to Distillery Software, standard training to learn to use the document analysis and charting tools takes one day, thus new users can be up and running quickly without the need for extensive planning or cost.
Distillery Software collaborates with a number of technology and research entities as well as commercial companies. It is working with Sun Microsystems, Oracle and Adobe in solution enhancement. It works with the systems integrators of Logica, Unisys and Park Lane to ensure the successful implementation of its solutions to a global customer base. Finally it works with research entities such as the Australia’s Information and Communications Technology’s (ICT) Center of Excellence (NICTA), the Australian National University and the Center for Customs & Excise, at the University of Canberra.
Distillery Software has won various business and technology awards, and has been a successful recipient of Australian Federal Government Research and Development Grants. These grants led to the development of solutions for intelligence-centric information management, which in Distillery’s opinion, allowed its customers to maintain an edge in the face of increasingly sophisticated commercial and national security threats.
In March 2009 Distillery Software was selected to implement a new generation investigation management solution for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. The new Case Management System for Investigations (CMSI) will be built upon the Intelligence Hub platform and is geared at providing Customs and Border Control with a further capability to leverage information held for broader intelligence analysis and sharing purposes.
- The goal of intelligence is truth. Experience and inventiveness are key elements in uncovering that truth. Has Distillery Software made the task easier by creating ‘intelligent’ software for intelligence analysts? Its customers seem to think so.
