Unlike leaks from a faucet, only some leaks from the Obama Whitehouse annoy the administration.
All administrations approve of their “leaks” and dislike unfavorable “leaks.” In either case, it is an information mapping issue.
First, people who have access to particular documents or facts become topics. Their known associates, from FBI background checks, Facebook pages, etc., also become topics. Form associations between them.
Second, phone traffic and visitor/day book log entries become topics and build associations with Whitehouse staff and their friends.
Third, documents with high likelihood to have “leakable” stories or facts, are topics with timed associations as they fan out across the staff.
Fourth, “leaks” in the media, particularly by time of the disclosure, are captured as topics as well as who reported it, etc.
No magic, just automating and making correlations between information and records that already exist in disparate forms.
A topic map enables estimates of how effective approved “leaks” are propagating or investigation of the sources of unapproved “leaks.”
Topic maps: calibrating leakage.
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PS: There are defenses to highly correlated data gathering/analysis. Please inquire.