HOLMES 2 and the search for Madeleine McCann.

[ShiningInLuz]

HOLMES 2 appears to be the software used by Operation Grange.

Your introductory article to Holmes 2 is Wikipedia. 

Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOLMES_2

Info at this point in time.

“HOLMES 2 (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) is an information technology system that is predominantly used by UK police forces for the investigation of major incidents such as serial murders and multimillion-pound frauds.

The system is a single application which was developed by Unisys for the Police Information Technology Organisation under the Private Finance Initiative. It provides total compatibility and consistency between all the Police forces of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as the Royal Military Police. The name of the system is a reference to the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes.”

“History of development

HOLMES

HOLMES was introduced in 1985 and enabled law enforcement agencies to improve effectiveness and productivity in crime investigations. Like the later HOLMES 2, it was an administrative support system which was primarily designed to assist Senior Investigation Officers in their management of the complexity of investigating serious crime. To this end, HOLMES carefully processed the mass of information it was provided with and ensured that no vital clues were overlooked.

HOLMES was also used to support the Police UK Casualty Bureau providing facilities to record reported missing persons, casualties, survivors and evacuees. The application provides matching facilities to aid the reconciliation of missing persons with those involved in the incident.

But the system had crucial weaknesses, too. It provided very little support to the investigation of the crime per se and had only very limited opportunities to link separate incidents, especially across police force boundaries. What was needed was a solution that allowed an increased amount of information exchange combined with a better use of the information.

Replacement

Against this background, the British police forces started a plan to replace the existing system with a new, improved version in 1994. The new version, HOLMES 2, overcame the known weaknesses of HOLMES. Additionally, it is more flexible for future changes and provides a speedier and more efficient access to information. The system was finally released to the first forces in 2000, while the last forces became operational in early 2004.

Applications

As mentioned above, HOLMES 2's most important function is the one as a crime investigation tool. For this purpose, it is based on an organised and methodical approach, whose structure concentrates on the major incident room (MIR). This is the administrative centre where further investigation actions are coordinated and all the information from members of public, enquiry officers and other sources is gathered. With the help of input masks, HOLMES 2 is provided with the relevant information and used by the senior investigating officer to direct and control the course of the enquiry. In this respect, the system uses a combination of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and purpose-built software to provide the most cost-effective system for the police service. Furthermore, the improved HOLMES embeds computer intelligence for the first time. The Dynamic Reasoning Engine (DRE), for example, makes it possible to combine the skills and experiences of crime investigators with the acquired knowledge of the system in order to identify new lines of enquiry.

Another important use of HOLMES 2 lies in disaster management. The reason for this can be seen in the similarities that exist between the investigation of a major incident and a major disaster. In case of a disaster, HOLMES 2 collaborates with the facilities for disaster management via the Casualty Bureau.[2] The additional functions required for Casualty Bureau operations, like recording Interpol data and specific action management facilities, are fully integrated into the HOLMES 2. HOLMES 2 also provides the ability to pool resources in order to handle more effectively the initial peak load of missing person calls from the public.

There is also a fully mobile version of HOLMES 2 which can be run on a laptop for use in courts or while travelling.

Technical details

The client/server architecture of HOLMES 2 is based on Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional or NT 4.0 workstations with UNIX servers running either Solaris or UnixWare. The system network communicates by using TCP/IP network protocols for LAN and WLAN communication.

Furthermore, HOLMES 2 uses a two-tier approach for local database access and a 3-tier approach for remote database access, whereby remote database access is user-configurable from the front end. A freetext database allows users to ask unstructured questions and to present the results in order of relevance. Apart from that, a dual operation was adopted to increase the speed of the system. While searches themselves were tuned at the SQL (Structured Query Language) level, additional indexes on the RDBMS (relational database management system) tables were deployed.”

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[G-Unit]

Here is a good link to information, including a downloadable example of how the system was used in a murder case;

http://www.holmes2.com/holmes2/sampleinv/

[Alfred R Jones]

Why have you started a thread about HOLMES when it's only as good as the rubbish you feed into it and years out of date anyway?

[Alfred R Jones]

Perhaps the resident HOLMES experts could debunk each of these outrageous claims from Jouranl De noticias with their evidence and reasoning:


1)Scotland Yard possesses software designed to reconstruct, in a virtual way, the facts that have been reported by the various witnesses who have intervened in the process of Maddie's disappearance.

2)The versions of those involved may be cross referenced, and after the data is processed by the software, one can understand what adds up – and what does not.

3)In this software, one can insert photos and the description of the apartment, including Maddie's bedroom, drawings or photos of the entries, routes to the restaurant – and a description thereof – where the parents and friends were dining, their table and the localization and position of each person.

4)The software will also receive the statements that everyone has made and will be making (the English will hear the McCann couple's friends again), as these people may recall facts, as small as they may be, and even add objects that may give their descriptions more veracity.

5) From there on, the investigators may reach more precise conclusions, which, very often, belies the testimonies that have been described in their statements.

[Alfred R Jones]

Also, it would be great if you could poo-poo this idiocy to within an inch of its life, as it's about the even more laughable notion that the Portuguese also possess similar timeline reconstruction- assisting software:

The only known virtual reconstruction was made by the professors Paulo Sargento (Criminal psychology) and by Pedro Gamito (IT department) of the Lusófona University, using as its basis the statements of the McCanns and their friends. By means of specific software, the statements given to the PJ were evaluated and cross-checked. Thus, one can now understand better the possibilities of each one of them being at a certain place and time, as stated by them.

[ShiningInLuz]

Why have you started a thread about HOLMES when it's only as good as the rubbish you feed into it and years out of date anyway?

HOLMES was being discussed at length on a thread not covering HOLMES, thus taking that thread off-topic.

I have simply enabled those who are interested to form their own opinion of the tool.

If your starting position is that "it's only as good as the rubbish you feed into it and years out of date anyway", you are of course entitled to your opinion.

The opinion of the mod who approved the thread was that the topic was worthy of its own thread.

Having settled the basics, can we move on?

[jassi]

If 3 or 4 people give conflicting times or positions at a certain time, how does Holmes resolve this, or does it just flag it up as a discrepancy and leave to to human intervention to resolve?

[slartibartfast]

Some people seem to want to worship at the altar of technology, as stated elsewhere, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[Mr Gray]

Some people seem to want to worship at the altar of technology, as stated elsewhere, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

strange post...have you ever stopped to think where we would be without new technology

[G-Unit]

It may help to explain HOLMES with reference to the PJ Files. If they were put into HOLMES, which I'm sure they have been, they can be searched. To give a simple example the police may want to check the time the police were called. They type in the search term 'Calls to GNR' (or similar) and all the information connected to the calls appears on-screen. That could include the receptionist's statement, the printout of the calls received, Matthews statement that he went to reception, Fiona's statement that she asked him to go etc. In other words, everything connected to that incident.

That allows the police to compare all the information in the files relating to a particular incident quickly and easily. They can print out everything they find and compare it on paper too.

It's easy to see how having everything in HOLMES makes life easier. Once it's all in there it's less likely that an important piece of information will be missed because they're all connected. Whatever search term you put in, all the information connected to that search will be brought up. When you have thousands of pieces of information that makes life much easier.

What HOLMES can't do is choose who's right or wrong. That still has to be decided by human beings, HOLMES just makes it quicker and easier to find all the relevant information. So if ten people say they saw something at a certain time and one person says it was an hour earlier, a policeman has to decide who is correct. His job is made easier because he can find all the information relating to the incident quickly and bring it up on screen to compare it all. 

[jassi]

Some people seem to want to worship at the altar of technology, as stated elsewhere, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Certainly the technologies of phone tracking and DNA have proved disappointing in this case.

[G-Unit]

strange post...have you ever stopped to think where we would be without new technology

If we didn't have our wonderful mobile phones we might be talking to the people we're with instead of to someone we're not with. On the other hand life is much easier when we can keep in touch with each other. There are always pluses and minuses.

[Mr Gray]

If we didn't have our wonderful mobile phones we might be talking to the people we're with instead of to someone we're not with. On the other hand life is much easier when we can keep in touch with each other. There are always pluses and minuses.

i'm well aware there are pluses and minuses but the alternative is living in the dark ages...my mobile makes my life a lot easier

[G-Unit]

i'm well aware there are pluses and minuses but the alternative is living in the dark ages...my mobile makes my life a lot easier

Exactly. Just as HOLMES makes life easier for detectives. It's a tool which helps them to be more efficient, it doesn't replace them. Detectives solve cases, not computers.

[Mr Gray]

Exactly. Just as HOLMES makes life easier for detectives. It's a tool which helps them to be more efficient, it doesn't replace them. Detectives solve cases, not computers.

Has anyone said computers do solve cases