By Jacquelynn D. Powers, Photos: Fernando Escovar

eff Jonas prefers Metallica to Beethoven and partying to playing chess. In fact, the young-at-heart entrepreneur responsible for inventing some of the world's most cutting-edge recognition technology is more at home at the Foundation Room than in a stuffy boardroom. Locally, Jonas is probably better known for his raucous New Year's Eve parties than for his significant software that helped reveal the identities of the September 11th terrorists shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

Perhaps most paradoxically, Jonas, the founder of Systems Research & Development (SRD), is a crusader for protecting privacy while he develops programs that some people feel are trampling on our freedoms as Americans. Actually, to a layman, Jonas' work does seem to be particularly invasive, especially in this post-September 11th climate. But the quirky programmer is actually aiming to use his technology to uphold our rights while at the same time nabbing the bad guys. "We have to make sure we don't screw up our civil liberties as we try to chase down terrorists," he explains. "This is very important. I spend about 60 percent of my life making sure we get that right."

As a scientist on the forefront of recognition and encryption technology (his work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweekand The Washington Post), Jonas, 39, is a regular in Washington, D.C., where he advises top-secret government organizations on issues of national security. During these high-level meetings, Jonas, a high-school dropout, tries to find ways to deliver the information the government needs (names or criminal history) without endangering anyone's privacy.

One of his inventions, NORA (an acronym for Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness), links people based on their previous associations. NORA can also recognize all variations of a name based on linguistics, and, yes, there are more than a handful of ways to spell "Muhammad." But Jonas is quick to point out NORA is only a smoke detector that can ferret out complex connections. "For example, it can detect whether the person getting on the Disney cruise ship is Muhammad Atta's roommate," he explains. "It doesn't tell you Muhammad Atta's roommate is bad, it just tells you that it's Muhammad Atta's roommate. It doesn't try to predict people's behavior."

In the wake of September 11th, this technology helped the U.S. government identify the Al Qaeda hijackers. "We were processing lots of data and finding really cool stuff," Jonas, who was staying near the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, recalls. "We found things of immediate investigatory importance to national law enforcement." Consequently, in September 2002, he received an award from FBI director Robert Mueller for his efforts. "It was exciting," he remarks. "After September 11th, I remember going to bed knowing what we were finding and saying, Wow. It feels good to know you're making a difference. And it's also my hobby." ...

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