 Live from Washington D.C., it's theCUBE. Covering.conf 2017, brought to you by Splunk. And welcome back, here on theCUBE, we continue our coverage of .conf 2017. Splunk skipped together here with some 7,000 plus attendees, 65 countries, right on the show floor. A lot of buzz happening down here, and it's all good. Along with Dave Vellante, I'm John Walls. We are live, as I said, in our nation's capital. And we're joined by a guest who represents the organization that is a member of the Splunk for Good program. We're going to explain that just a little bit. But Sherry Caligironi is the founder and executive director of the Global Emancipation Network. And Sherry, thanks for being with us. We appreciate your time. Thanks so much for having me on, John. So your organization has to do with countering and combating global trafficking, human trafficking. That's right. We think about sex trafficking, labor trafficking, but you're a participant in the Splunk for Good program, which is their 10-year pledge to support organizations such as yours to the tune of up to $100 million over that 10 years to all kinds of organizations. So first off, let's just talk about that process, how you got involved, and then we want to get into how you're actually using this data that you're mining right now from your work. So first off, how did you get involved with Splunk? So it was really organic in that it's a really small community. There are a lot of people in the tech space who I found really want to use their skills for good. And they're very happy to make connections between people. So we had a mutual friend actually introduce me to Monzi Merza, who's the head of security here at Splunk. And he said, you know, I'm really passionate about trafficking. I want to help fight trafficking. Let me connect you with Corey Marshall at Splunk for Good. So the rest is really history. And I have to tell you, yes, they have pledged up to $100 million to help and in products and services. But what's more is they really individually care about our projects and that they are helping me build things there. I call them up all the time and say, hey, let's brainstorm an idea. Let's solve a problem. Let's figure out how we can do this together. And they really are, you know, they're part of my family. They're part of Gen and Global Emancipation Network. That's outstanding. The size of the problem struck me today at the keynote when I talked about or when we talked about, first off, the various forms of trafficking that are going on. You set up to two dozen different subsets of trafficking. And then the size of the scale of 25 to 40 some million people around the globe are suffering because of trafficking conditions. I mean, that puts it all in a really different perspective. You're right, those aren't even numbers that we can really fathom what that means, can we? We don't know what 20 million looks like. And you're right, there's such a wide discrepancy between the numbers, 20 million, 46 million, maybe it's somewhere in between. And that is exactly part of the problem that we have is that there is no reliable data. Everyone silos their individual parts of the data that they have for trafficking, all the different stakeholders. That's government, NGOs, law enforcement, academia, it's all kinds, it runs the gamut really. And so it's really difficult to figure out exactly what the truth is. There's no reliable, repeatable way to count trafficking. So right now it's mostly anecdotal. It's NGOs reporting up to governments that say we've impacted this many victims or we encountered so and so who said that the trafficking ring that they escaped from had 20 other people in it, things like that. So it's really just an estimate and it's the best that we have right now. But with a data-led approach, hopefully we'll get closer to a real accurate number. So talk more about the problem and the root of the problem, how it's manifesting itself and we'll get into sort of what we can do about it. Yeah, so it's really interesting in that a lot of the things that cause poverty are the same things that cause trafficking. So it really is, you know, people become very vulnerable if they don't have a solid source of income or employment, things like that. So they are more willing to do whatever is necessary in order to do that. So it's easy to be lured into a situation where you can be exploited. For example, the refugee crisis right now that's happening across Europe and the Middle East is a major player for trafficking. It's a situation completely ripe for this. So people who are refugees who perhaps are willing to be smuggled out of the country illegally of course, right? But then at that point they are in the mercy and in the hands of the people who smuggled them and it's very easy for them to become trafficked. So things like poverty, other ways that you're marginalized, the LGBTQ community is particularly vulnerable, homeless population, a lot of the same issues that you see in other problems come up creates a situation of vulnerability to be exploited. And that's all trafficking really is, is the exploitation of one individual through force, coercion, fraud, position of authority to benefit another person. And these individuals are essentially what? Enslaved and put into slavery labor? Yeah, it's modern day slavery. Yeah, so there's lots of different forms as you mentioned that there's labor trafficking and that's several different forms. It can be that you're in a brick factory or maybe you're forced into like a fishing boat to for years and years. So usually they take away your passport if you were from another country. There's usually some threats. They know where your family lives. If you go tell anyone or you run away, they're going to kill your family, those sorts of things. So it is, it's modern day slavery but on a much, much bigger scale. So it's no longer legal, but it still happens. And how does data help solve the problem? And you as executive director, what kind of data, when you set the North Star for the organization from a data perspective, what did that look like and how is it coming into play? Well, one of the benefits that we have is an organization that's countering trafficking is that we are able to turn the tables on traffickers. So they are using the internet much the way that other private enterprises are, right? They know that that's how they move their product, which is in this case is sadly human beings. So they advertise for victims online. They recruit people online. So they're using social media apps and things like Facebook and kick and WhatsApp and whatnot. And then they're advertising openly for the people that they have recruited into trafficking and then they are trying to sell their services. So for example, everyone knows about Backpage. There's hundreds of websites like that. And it runs the gamut or they're recruiting people through false job advertisements. So we find where those sites are through lots of human intelligence and we're talking to lots of people all the time. And we gather those and we try to look for patterns to identify who are the victims? Who are the traffickers? What can we do about it? The data to get back to your original question is really what is going to inform policy to have a real change. So you can, in terms of I guess the forensics that you're doing or whatever you're doing with that data, you're looking at not only the websites but also the communications that are being spawned by those sites and looking to where those networks are branching off to. And so that's one of the things that we really like to try to do instead of getting a low level person, we like to try to build out an entire network so we can take down an entire ring instead of just the low fish, right? So we do, we extract from all the data from the website that we can to pull out names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, things like that, and then begin to make correlations where else have we seen those phone numbers and those addresses on these other websites that we're collecting from? Or did this person make a mistake which we love to exploit mistakes of traffickers and are they using the same user handle on their personal Flickr page that we can begin to get an attribution? And that happens. Absolutely. It does, yeah. Without giving away all my secrets exactly. No, give away the sewer here. But how much are you looking internationally as opposed to domestically then? So we collect right now from 22 different countries, I think 77 individual cities. So a lot of these websites are usually very jurisdictionally specific. So, you know, like Craigslist, you go into Washington State and you click on Seattle, something like that. So we harvest from the main trafficking points that we can. So we're I think collecting in six different languages right now. A lot of the data that we have right now is from the US because that's the easier way to start. It's the low-hanging fish. What does your partner ecosystem look like? I mean, it comprises law enforcement, local agencies, federal agencies, presumably NGOs. That's right. We describe that. Yeah, so we do. We partner with attorneys general. We partner with law enforcement. Those are the sort of operational partners that we look for when we have built out intelligence. Who do we give it to now? Because data is useless unless we do something with it, right? So we build out these target packages and intelligence and give it to people who can do something with it. So those are really easy people to do something with. How hard is that? Because you've got different, you know, jurisdictions and different policies and it's got to be like herding cats to get guys. It is. And it's actually something that they're begging for is a good tool that they can use to de-conflict with each other because they are running different trafficking-related operations all the time and to jurisdictions they overlap in many cases, especially when you're talking about moving people and they're going from one state to another state. So you have several jurisdictions and you need to de-conflict your programs. Okay, so they're very receptive to you guys coming to them with the data. They really want help and they're very, they're strapped for resources. These are most part not technically savvy people and this is one of the good things about our nonprofit is that it is staff of people who are very tech-savvy and who are very patient in explaining it and making it easy and usable and consumable by our customers. So if I'm an NGO out there, I'm a nonprofit out there and I'm very interested in having this kind of service. What would you say to them about how, what they can pursue, what kind of relationship you have with Splunk and the value they're providing and what your experience has been so far? It's been wonderful. I've been over at the Splunk for Good Booth all day helping out and it's been wonderful to see not only just the nonprofits who've come up and said, hey, I run a church, I'm trying to start a homeless shelter for drug-addicted individuals. What, how can you help me? And it's wonderful when you start to see the light bulbs go off between the nonprofit sector and the tech sector, between the philanthropic organizations like Splunk for Good, the nonprofits, and then, we can't forget the third major important part here which is those are the tech volunteers. These are the people who are here at the conference and who are Splunk employees and whatnot and teaching them that they can use their skills for good in the nonprofit sector. Has cryptocurrency, where people can conduct anonymous transactions made your job a lot more difficult? No, it hasn't and there's been a lot of research that has gone into blockchain analysis. So, for example, Backpage, all the ads are purchased with Bitcoin and so there's been a wonderful amount of research then trying to time the posts to when the Bitcoin was purchased and when the transactions happen. So they've done that and it's really successful. There are a couple of other companies who do just that, like Chain Analysis that we partner with. So you can use data to de-anonymize? That's right. It's not as anonymous as people think it is. Love it. Yeah, exactly. We love to exploit those little things like that. So a lot of the websites, they put their wallets out there and then we use that. They're like reverse hackers. That's right. So it's interesting that you say that because a lot of our volunteers actually are, they're hacker hunters. They're threat intel analysts and whatnot and so they've learned that they can apply the exact same methods and techniques into our field. So it's brilliant to see the ways in which they do that. So you don't move on the bad guys. Exactly. And how long does this go on for you? I mean, is this a year to year that you renew or is it a multi-year commitment? How does that work? It's a year to year that we renew our pledge but they're in it for the long haul with us. So they know that they're not getting rid of me and nor do they want me to, which is wonderful. So it's so good because they help, they sit at the table with me, always brainstorming. It's a year to year technically but I know that we're in it together for the long haul. How about fundraising? It'll be a big part of your job. Of course it is. Fundraising, you must spend a lot of time there. Maybe talk about that a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So some of our goals right now, for example, is we're really looking to hire a full-time developer. We want a full-time intelligence analyst so we're always looking to raise donations so you could donate on our website. Which is? Which is globalemancipation.ngo. We're also always looking for people who are willing to help donate their time and their skills and whatnot. So yeah, we have a couple of fundraising goals right now. We're always looking for that. We receive a lot of product donations from companies all over the world, mostly from the tech sector. So we're really blessed in that we aren't spending a lot of money in that. But we do need to hire a couple of people. So that's our next big goal. Well, I should have asked you this off the top. But among your title, executive director and founder, what was the founder of the company? And founder, what was the founder part? What motivated you to get involved in this? Because it's, I mean, there are a lot of opportunities, right, to do nonprofit work, but this one found you or you found it. That's right, it's a happy circumstance, right? I've always done anti-human trafficking since my college days, actually. I started volunteering or I was starting to intern at the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University, which was a legislative-based program. So it was really fantastic traveling the world, helping countries draft legislation on trafficking. But I really wanted to get closer and begin to measure my impact. So that's where I started thinking about data anyways, to be able to put our thumb, is what we're doing working? How are we going to be able to measure success and what does that look like? But then I started volunteering for a rescue operations organization, the sort of knock-down-the-doors-go-rescue-people group. And so I really liked having the closer impact and being able to feel like, hey, I can do something about this problem that I know is terrible and it's widespread. And a lot of the people I worked with, including my husband, come from the cyber-threat intelligence world. So I feel like those ideas and values have been steeped in me slowly and surely over the last decade, so I just ages myself right there a little bit, maybe. So yes, those ideas have been percolating over time, so it just kind of happened that way. You want to feel young, hang around with us? But I... Can you comment on the... I should speak for myself, John, I'm sorry. You're right on, believe me. I was not in my head right there with you. I'm okay. Can you comment on the media coverage? Is it adequate in your view? Does there need to be more? What's your... On trafficking itself. You know, it's really good that it's starting to come into the forefront a lot more. I'm hearing about it five years ago. There are most of the time, if I told people that there are still people in slavery it didn't end with the Civil War, they would stand at me slack-jawed. And there have been a few big media pushes to spend some films, like Taken, Liam Neeson's film rights. So that's always the image I use and that's just one type of trafficking. But I'm hearing more and more. Ashton Kutcher runs a foundation called Thorn that's really fantastic and they do a similar mission to what I do. And so he has been able to raise a spotlight a lot. Currently there's a debate on the floor of the Senate right now to talking about section 230 of the CDA which is sort of centered around the back page debate anyway. Where do we draw the line between the freedom of speech on the internet with ESPs in particular but being able to still catch bad guys exactly. The back page sort of founder idea. So it's really hot and present in the news right now. So I would love to see the media start to ask questions, drill down into the data to be able to ask and answer those real questions. So we're hoping that Global Emancipation Network will do that for the media and for policymakers around the world. Well it is extraordinary work being done by an extraordinary person. It's a privilege to have you on with us here on theCUBE. Thank you not only for the time but for the work you're doing and good luck with that. Thank you very much for having me on. I really appreciate it. That's the Global Emancipation Network at globalemancipation.ngo. That's right. Fundraising, always helpful. Back with more here on theCUBE in Washington DC right after this.