Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day 2009, and fortunately was unsuccessful.

The attempt was absolutely preventable, though.

From database typos that allowed his name to go unflagged by airport security to the lack of available equipment that would easily have detected the explosive materials hidden on his person, it all could have been avoidable.

President Barack Obama even said we "had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot ... but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots."

Connecting "those dots" is now of prominent concern.

This paper outlines strategies and methods for intelligence agencies and police forces around the world seeking to share and validate information used in security and crime investigations. Read on to learn how the right information can be shared to:

• Build on established trusted networks to provide access to complete, accurate and timely information across jurisdictions
• Provide new investigative tools that enhance the agencies' ability to fight crime and terrorism
• Aggregate case-sensitive information with three-tier data access
• Relate massive amounts of data and apply sophisticated analytics and business rules that may proactively notify users if certain relationships are uncovered
• And so much more