Gaffer is a graph database "optimised for retrieving data on nodes of interest" developed by the notorious UK spy agency GCHQ, and now you can download, run and improve it because they've posted it to Github under the permissive, free/open Apache license.
Gaffer departs from usual graph database architectures in that it has the "ability to update properties within the store itself," which "is key to the ability to ingest large volumes of data."
GCHQ taps more fiber optic lines than any other agency except, perhaps, the NSA.
Gaffer was designed to meet the following requirements:
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Allow the creation of graphs with summarised properties within Accumulo with a very minimal amount of coding.*
Allow flexibility of statistics that describe the entities and edges.*
Allow easy addition of new types of nodes and edges.*
Allow quick retrieval of data on nodes of interest.*
Deal with data of different security levels – all data has a visibility, and this is used to restrict who can see data based on their authorizations.*
Support automatic age-off of data.
