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Open Source Intelligence

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nothing-to-do-with-source-code dept.

Artifice_Eternity writes: "Time magazine is running a story highlighting the US government's neglect of open source intelligence, or OSINT. OSINT includes stuff on the Internet and in various newspapers and periodicals, as well as "gray literature" (limited-availability publications like dissertations, local phone directories, etc.). It also includes foreign-language experts, and commercial data (satellite maps, news archives, scientific research). The mass of data to be crunched indicates how intelligence is an information processing problem in today's world."

2 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. From the Department of Redundancy Department... by Indras · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...comes the title of the article:

    "Open Source Intelligence"

    --
    The speed of time is one second per second.
  2. It all comes down to manpower by Choco-man · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've long been an advocate of something very similiar to what he's proposing. However, the single most limiting factor in todays intelligence community is one of employees. Satellites aren't able to record conversations in swahili in a back room of shanty town a. You need to have someone physically there (and capable of speaking the language/culture, plus be able to blend in as one of the locals). In order to make use of most of these 'open source' intelligence avenues, you're going to have to have manpower at their locations to 1) identify them 2) collect them.

    today's intel community suffers from a lack of qualified individuals who are able to successfully staff locations around the world. Identifying openly available sources of information is a great idea, but we've got to get the people in there to do it.