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Open Source Spying

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the cloak-and-dagger-plus-5 dept.

eldavojohn writes "The New York Times is running a very lengthy but amazingly interesting article on the short history of open source software and information on the inside of the intelligence community. The article discusses the transformation of the intelligence community from fighting the Cold War with traditional information exchange to fighting terrorism today utilizing things like wikis & blogs. From the end of the article, 'Today's spies exist in an age of constant information exchange, in which everyday citizens swap news, dial up satellite pictures of their houses and collaborate on distant Web sites with strangers. As John Arquilla told me, if the spies do not join the rest of the world, they risk growing to resemble the rigid, unchanging bureaucracy that they once confronted during the cold war. "Fifteen years ago we were fighting the Soviet Union," he said. "Who knew it would be replicated today in the intelligence community?"' You may recall that the CIA now has their own classified Wiki. I think it's interesting that the 9/11 Report recommended that United States agencies such as the DoD, CIA & FBI learn to share information more freely to overcome terrorism and now they're turning to internet community applications to accomplish that."

21 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Movie OS is a lie? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope I don't have to repeat myself.

    THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.

    "Yeah, our systems are like old and stuff. Boy we sure aren't very technically adept at all. We couldn't monitor all phone calls in the world and automatically flag some for futher investigation. Nosiree. We're just some bumpkins who fell off the turnip truck near the guardpost at Langley. What's a cumpooter?"

    1. Re:Movie OS is a lie? by dbIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's a big difference between a Tom Clancy fantasy and reality. These agencies are nowhere near as competant as the conspiracy theorists think - I'll guess that after a long list of dramatic failures the agencies of other nations will not trust US intelligence unless it is verified from another source. There's even loonies that think polygraph tests and torture work to find out if people are telling the truth at the top of some of those agencies. The famous link between Saddam and Bin Laden shown to the world - ravings of a drowing man who knew barely anything about the organisation he hadn't been in for long.

    2. Re:Movie OS is a lie? by SunTzuWarmaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you are weak, let your enemies think you are strong, for they will be afraid to attack. If you are strong, let your enemies think you are weak, for they will attack the ground of your choosing. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

    3. Re:Movie OS is a lie? by stunt_penguin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Thing is, I think Clancy didn't to too badly when showing that actually half the time the intelligence community doesn't know what's going on, they're not omnipotent, and that communication is very far from perfect; with multiple levels of bureaucracy, personal matters getting in the way of getting things done, and the occasional bout of duplicity.

      --
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    4. Re:Movie OS is a lie? by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only problem with Sun Tzu's words is that "your enemies" are not always easily distinguishable from "citizens of your country who have done nothing wrong".

      Which is exactly the issue that intelligence agencies are dealing with.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    5. Re:Movie OS is a lie? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      These agencies are nowhere near as competant as the conspiracy theorists think

      Having been a full-time employee at the NSA, I can say that these agencies are nowhere near as competent as Hollywood often thinks, much less what the conspiracy theorists think.

      Posting anonymously for obvious reasons...

    6. Re:Movie OS is a lie? by SunTzuWarmaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So we should tell them everything that we are capable of?

      Like it or not, this is an information war just as much as it is a religious one. Terrorists/Guerilla troops never purposely attack strong locations. If we can mislead them into thinking a strong location is weak, they will attack it (and hopefully lose). If we can mislead them into thinking a weak location is strong, they will not attack it. It is that simple.

      What you imply is that terrorists drive down the street weilding rocket launchers and attacking every target, regardless of tactical importance. In reality, they seem to be targetting places where economics (Trade Centers), politics/leaders (UN buildings) and transportation (planes, trains) are located.

      If you put up a facade that one particular UN building has impossibly tight security, do you honestly think that they will target it because the "Great Satan" is there?

  2. It makes you wonder by aussie_a · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It makes you wonder whether or not people will take offense to their tools being used by such agencies and whether or not they'll develop licenses to ban them from using them. If they do, would they be enforceable (assuming the person somehow found out). And if it was enforceable, is there absolutely any way to find out legally? Whistle blower? If the government breaks license agreements and classifies that information, shouldn't that be illegal?

    1. Re:It makes you wonder by arun_s · · Score: 4, Informative

      RTFA please! The title is a bit misleading, the article is not one bit about open source software. Its about having a more 'open' online presence within its branches, such as through the use of blogs and wikis. The blogs example particularly has a good case for it: the example of google using links to rank the importances of pages is given, compared to the mess of unsortable data the government previously seemed to be having.

      --
      I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
    2. Re:It makes you wonder by Monsuco · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It makes you wonder whether or not people will take offense to their tools being used by such agencies and whether or not they'll develop licenses to ban them from using them
      The NSA made security enhanced Linux, other government agencies have worked with FOSS projects. Rather than banning it, they should encourage it. Besides, our enemies don't care about licenses. Which do you prefer, the NSA using Linux and FBI using Wiki software, or seeing our enemies be the only ones to take advantage of it?
      --
      The Gospel according to lolcat
    3. Re:It makes you wonder by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you disallow intelligence agencies from using your software, it's not open source

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    4. Re:It makes you wonder by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I most certainly do not want the NSA to have any software at all.

      Then realistically, you're going to have to stop developing not only open source software, but any software at all.

      This is the flip side of "information wants to be free" -- once it is free, it's really free. Proprietary, open source, whatever; once the bits are out there, they're not going back. Microsoft cannot stop people from using Word to write documents critical of Microsoft, or Visual Studio to develop software that competes with Microsoft's offerings. The NSA cannot stop people from using SE Linux to securely store, process, and transmit information that might be detrimental to the US. China cannot stop its citizens from reading web sites which contain content the government doesn't like; neither can Iran. And you, once you write a piece of software that might somehow be useful to some spook in some three-letter agency, and release that software into the wild, have absolutely no control over what happens afterwards.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  3. Back then by El+Lobo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Back in the cold war times, secret services agencies had hundred of peoples reading ad analyzing every number of the must important publications in the world, searching for clues and disguised information. I guess the same can be applied now for the web, with the advantage that it's a lot easier to search the web and classify information using database filters than it was back then.

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    1. Re:Back then by hazem · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ironically, such people are called "Open Source Analysts" - as in the source is not classified/closed and is out in the open. Even a few years ago the CIA was still advertising such positions. They typically require a high level of language fluency and cultural literacy.

  4. Do other countries spy agencies do the same thing? by dnarepair · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One thing tha was not really discussed in the Times article was whether the same type of "social software" is being used in other countries' spy agencies. And what about international groups like Interpol and NATO. How do they share information that is sensitive and/or secret in some way?

  5. Open Source? by teoryn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just because they said Open Source on one of ten pages doesn't meant they're talking about open source software. Blogs and Wikis are concepts, and it wasn't mentioned what software they run on. The whole thing was just about (surprise surprise) how much technology sucks in the government, and how two people (out of all of inteligence community) are trying to change it. The reported just used the term 'Open Source' to mean shareing.

    RTFA.

  6. DoD Using OSS by Derlum · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think it's interesting that the 9/11 Report recommended that United States agencies such as the DoD, CIA & FBI learn to share information more freely to overcome terrorism and now they're turning to internet community applications to accomplish that.

    Very interesting, but certainly not surprising. Tools such as Wikis and blogs have exploded in popularity with the private sector because they are easy to use and more efficient than available alternatives (if any exist). It makes perfect sense that government agencies would be looking to harness those same advantages that have worked to the benefit of the public at large.

    I think one of the most interesting things to me in my limited dealings with unclassified DoD communications contracting is that these government entities do not have an aversion to or ignorance of the available OSS technologies. On the contrary, they frequently have a strong desire to use these tools, but they're waiting for budget money to contract someone to tell them how to use it properly and securely. Unfortunately they often end up waiting far longer than they should.

  7. Re:BTW, that information sharing?... by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Patriot Act was designed to address the lack of interagency communication, specifically with regards to intelligence. The FBI didn't know what the CIA didn't know what the NSA didn't know what the local police didn't know. Now that all the federal agencies are under the DHS banner, they can share information easily and openly.

    All that other stuff was just a bonus!

  8. The sad part? by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 2, Informative

    Pathetic that an open-source wiki *needs* to be established, but it's accomplished more than, say, SAIC's failed $200M boondoggle that was supposed to modernize the FBI's computer systems. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485_pf.html for an enlightening read.

  9. Re:BTW, that information sharing?... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Informative

    Um, have you actually read the Patriot Act? Of the Act's 10 Titles, only one section of one title (Sec. 504) even remotely relates to improving coordination among government agencies. Most of the rest of the act is designed to increase government powers relating to anti-terrorism enforcement, anti-money-laundering enforcement, anti-counterfeiting enforcement, and increasing the powers and authority of the Director of Central Intelligence and the President.

    The Patriot Act does not setup DHS, nor does it put any other federal agencies under the discretion of DHS.

    --
    My blog
  10. Be careful with meaning of "open source" by apfsds · · Score: 2, Informative

    First of all, Slashdotters need to understand that the term "open source" can be used differently in other contexts. In the intelligence community it has a specific meaning that has nothing to do with software - it refers to intelligence information available through publicly available sources (e.g., the news media, jihadist web sites, web blogs). Don't read too much into the title of the article - I doubt even the author knows for sure which meaning of "open source" was intended.