Spy Agencies Turn To Online Sources For Info

palegray.net sends us to US News and World Report for an article about increased spy agency use of online sources. Turning to well-known destinations such as NPR and Wikipedia, folks in the intelligence world are increasingly filling their reports with information gleaned from the public domain. "A few days ago, a senior officer at the Pentagon called his intelligence officer into his office. The boss had heard a news report about China while driving to his office and wanted some answers. It wasn't a tough assignment, given the news coverage, but there was a hitch. 'There was plenty of information in the public domain about the topic,' recalls the intelligence officer, a 10-year veteran. 'And yet, if there wasn't some classified information cited in my report, the boss would never believe it was accurate.'"

Comments

How naive can people get?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Spy Agencies Turn To Online Sources For Info

How naive can people get? Even I spy on my friends and neighbors this way and have done so for years. Professionals have been doing it for much longer.

Re:How naive can people get?

[lgw]

Seriously. Most spying is not covert at all. Most of our spies work openly, either here or in embassies in other nations, simply reading the local press and other local public information. This is called "official cover", but the spies aren't in any way covert (it now US law that if a memebr of, say, the CIA has ever been posted overseas with official cover, they can never do covert work - because CIA managers tried to get cute and lots of people died).

The one thing a CIA employee will never do is directly collect secret information from a forieng government - they're not sneaking into government buildings at night photographing secret documents with tiny cameras, or planting bugs, or etc. Overt agents just read the press (and get the mood on the street). Covert agents recuit trusted locals to do any sneaky stuff (often posing as a memebr of some other nation's covert intelligence arm - whatever nation the source is sympathetic to).

There was a time when the overt data colection would get you executed as a spy, so there's a historical reson for our overt agents to pose as State Department officials, but it's not exactly a secret these days (anyone in an American embassy is just automatically assumed to be a spy), and most useful and trustworthy information comes this way.

Re:How naive can people get?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually one of the more interesting bits i've run into concerning modern espionage is based exactly on what you're describing there. Between the restrictions on covert operatives and the restrictions on us "officials and ambassadors" usually the actual black-mask stuff is outsourced to a foreign power. This allows the US to state they did not authorize whatever it was, deny that their agents had anything to do with it (carefully), and also show that they didn't break the statute that US officials and ambassadors cannot bribe foreign nationals.

Funny thing is, all that takes is getting someone else to do the actual spying/bribing. Also interesting, it's thanks to this exact situation that is why canada has some of the best covert ops and communications interceptions people in the world.

Re:How naive can people get?

[causality]

Actually one of the more interesting bits i've run into concerning modern espionage is based exactly on what you're describing there. Between the restrictions on covert operatives and the restrictions on us "officials and ambassadors" usually the actual black-mask stuff is outsourced to a foreign power. This allows the US to state they did not authorize whatever it was, deny that their agents had anything to do with it (carefully), and also show that they didn't break the statute that US officials and ambassadors cannot bribe foreign nationals.

Amazing how that works, isn't it? This is a completely hypothetical scenario: If you kill someone, you are charged with murder; if you contract a thug to kill somebody for you ... you are charged with murder. If you're a US official and you conduct the "black-mask stuff", you are breaking the law. If you're a US official and you conduct the "black-mask stuff" by proxy, why, that's fine and good and you get to enjoy doing so with impunity. Isn't that wonderful?

I seem to be in a tiny minority because I believe that government officials should be held to a stricter standard and punished much more severely when they break the law, because when they do it and especially when they either get away with it or receive a slap on the wrist, it's a threat to the entire concept of rule of law. The fevered egos who want political power are easily replaced -- if any are legally removed from power by means of due process and convicted of a crime, there are plenty more where they came from. The concept of rule of law is not so easily replaced.

Re:How naive can people get?

[KGIII]

Sometimes laws need to be broken.

(Before the mods get snarky - look at copyright and patent laws.)

The very idea of covert acts means, generally, violations of someone's laws.

I see this sort of stuff on /. all the time and, well, I guess I'm old. One minute we'll sit here and yell that information wants to be free. The next minute we'll sit here and yell that our private data must remain private when we just got done saying that all information wants to be free.

It just doesn't hold up. I have been just as guilty of this.

I think it is my military (Marines) background that triggers it on conversations like this. There are times and places where the law must be broken. It is against the Geneva Convention to use a shotgun in combat. If I am in combat and the only weapon I have available is a shotgun then, yeah, fuck that convention.

Am I attempting to justify the acts of corrupt officials? No. When a person in power fails I think they should be held to higher punitive damages than your average citizen simply due to the fact that they were an officiate. But, and here's the kicker, I think that there are times when extreme actions must be taken for the benefit of society as a whole. I'd suggest watching a really retarded example of this to see where I am coming from. Download, buy, rent the movie, 'Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins.'

"Would you watch your child die in a house fire or attempt to rescue your child knowing that you will die in the attempt?" If you answer that you will attempt to rescue your child in hopes that the slim chance will allow them to live and you to die or both of you to live then welcome to the human race. If you answer with the choice to watch your child then congratulations, you will make a good leader.

Just so you know, I am of the 'attempt to rescue my child' group so I have my doubts as to how well I'd lead. Sometimes I lie to myself and think I'd do the logical thing that minimized risk while maintaining my ability to continue to procreate and further the human race but, really, I don't know and suspect I'd try to rescue my child.

As an aside, I think the majority of our current crop of elected officials in the United States of America are from a separate group, those who are cowards and would not make a choice but would hide and, well, do nothing.

There are times when violating a law is a requirement for a variety of reasons. Civil Rights leaders accomplished a great deal by encouraging people to disobey the laws that they felt were unjust. In *my* state you are ENTITLED to drive as fast as you would like if you are an elected representative and are not on time for the assembly. On the other hand, if you are too slow in getting there, they can and will send out the state police to get your ass to the assembly via escort.

There is a time and place to allow people to violate the law. Some laws are just fucking stupid. I think that in ALL cases of law violation the matter should be judged effectively and without bias while looking to ensure the greater good for the society as a whole.

The above paragraph's words were chosen carefully. Many people think that their societal rules should apply to the world in general and I think that ruins cultural diversity. I say "the society" because our views don't represent that of the world. The majority of the world lives in what we would view as a repressed state. If we were a democracy, world wide, we would be in the minority. That should probably clue people in as to how skewed our thinking is. To me, if a society has chosen to treat women as second class citizens, use slaves, or force something we consider inhumane on their citizens it is not our place to judge them as long as they keep what they believe within the confines of their spaces. We, as a Western Culture, have decided that our views are the only acceptable positions. We here on slashdot have taken that a step further and decided that our small segment of views (and we can't agree on them) is the on

Re:How naive can people get?

[myvirtualid]

I remember hearing about a scheme that the US / UK axis used... to wiretap its own citizens.... the British eavesdropped on Americans' calls, and the Americans eavesdropped on Britons' calls, and then the two intelligence agencies simply compared notes

It's called ECHELON and its more than US-UK: It's the Anglic-5 (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).

With Canada and Australia in the mix, a significant part of the globe is covered. And with all five countries in the mix, it's easy to imagine that perhaps one government would pass on information about persons of interest to any of the other four.

Oh, I suppose I need a mandatory /.ism:

...a scheme that the US / UK axis used to perpetrate...

...a scheme that the US / UK axis perpetrate...

There, fixed that for ya!

Re:How naive can people get?

[HungryHobo]

Oh there are Special Circumstances. Times when actions not normally allowed must be taken. Drop a daisy cutter on the town to stop a viral outbreak, shoot the suspect who you think is about to set off a bomb, tap the phone of the guy you suspect has access to some terrible weapon.
There need to be mechanisms to decide when it was justified to break the law.

But when it's all over, the disease is contained, the bomb plot finished or foiled, the suspect found guilty or exonerated it all needs to be draged into the light.

The general who decided to break a law and bomb the town should have to stand before the people and show that what they did saved lives. Not investigated by a closed military court where his mate from boot camp is the judge and his golf friends are the jury.

The cop who shot the suspected bomber should stand before a public court, not a closed internal police investigation. Everyone should see the evidence, let the members of the society that's being protected decide if they are willing to accept such actions for the sake of more safety or if they can't tollerate them.

Let the agent who tapped the phones of suspects stand up and explain exactly why what he was doing was so important that he was willing to break the law. If the people decide if he was ultimatly justified.

But instead we get closed hearing, classified documents and amnesties for politicians friends.
There needs to be strict short limits for how long government documents can be kept secret with careful controls on extensions. If some operation needs to be kept secret for more than a few years or months then let them explain why to the supreme court (closed court sessions like this should be kept to a minimum).

Otherwise you get stories like this:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/09/alharamain_lawsuit/print.html

Re:How naive can people get?

[KGIII]

No. The General who made the choice to obey orders does not ever need to be in front of the public explaining his choice. He follows the Commander In Chief. He follows orders and so long as he was following those orders (and he damned well better except in circumstances we've NEVER seen as a human species) he never needs to defend his actions.

That doesn't mean that he is unaccountable for information. When the dust settles he had also better be able to damned well tell you who he got his orders from. More important than anything else they, those in power, should be able to explain HOW there was a benefit to the war or to society in general by their acts. Rather than animosity they should be encouraged to speak.

I'm guessing you have no military experience and no combat experience? I, on the other hand, will die and kill to protect you if need be. This doesn't mean I ACCEPT our current actions across the globe, just my personal feelings. In fact, for the most part, I agree that what you are saying makes sense.

The problem with making sense is that those things are most likely all already covered in the law. Altering the law to suit the circumstances is, in my opinion, a bad idea.

Here, I have a way to save a metric fuckton of gasoline. Take out all stop signs and all red lights except where there is evidence to show that they are absolutely needed. The gas saved from a rolling stop will save a fortune. I can back this up with math.

Is this a law that I need to break to get my point across? Probably not.

We already have the laws and *should* strive to live within them. New or additional laws tend to suck. If you can get and pass a law that says all you entail or think then I applaud you.

A huge part of my mentality comes from being a Marine. I don't support Bush one bit but if I were ORDERED to serve I would do so without question. I consider that a failing on my part.

The name for this...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Interestingly, the name for intelligence derived from analyzijng public information (rather than spying) is "open sources".

Note the trailing "s".

Re:The name for this...

[xyzzy]

Not sure what you're trying to imply. Open Source intelligence predates open source software by probably 30 years.

I wonder if they use Wikipedia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine if they got into an edit war with Osama on Wikipedia?

Re:I wonder if they use Wikipedia?

[Dogtanian]

If they use Wikipedia, I wonder what they'll make of edits like the following:-

"Osama Bin Laden is generally considered to be one of the leading inspirations of global terrorism AND MR SMITH IS HIS BOYFRIEND LOL!!!!! ALSO KIM SMELLS and a leading component of the so-called "axis of evil".

"Sir, it appears that Osama Bin Laden is associated with previously unknown figure called 'Mr. Smith'. Further investigations reveal that Mr.Smith is Michael James Smith, an English teacher at Buttfuck Middle School, Illinois."

"Excellent work... have him arrested as soon as possible, and don't let him get away. He may have valuable information on his homosexual lover Bin Laden, or even be a part of the conspiracy himself. Also, find out who the fuck this mysterious 'Kim' girl is."

"Rumour has it that she's an adversary of the person who contributed this information anonymously via a Buttfuck Education Board IP address, and that she may be one of three girls between ten and thirteen years old."

"I'm beginning to suspect that this information might not be quite as reliable as we'd hoped."

"So you suspect that Kim doesn't smell after all?"

better than using "curveball"

[Presto Vivace]

Truly everyone researches online, why would intelligence agencies be any different?

Official Report 3999

[Rie Beam]

"Due to increased intelligence gathering online, we have come to believe fighters in Iraq have developed some sort of animal growth hormone, capable of increasing fertility exponentially. What they plan to do with it is unknown, but the fact stands, the elephant population in Africa has tripled over the past six months!

Trivia:
* African elephants are not normally found all over Africa
* Elephants have been in many films, and tend to be used as trucks"

Well duh! It's not sexy

[istartedi]

"I pulled facts from the public domain and fit them together into a well-researched report with accurate citations". Booooring.

"I'm presenting this report because I know you're cleared, and I believe you have the need to know. It's TOP SECRET, Compartmentalized, Code Fushia". Sex-ay!

are you joking?

[commodoresloat]

It would be incompetent for them NOT to use the public domain resources available. The military is not and should not be in the business of "scooping" the media. Are you seriously suggesting that the military should ignore what is published in the media about a subject and only focus on private databases?

No new news

[Technician]

This is not news. Intelligence gathering has been from two types of operations. Covert is the stuff spy movies are made of with wire taps, break-ins, etc. Less glamorous is the overt gathering of info which is still a huge part of any intelligence operation. This is classic observation of publicly exposed information. Overt intelligence is still kept under wraps as it is not a good idea to reveal just what you are looking for.

Overt intelligence includes reading local newspapers, picking up over the air radio traffic, including encrypted (who and how much traffic is important even without breaking the code) and simply watching train, ship, truck traffic. A train load of military vehicles doesn't need covert operations to notice. The fact you noticed is often classified. A fishing boat using lots of encrypted radio traffic is of interest for example, but watching ports and keeping track of where it visits is an overt operation, but what is found out is kept under wraps from the public for good reason.

Watching train watchers, and other sets of eyes online is the only new angle in addition to picking up local newspapers and watching trains arrive and leave. It saves on manpower and may pick up something of interest.

Understanding what happened to the nuclear core of the Trogan Nuclear plant does not require covert ops to know the core was loaded on a boat and shipped up the Columbia River. If it headed out to sea instead, it would have been noticed without covert ops.

That explains it

[russotto]

Now we know why the CIA etc has been so often completely off base -- they've been getting their information from Slashdot!

Re:incompetence

[Chyeld]

between the four branches of the military, the CIA, the FBI, the state dept., the DIA, DHS, ICE, and the DoD itself (and of course all the secret apparatuses we don't know about)...between all of those...you don't think we have hundreds of thousands of analysts???

No. I don't. We might have hundreds of thousands (actually millions) people working in those groups, but the vast majority of them are not analysts. The vast majority are the paid thinkers but the do'ers and the ones who maintain the infrastructure to support the do'ers. I'd be surpirsed if 10% of them were analysts in the sense we are speaking of regarding this article.

And while some Captain in the Air Force might have to write reports for his bosses on the performance of his squad and suggest plans of attack on the upcoming mission, those aren't the same level of intelligence gestalting reports that we are talking about here.

Re:Where are the terrorists at?

[davester666]

I read it on Wikipedia!

It's must be true.

Re:Well duh! It's not sexy

[e4g4]

Hate to be a language usage/spelling nazi, but fuchsia is spelled that way, and the phrase you're looking for in your sig is "For all intents and purposes" - whether or not the purposes are intensive is irrelevant.

China's interest in manipulating the public domain

[PhoenixHack]

I hardly find it surprising the senior officer wanted a second opinion to "news" derived from the official spin put out by Chinese government officials.

Re:DUH!

[CodeBuster]

That's not intelligence. It's what everyone already knows.

Obviously you have never worked in the intelligence business. The public domain is the first source of information for any intelligence agency and it generally contains a lot of useful information. As you yourself have said, a great deal of information can be gleaned using basic search techniques, cross-checking, and comparison of publicly available sources and it is relatively cheap too. So before you devote time, money, and resources to developing more information on a particular subject by non-public means, wouldn't you want to devote some time to reading Google news and checking basic facts with a few well placed queries? At the very least it would help you to decide what cases merit the time and effort of a more thorough investigation. Even the most powerful and pervasive intelligence gathering agencies do not have unlimited resources after all.