Open-Source Intelligence Challenges CIA, NSA, Spy Agencies (bloomberg.com) 10
Spying used to be all about secrets. Increasingly, it's about what's hiding in plain sight [non-paywalled link] . From a report: A staggering amount of data, from Facebook posts and YouTube clips to location pings from mobile phones and car apps, sits in the open internet, available to anyone who looks. US intelligence agencies have struggled for years to tap into such data, which they refer to as open-source intelligence, or OSINT. But that's starting to change. In October the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all the nation's intelligence agencies, brought in longtime analyst and cyber expert Jason Barrett to help with the US intelligence community's approach to OSINT. His immediate task will be to help develop the intelligence community's national OSINT strategy, which will focus on coordination, data acquisition and the development of tools to improve its approach to this type of intelligence work. ODNI expects to implement the plan in the coming months, according to a spokesperson.
Barrett's appointment, which hasn't previously been reported publicly, comes after more than a year of work on the strategy led by the Central Intelligence Agency, which has for years headed up the government's efforts on OSINT. The challenge with other forms of intelligence-gathering, such as electronic surveillance or human intelligence, can be secretly collecting enough information in the first place. With OSINT, the issue is sifting useful insights out of the unthinkable amount of information available digitally. "Our greatest weakness in OSINT has been the vast scale of how much we collect," says Randy Nixon, director of the CIA's Open Source Enterprise division. Nixon's office has developed a tool similar to ChatGPT that uses AI to sift the ever-growing flood of data. Now available to thousands of users within the federal government, the tool points analysts to the most important information and auto-summarizes content. Government task forces have warned since the 1990s that the US was at risk of falling behind on OSINT. But the federal intelligence community has generally prioritized information it gathers itself, stymying progress.
Barrett's appointment, which hasn't previously been reported publicly, comes after more than a year of work on the strategy led by the Central Intelligence Agency, which has for years headed up the government's efforts on OSINT. The challenge with other forms of intelligence-gathering, such as electronic surveillance or human intelligence, can be secretly collecting enough information in the first place. With OSINT, the issue is sifting useful insights out of the unthinkable amount of information available digitally. "Our greatest weakness in OSINT has been the vast scale of how much we collect," says Randy Nixon, director of the CIA's Open Source Enterprise division. Nixon's office has developed a tool similar to ChatGPT that uses AI to sift the ever-growing flood of data. Now available to thousands of users within the federal government, the tool points analysts to the most important information and auto-summarizes content. Government task forces have warned since the 1990s that the US was at risk of falling behind on OSINT. But the federal intelligence community has generally prioritized information it gathers itself, stymying progress.
Xi knows my fav underwear brand (Score:2)
Even if the US gov't is forced to curtail such "open" snooping, the other large nations are likely doing it, creating a dilemma: do we let Xi, Putie, Ali, and Bibi know more about US citizens than the US gov't, or "keep up"?
Should have hired from Meta or Google (Score:5, Interesting)
The person in question (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonb16/) seems to have come from the FBI and NSA background and has never worked for anyone but the federal government. As a result, they are likely to have a myopic view on the art of the possible.
I suspect Meta and Google are far more adept at processing and gaining insights from OSINT than anyone from the FBI.
Re: (Score:2)
If Snowden taught us anything at all it's that the NSA are light years ahead of what people think is possible as far as data collection, storage and processing is concerned. Only relatively recently it was reported that the US were buying huge amounts of commercial information off the open market. I can't believe for one second they're not also routinely augmenting that with OSINT data on top of that. In fact it would be incredibly naive to think that they wouldn't be doing so on a mass scale for decades at
So what's Richard Stallman's take on that? (Score:2)
Nothing New (Score:2)
The concept of "Open Source Intelligence" is nothing new, and has been part and parcel of intel gathering since forever. For how it's been done in real operations, I'd recommend the Naval Institute's book Double-Edged Secrets [amazon.com], an account of operations by the Office of Naval Intelligence in the Pacific during the Second World War. ONI gathered most of their info for analyses, not from shadowy James Bond-ish operations, but from studying public weather charts, shipping schedules, etc. This helped them discern
Re: (Score:2)
The quantity is however quite new. It's an indictment on social media in general.
"OSINT" is a bulwark (Score:2)
OSINT is solidly groomed, funded and even set up by the intelligence agencies, out of fear of it arising for real and being independent.
They remember Wikileaks, even if they're trying to make us forget. An "intelligence agency for the people" is their greatest fear.
It started with the blog Brown Moses. A Something Awful goon who had taken as hobby watching videos out of Syria since one of his forum buddies had decided to drop everything and become a millitant. He was pretty good, he noticed and documented a
In my limited experience... (Score:2)