Open source intelligence
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Open source intelligence or "OSINT" refers to an intelligence gathering discipline based on information collected from open sources, i.e. information available to the general public. This includes newspapers, the internet, books, phone books, scientific journals, radio broadcasts, television, and others. The term is unrelated to open source in the computer software community, which refers to programs whose source code is publicly available. OSINT is also not to be confused with OSIF– anything that is broadcast or distributed is open source information– anything that is tailored to answer a specific question from a specific person or decision-making unit is OSINT.
Collection of information in OSINT is a very different problem from collection in other intelligence disciplines because, by definition, the information sources are publicly available. In other intelligence disciplines, a major difficultly is extracting information from non-cooperative targets. In OSINT, the chief difficulty is identifying relevant, reliable sources from the vast abundance of publicly available information. Obtaining the needed information once a source is identified is a comparatively minor problem.
Sometimes overt HUMINT is considered part of open source intelligence. This is the use of non-clandestine human information sources; examples include interrogation of refugees, debriefing of legal travellers, and reports from overt agents such as attachés and ambassadors.
The current definitive guides to OSINT are the NATO Open Source Intelligence Handbook, the NATO Open Source Intelligence Reader, and the (NATO) Intelligence Exploitation of the Internet. The definitive historical history of OSINT in recent times is contained in the 30 volumes of Proceedings from the annual OSINT conference sponsored by OSS.Net (http://www.oss.net).
A number of nations, notably Australia, Norway and South Africa, have created specialist units to focus on OSINT. Within the US government, the major provider of open source information is the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which also makes some of its information available to the public through the World News Connection. The top operational OSINT unit in the US is the Open Source Intelligence Branch of the Special Operations Command Joint Intelligence Center (SOCJIC). The United States' National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States issued a report in July 2004 recommending the creation of an open-source intelligence agency, but without further detail or comment.
External links
- World News Connection (http://wnc.dialog.com/) - global news from FBIS
- www.oss.net - open source intelligence website run by former intelligence officer and current OSINT activist Robert David Steele
- www.infosphere.se- Open source intelligence for hire, run by OSINT pioneer Mats Bjore
- www.intellibridge.com - Open Source Intelligence Solutions