The New Converts to Open Sources Intelligence

Source: IntelligenceOnline.com

Taking their cue from the CIA, almost every branch of the American intelligence community now has specialists who deal with open source intelligence (OSINT).

From Intelligence to Private Security : DC Capital Partners

Source: IntelligenceOnline

After buying a raft of sub-contractors of American intelligence agencies, DC Capital Partners is setting up a new holding company devoted to private security.

Open software tools

The list of Free software tools for designing productive community sites is showing us the future of the intelligence realm: how to become rapid and collaborative in an open world.

Open GEOINT: OpenStreetMap

“It is always so easy to ask why someone doesn’t do something until you realise that you are that someone. ”

Go read the article of Gary Richmond on FSM …

In a recent article on free software and the Large Hadron Collider I mentioned that here in the United Kingdom The Guardian, a national British newspaper, had founded a campaign called “free our data”. They objected to the fact that the Ordnance Survey (and others), funded by the British taxpayer, was charging business and individuals for its cartographic data thus effectively making people pay for it twice. Their campaign is great but until such times as it succeeds an alternative is needed. A free software alternative. Enter OpenStreetMaps.

Google Earth and Google Maps are too well know to require iteration here, but the spectre of proprietary software haunts them. They are not free software. If you want to incorporate any of them into you budding business project and run your software under a relatively permissive licence for others to take up your ideas and improve them you will have to find something else.

Just like Wikipedia, on which it is loosely modelled, OpenStreetMaps is resolutely free software. It is an attempt, by community participation, to map the Earth.

A Complete Platform for Geospatial Intelligence

 

ESRI will demonstrate the power and flexibility of its ArcGIS software platform to manage geospatial intelligence during the GEOINT 2008 Symposium, October 27–30, 2008, in Nashville, Tennessee.

National security, defense, and intelligence professionals will see how the unique capabilities of geographic information system (GIS) technology integrate and share all elements of the intelligence workflow. The ArcGIS technology platform connects sensors, warfighters, analysts, and decision makers through a shared network of desktops, servers, mobile devices, and data appliances. This geospatially enabled intelligence permits agencies, through netcentric operations, to share data simultaneously throughout a community of interest the moment it becomes available. GIS technology allows agencies to select, fuse, and analyze complex intelligence data through a map-driven interface as they transform GIS knowledge into action.

2009 IAFIE essay contest

The announcement of an essay competition for IAFIE 2009 conference. The full text is reproduced below:

Gazprom’s Expansion in the EU – Co-operation or Domination?

This report outlines the key aspects of natural gas trade cooperation between the EU and Russia. The first part presents the scope and character of Gazprom’s economic presence in the EU member states. The second part shows the presence of the EU investors in Russia. It provides the factual base and data and concludes with policy recommendations.

© 2008 Centre for Eastern Studies (CES) 

Download: English (PDF · 23 pages · 3.0 MB) 
Author:Agata Łoskot-Strachota, Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, Tomasz Dąborowski, Joanna Hyndle
Publisher: Centre for Eastern Studies (CES), Warsaw, Poland

Source: IntelliBriefs

About open intelligence

From Matthew Burton’s blog an excelent view about new open intelligence realm:

The below was written with large organizations in mind. If you’re a techie, most of it will be old news, but you might find the intelligence stuff interesting. There’s also a PRINTABLE PDF version.

Recently, I was a panelist at the Director of National Intelligence’s Open Source Conference. The title of my panel was “Young Analysts Talk About the Value of Open Source.” The intelligence field’s definition of “open source” is different from what you might think: all it means is “information derived from public sources”: newspaper articles, television broadcasts, Web sites, etc.

New Research on Mining the Semantic Deep Web

From IntelFusion:

Toward the Semantic Deep Web

Computer (09/08) Vol. 41, No. 9, P. 95; Geller, James; Chun, Soon Ae; An, Yoo Jung

The Semantic Deep Web integrates Semantic Web components with the employment of ontology-aware browsers to squeeze information out of the Deep Web, which is nonindexable, invisible, and concealed online content that is only accessible via Web services or Web-form interfaces, write New Jersey Institute of Technology professor James Geller and colleagues.

A-Space

Yes, they have a new website…

• U.S. intelligence agencies are urging staffers to use a new social-networking site 
• Called A-Space, it’s for analysts within the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies
• Analysts can use A-Space to share information about al Qaeda, other issues
• Only intelligence personnel with the proper security clearance can access the site

Some Revolutions in Intelligence

Evolution or (R)evolution?

The coming revolution in intelligence affaires – Kristan J Wheaton

Cultural Revolution in Intelligence – NewRisks