Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World

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Description

The amount of publicly and often freely available information is staggering. Yet, the intelligence community still continues to collect and use information in the same manner as during WWII, when the OSS set out to learn as much as possible about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan by scrutinizing encyclopedias, guide books, and short-wave radio. Today, the supply of information is greater than any possible demand, and anyone can provide information. In effect, intelligence analysts are drowning in information.

The book explains how to navigate this rising flood and make best use of these new, rich sources of information. Written by a pioneer in the field, it explores the potential uses of digitized data and the impact of the new means of creating and transmitting data, recommending to the intelligence community new ways of collecting and processing information.

This comprehensive overview of the world of open source intelligence will appeal not only to practitioners and students of intelligence, but also to anyone interested in communication and the challenges posed by the information age.

Reviews

The complexities of our connected world require a global view of events, opinions and perspectives. For decades, a small group of intelligence analysts has been working to understand the world, not through secret informants and clandestine operations, but by watching television, reading newspapers and now monitoring blogs and Twitter. Olcott's fascinating new book walks us through this world, where the people responsible for understanding how global events unfold aren't gun-toting secret agents, but linguists, political scholars and media theorists. The surprise twist Olcott convincingly argues that open source intelligence is vastly undervalued, and likely gives us a better understanding of what's to come than the secrets most of us assume fuel the intelligence industry. --Ethan Zuckerman, Director, Center for Civic Media, MIT, Co-founder, Global Voices, Senior Researcher, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
This is a very valuable book for professional analysts and for managers in the US intelligence community, to whom it is directly addressed. There is a lot here about the potential value of open-source information as a rich potential source of clues regarding major possible events, that are still gestating in the future: events which often announce themselves as surprises. I think, however, that its greatest value is to redefine the concept of "open-source," by taking it beyond the simple category of information that is not held secret, but is free for the taking. He correctly expands the definition to cover the exploding universe of digital information, growing beyond any form of institutional control. From that starting point, Olcott announces to both intelligence analysts and policy makers that open-source information is not just more information about what is going on: it is what is going on. As he says: "information erodes form." Tell that to the broken collossi of the last twenty years: empires and despotisms brought down because information became liberated. --Leon Fuerth, Distinguished Research Fellow. Center for Technology and National Security Policy, The National Defense University and Research Professor of International Affairs, The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University
This is a wonderful book. It is what it says it is - a study of the history of open source intelligence analysis in the United States since the Second World War - but it is much more, all in the clean, understated prose of an intelligence professional. It is also a delightfully clear description of the developments in information technology that are reshaping intelligence - along with everything else. Olcott's particular focus is the "Gutenberg parenthesis" now ending, those few centuries in which a limited number of authoritative sources dominated the production of information. Now, anyone can produce "information" and what gets the attention - goes viral - may have little relation to what is "true." Olcott's third subject is intelligence analysis more generally, for if there was a Gutenberg parenthesis, so too was there a "Cold War parenthesis," a period when the problem for intelligence was too little information and the response was to try to add value through secrets. Now, the world is awash with "stuff," if not information, and the task is less to discern the truth (as in the passage from John 8.32 etched in the lobby of CIA headquarters) than to identify what is or could be important in moving people to act. For that task, there is no better touchstone than Olcott's repeated theme: "Begin with a question." - Gregory F. Treverton, Director, Center for Global Risk and Security, RAND Corporation, USA and Visiting Fellow, Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies, Swedish National Defence College.

Author Bio

Anthony Olcott is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Intelligence, and was Officer in Residence at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. While at the Director of National Intelligence's Open Source Center, he served as Senior Analyst in the Emerging Media Group, and also as an Expert Analyst covering Russia and Central Asia. Olcott has received numerous awards and citations from the intelligence community.