CIA and Open Source
WaTimes –
The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.
The OSC uses powerful computers and software technology to “sift” the Internet for valuable intelligence. It also buys information from commercial databases.
“But now our customer base literally ranges from the president to local police departments,” Mr. Naquin said. The Fairfax County police use OSC products, as do police departments in San Diego, New York and Baltimore. The center also provides support to the U.S. military.
A step in the right direction. Noteably missing is that any product coming out of this center should be disseminated to the general public. Sidenote: OSC is going up against Steele and his OSINT competitors. It will be interesting to see how it fares.
CIA and the National Archives
The NYT describes the extent of the CIA’s inability to deal with transparency – mainly as a form of applying old methods to a new problem –
…at the National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements — with the C.I.A. and the Air Force — the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the public eye. So far 55,000 pages, some of them from the 1950’s, have vanished. This not only violates the mission of the National Archives; it is also antithetical to the natural flow of information in an open society.
Exactly. While this particular effort has been stopped by the new director the damage may already have been done – the chances of convincing the CIA and the AF to declassify the reclassified documents ranges from slim to none. The doom loop is at play.
Blogosphere Size
MarketingVox – has some great graphs and stastics to go along with it –
The blogosphere is doubling in size every six months and is now 60 times larger than it was three years ago, according to the latest quarterly installment of David Sifry’s “State of the Blogosphere” report.
Meanwhile the military displays its classic loop –
“‘Googling’ and ‘blogging’ are making their way into military operations at all levels,” Krieg wrote. “But the full implications of this revolution are as yet unknown, and we have no clear direction and defined doctrine.”
Scientific and technical experts on the Defense Science Board will explore those implications during the summer study. The group will assess DoD’s strategy, scope and progress toward achieving what Krieg called “a robust and adaptive net-centric DoD enterprise.”
I wonder if any work has been done analyzing the dark blogosphere, and by that I don’t mean spammers.
Jamestown and OSW
Jamestown stumbles across open source warfare (again) –
An increasing series of similarities between the insurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq has caused concern that militants are learning from the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.
But quickly reverts back to a dark conspiracy theory –
The similarity of the insurgent movements in Afghanistan and Iraq could have two messages: either militants in Afghanistan are imitating the tactics used in Iraq’s insurgency to gain success, or another force is playing a guiding role in both countries. As an example of the latter scenario, consider the recent verbal support of al-Qaeda by senior Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah (al-Jazeera, February 13; Terrorism Focus, March 21), the existing relationship between Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden and the unique ideology of both extremist leaders.
Why haven’t they begun to understand the concept and why haven’t they begun using the term for the developing (and accelerating) form of warfare?
GG Business Face Off
LATimes article on independence from oil as a fuel source –
…proponents believe the decades of inertia could be broken by a rare convergence of technology, money, political will and motivated motorists.
The upside is this is a market primed to explode. If you read the article there are major obstacles requiring innovation – which will provide superb ROI. The question is if this adoption curve will fit inside the oil system disruption adoption curve. This is a situation where Global Guerrilla and business OODA loops are going head to head. I hope we go open source before they do. It will be very ugly if there is a gap between oil disruption adoption and alternative fuel source adoption.