Not obvious what is 'new' in all of this verbiage... B
This is something that I wrote today and its posted in an interactive version in our systems, for our OSINT clients, please feel free to share and comment /Mats THE "NEW" OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE AND SILOBREAKER The <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_413910> Tsunami that struck <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_80954> South Asia on December 26th 2004 was a wakeup call for world in many aspects. <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_315836> Hurricane Katrina that struck <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_94272> New Orleans 8 months later was another. The crisis in <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_300483> Darfur is here and now. The stories about human losses and heartbreaking stories about torn apart families will eventually fade. The insights about what was really working in information matters will live on in the ways how we need to interact with information, knowledge and intelligence. The governments slow decision cycles, below par <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_7543765> information management and in some cases extremely hierarchical fears makes them slow to respond. Media is a little bit faster but the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_17583319> recycling of information and the global scope is devastating to the validity of what people need to find and understand. But this is the world we all live in. Instabilities such as war, terrorism, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_14304431> environment, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_316926> crime, disease, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_306722> Human Rights Issues, political upheaval, and natural disasters are global and affect us all. There is also a lot we don´t know and can´t foresee, but the writing is on the wall somewhere in the world. Information volumes The data volumes in all areas such as the above, that need <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_877640> interpretation to find meaning, each year is growing exponentially due to the advances in information technology and the sociological and cultural changes. In a study by the School of <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_7543765> Information Management and Systems at the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_309306> University of California at Berkeley, it was estimated that in 2002 print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced data equivalent in size to half a million new libraries the size of the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_303330> Library of Congress print collections. Ninety-two percent of the new data was stored on magnetic media, mostly in hard disks. Data flows through the telephone, radio, TV, and the Internet was three and a half times larger in volume more than is recorded in storage media. Ninety eight percent of this total is the data sent and received in telephone calls - including both voice and data on both fixed lines and wireless. The challenge we all face is to reduce the incomprehensive volumes in order to act or react. When it comes to volume less is definitely more. We need to understand what data to ask for and why we need it. What about Intelligence? But we have <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_19187796> Military Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_670568> Political Intelligence, Market intelligence and thousands of other buzzwords to help us. The consumers of the present practice of intelligence are kept in the dark. Most intelligence activities are just information or data hoarding and at best secondary research smartly upgraded by buzzword wizards. Maybe this is a bold statement but our experiences and encounters with decision makers and their support teams within both governments and business the last 20 years all confirms this observation. ´ One man´s data is another mans information and what is information for one organization can be key intelligence for another. During the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_325926> Cold War, which is still the case, governmental intelligence organizations existed with a culture of "just in case" which meant that they tried to collect everything. Today, with the overwhelming access to open sources information and changing requirements it is the mode of "just in time" that the corporate world must build their intelligence operations on. However, still in 2007, decision makers down to the mid level managers are all drowning in the amount of information they are receiving each and every day. They have all the data and information they need, they sometimes even coin it intelligence but they don´t use it because it is not targeted, relevant or timely. And to further complicate this depressing picture, whole organizations experience <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_998182> avalanches of data with the main achievement of which is to generate guilty consciences. Decisions will not be made, actions will not take place and goals will not be achieved. Caught in the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_998182> avalanche of buzzwords and "must haves" there are far too many examples of how management buy their consciences free with the last IT solution that many times glorify their deeds for a couple of months but rarely in the strategic perspective. The quick wins become long term losses. The same is true for the Government sector, but now at the taxpayers' expense. This makes the situation much worse. Actually, many of the recent failures in anticipating and preventing conflicts and corporate crises or responding to emergencies can be attributed to the culture of intelligence gathering itself. As practiced today in government and private industry, the intelligence and knowledge processes are still centralized, top-down, elitist, parochial, secretive, and culturally-biased. Most corporations and government agencies tend to reward silo builders, not silo breakers. The result is a culture in which information is not shared and insights are rarely communicated across organizational boundaries. As the world becomes more global and decentralized as well as more multi-cultural and multi-lingual, the need for a service that reflects this new paradigm is paramount. Intelligence gathering and sharing should be more collaborative, more bottom-up in its thinking - a real silo breaker in the true sense of the word. And with billions of dollars being spent on new intelligence technologies, precious little is being invested in global data capture, discovery, and understanding. There is no shortage of information today. In fact, it´s the overload that´s crippling us and leading us down a proverbial blind alley. What´s missing from most intelligence tools is the ability to see the whole in context. Even in small countries like <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_81092> Sweden, there is a wealth of money spent on intelligence, but for what purposes? The insight into what benefits we gain as a nation from the products that the different agencies produces is non-existent, since the legacy of secrecy is today not only protecting the few secrets and sources that might be worth protecting, but it is also protecting the fact that the lion share of what they provide could be provided by anyone and at a fraction of the cost and much more timely. Small networked and flexible companies and organizations have the information advantage today. <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> Open Source Intelligence <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> OSINT tools & sources provide 95 percent of the world´s intelligence; however, the processes commonly used to detect <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1886> threats, assess risks, and analyze instabilities cast a rather narrow net. In the world of secret services, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> OSINT means useful information gleaned from public sources, such as scientific articles, newspapers, phone books and price lists. We use the term differently. The "new" <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> Open Source Intelligence is about the translation of disparate data and information to actionable intelligence via focused real time contextual analysis. It is about content, methods and tools. It is also the application of collaborative principles when it comes to the gathering and analysis of information. These principles include: <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_407952> peer review, reputation- rather than sanctions-based authority, sharing of products, and flexible levels of involvement and responsibility. It might sound like a familiar theme but the time has come to re-define the concept of intelligence for business and organizations. The time has come for put together bits and pieces into a whole, both with regards to content and to technology <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker and <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> Open Source Intelligence By looking for meaning, not words, and focusing on the relatedness of people, events, and ideas, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker is designed to help anyone anticipate, prevent, and solve problems before they become full-blown crises. This is fully in line with the original objective for <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker to create a high-awareness, answer-driven, analytic search application as good as, if not better than, those used within the intelligence community and make it commercially available to everyday user such as <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1475511> executives, journalists, consultants, marketers, planners, technologists, investors, scientists, and scholars. <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker addresses gathering of content, analytical methods and information tools, in one integrated platform. In the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker customized and ASP- solutions it also addresses the collaborative objectives. In other words <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker is a virtual <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> Open Source Intelligence ( <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> OSINT) center that focuses on the public information found in newspapers, magazines, newsletters, video, web sites, blogs, and more. Unlike large content aggregators and Internet search engines which are data-rich and information-poor, and present their results in a linear perspective, <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker is an insightful discovery tool that extracts meaning from unstructured news flow, clusters and visualizes it for deeper analysis, and provides the contextual intelligence necessary for making decisions and taking action. * * * We believe that this new school of integrated thinking will soon bring down the old school of intelligence that still rule on the corporate and government agendas. Information is no longer a competitive advantage. Everyone, at least in theory have access to almost everything. Awareness and use of the power of integrated real-time analytics is a key competitive advantage. Insight in seconds is a must to stay ahead of the curve. Insight as a service is <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker and what the new <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> OSINT paradigm is all about. By Mats Bjore Director <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_21190485> Silobreaker & Infosphere <http://www.infosphere.se/extra/pod> , and former Founder and Head of the <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_1750904> Open Source Intelligence Section at the Swedish Headquarters <http://beta.silobreaker.com/View360.aspx?Item=11_19187796> Military Intelligence & Security Service. Mats Bjore Senior Partner, Infosphere AB Director, Silobreaker Ltd. . <http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=1189140/grpspId=1705323667/msgId =69049/stime=1190919795/nc1=3848618/nc2=4699084/nc3=4763757> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
