There is nothing new about open source information. What is new about open source intelligence
(ethical evidence-based decision-support based solely on open, legal, ethical sources and methods)
is the attempt to fully integrate the proven process of intelligence
(requirements definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multi-source fusion (both machine and human), visualization (both machine and human), analytic tradecraft, and communication to those who wish to make an informed decision).
Intelligence is DECISION-SUPPORT. It is required at four levels (strategic, operational, tactical, technical) across all mission areas, and is best when it is holistic — most of what the secret world does is NOT intelligence, it is merely classified spending with very little decision support resulting.
Note: the hardest problem for any intelligence professional is finding a customer with integrity who actually wants to make a decision based on ethical evidence-based decision support. Most customers are arrogant, ignorant, and generally corrupt to the bone, making decisions on the basis of what they think they know, or what someone has paid them to think is in their selfish interest. This is why we have wasted so much blood, treasure and spirit (the national soul is black right now) since 2000.
The second hardest problem is achieving the moral and intellectual mind-shift away from drowning in money and inputs that emphasize technology, and migrating toward the more professional focus on humans and outputs — decision-support. That is the second hardest because it can be achieved without demanding that the consumer have integrity — only the intelligence professional needs to reconnect with their integrity (in the holistic all source sense).
Multiple links below the line.
Here is the one document and the one section on this website that focus on the history of open source in relation to the violent — unethical — opposition from those in the secret world who understand very clearly that an Open Source Agency will end life as they know it. They call us “open sores.”
2004 Modern History of Public Intelligence and the Opposition
Robert Steele and many others picked up the baton from Herman L. Croom and Jan Herring at CIA, and George Marling at the Intelligence Producers Council on the Intelligence Community Staff. This is a work in progress.
1969 Herman L. Croom, The Exploitation of Foreign Open Sources
2013 Story Board: Decision-Support — Analytic Sources, Models, Tools, & Tradecraft 1957-2013
Here are two superb honest overviews of the open source situation to date:
Review: No More Secrets – Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence
Review: Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World
Here are the two memoranda going to CINCSOC and CINCEUR, and the original overview website on the Open Source Agency:
NATO WATCH Challenges and Solutions 4.0
2013 Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point 2.0
Here are the original interview and two recent interviews, and the master post for Open Source Everything:
2006 Steele (US) Interview on Echo Chamber 2006
INTERVIEW: Open Everything – with Robert David STEELE Vivas UPDATED to Add Parts V and VI
Robert Steele Discusses Open Source and Secret Intelligence (High Gain Blog)
Open Source Everything — Book, Graphic, List
Here are two future-oriented pieces awaiting the emergence of leaders with integrity:
2012 PREPRINT: The Craft of Intelligence 3.5
Open Source Everything (OSE) is the only technical solution that is affordable, inter-operable, scalable, and securable. Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2) is the only human solution that is affordable, interoperable, scalable, and universally pervasive.
