Michael Bazzell
4.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Contribution–See the Table of Contents, January 30, 2013
This review is from: Open Source Intelligence Techniques: Resources for Searching and Analyzing Online Information (Paperback)
I started the modern Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) movement in 1988, picking up where earlier pioneers such as Jan Herring, former NIO for S&T, left off. We are still fighting this battle. The CIA Open Source Center (OSC) is retarded — it does less than 10% of what could be done by a proper Open Source Agency (see tiny url forward slash OSA2011), and compounds their ignorance by classifying what they produce.
I *like* this book. If you have any doubts at all, use the superb Inside the Book feature that is one of Amazon's signal innovations. If you believe — as the OSC believes — that OSINT is all about online surfing in English, this is a great book. It is a good complement to Ran Hock's stuff, or Arno Reuser's stuff, and Ben Benavides stuff, and I certainly also recommend the Super-Searcher series and anything by Mary Ellen Bates.
This book is a more sophisticated version of the book I wrote for internal government use in 1996 for the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center, and then again in 2000 for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but never to this level of detail, and certainly not with this superb structure nor its currency with all the new offerings from Google and others than did not exist when we started doing OSINT in the Marine Corps Intelligence Center in 1988.
Here are ten links to books here at Amazon that I recommend along with this one — for 30,000 pages from over 800 international experts on OSINT, all free, visit Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, which is the front end to both the Open Source Solutions Network archive, and the home for all of my Amazon reviews accessible in each of the 98 categories in which I read, and the online Journal of Public Intelligence as well as other OSINT posts from contributing editors. The first two books are accounts of the long-running fight between CIA OSC (they call me Open Sores, I now think of them as Open Sh..s). The rest are top of the line values in doing serious research, generally online. There are no good manual on doing Human Intelligence (HUMINT), which is 80% of OSINT, something CIA and the FBI still do not get — they have not grown past the confidential information / traitor paradigm and cannot do outreach to the eight tribes that are open.
Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World (Continuum Intelligence Studies)
No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence (Praeger Security International)
The Extreme Searcher's Internet Handbook: A Guide for the Serious Searcher
Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional
The Skeptical Business Searcher: The Information Advisor's Guide to Evaluating Web Data, Sites, and Sources
Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies
The Art and Science of Business Intelligence Analysis (Advances in Applied Business Strategy)
Measuring the Effectiveness of Competitive Intelligence: Assessing & Communicating CI's Value to Your Organization
Analysis Without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions (2nd Edition)
Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean
With best wishes to all,
Robert David STEELE Vivas
THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political
