The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
In 1995 the House Appropriations Committee (HAC) took and interest in Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), and c arried out a survey that to the best of our knowledge, was blocked, side-stepped, and generally not respected by the U.S. Intelligence Community generally and the Department of Defense (DoD) specifically.
Click on the below JPEG to read two pages summarizing what OSS CEO said to them.
One of the seminal works by Andrew Shepard. Fifteen years from speaking to being heard (barely).
One of the seminal works by Andrew Shepard. Fifteen years from speaking to being heard (barely).
One of the seminal works by Andrew Shepard. Fifteen years from speaking to being heard (barely).
Phi Beta Iota: Although labeled Confidential the document that we link to is publicly available at the US Department of Justice web site. Below is a summary of what we took away from this document, which was prescient by most standards (www.oss.net was created in 1993 by Dr. Eric Thiese, then the Internet Editor for WIRED Magazine).
Early points of interest to Bill Gates:
01) Scale to Infinity and Beyond
02) Traffic volume and speed
03) Content enhancement including 3-D visualization
04) Marginal cost of added communications use zero
05) Content-user feedback loops create the tidal wave
06) Client services must follow, help create and publish on the web
07) Technical Challenge: Real-time content
08) Technical Opportunity: Human in the loop on tap 24/7
09) Open source alternatives to the commercial internet “scary”
Internal Action Areas Identified by Bill Gates:
01) Servers
02) Client PC's (Internet would extend life of PCs)
03) File Sharing
04) Forms/Languages
05) Formats
06) Tools
Areas for Immediate Consideration:
01) Office on to the Internet
02) MSN scaling up
03) Broadband media
04) Electronic commerce
Cool Reference:
Application Strategies for the World Wide Web by Peter Pathe
Internal Challenge:
Coordinating various development activities across a very large complex global enterprise
PLATINUM LIFETIME AWARD Dr. Joseph Markowitz
Dr. Joseph Markowitz is without question the most qualified Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) pioneer in the ranks of those presently in or retired from U.S. government service. As the only real chief of the Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO) he tried valiantly to nurture a program being systematically undermined by both the leadership and the traditional broadcast monitoring service. When he moved on to advise the Defense Science Board, he served America well by helping them fully integrate the need for both defense open source information collection and exploitation, and defense information sharing with non-governmental organizations. His persistent but diplomatic efforts merit our greatest regard.
Although published internally in 1995, this plan is recorded as having been shared with the OSS '97 audience as included in the OSINT READER.
Reva Basch is the hands-down Top Gun of the information broker world, now in retirement. She started the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), she led the series of books on Secrets of the Super-Searchers (one for each market segment) and did many other extraordinary things that epitomized the craft of public intelligence. She remains the gold standard. Below is her presentation to OSS '94.
