Category: References

I will not replicate all that is at www.oss.net and to a much lesser extent, www.earth-intelligence.net, but do want to recognize a handful of extraordinary individuals by isolating their especially meritorious contributiions to the long-running debate about national intelligence reform and re-invention.

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1995 Markowitz (US) Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO)

Briefings (Core), Government, Historic Contributions
Joe Markowitz
Joe Markowitz

2006 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 valiently 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 yet diplomatic efforts merit our greatest regard.  1995 Markowitz COSPO

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1995 Simmons (US) Open Source Intelligence: An Examination of Its Exploitation in the Defense Intelligence Community

Hill Letters & Testimony, Historic Contributions, History of Opposition, White Papers
Rob Simmons
Rob Simmons

GOLDEN CANDLE AWARD: CONGRESSMAN ROB SIMMONS (R-CT-02)

IOP '06.  To Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02), who, as a pioneer in the 1990’s, won his first Golden Candle as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding an open source unit, later  officially recognized as the “Best Small Unit in the US Army Reserve.  As a Congressman, elected in 2000, he has been diligent and faithful to the Republic in pressing for open source intelligence (OSINT) reform across both the defense and the homeland security communities.  There is no more influential champion for public intelligence and open source information exploitation  serving the U.S. Government today.

Below is the paper Rob Simmons, as gentle and intelligent a Member as we have ever encountered, wrote in 1995 as a Major in the Post Graduate Intelligence Program.

Maj Rob Simmons, USAR
Maj Rob Simmons, USAR
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1995 House Appropriations Committee Surveys Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

History of Opposition, Legislation, Methods & Process, Policy

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.

HAC OSINT 1995
HAC OSINT 1995
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Reference: 1995 Bill Gates Internet Tidal Wave Memorandum

Memoranda
US DoJ Online Copy

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