#OSE Open Source Everything – Page 180 – Public Intelligence Blog

I published What 2013 Has In Store 166 days ago and summed up my discoveries in Professionalism & Propaganda a week ago. This 1,800+ word piece with descriptive links to over thirty posts covers everything from my network of now over 3,000 Facebook Anonymous supporters through the CIA’s application of mindfulness to the analysis process, a direction taken in response to network threats.

During that time I completed a social network analysis class offered by Coursera and I curated nineteen related documents in my SNA Class collection. Humans exhibit a variety of interconnected ways of making decisions, information itself has a network of precursors and successors, and the flow of information through human networks can often be modeled as a spreading contagion.

There are a variety of problems that professional analysts face which have been studied in-depth by the Central Intelligence Agency‘s internal think tank, the Center for the Study of Intelligence. A distributed, grassroots network shares some characteristics with a professional cadre of analysts, but organizing, motivating, and assessing their progress is dramatically different from that of a hierarchical organization.

Here is an overview of the universe for the next stage in my inquiries. This Maltego graph displays five major components. The large group with the most diverse colors is representative of my place in the scheme of things – people who engage me in a bi-drectional fashion and organizations to which I subscribe. The cluster of people(lavender) and Twitter accounts(green) at the lower left represents e-International Relations, which is open and academic in nature. The similar looking cluster at the upper right are the Twitter users among the 156 analysts for Wikistrat. A larger graph of their complete network is seen in the next image. The cluster at the lower right is the LinkedIn-centric International Security Observers, an open, web based think tank.

. . . . . . . . .

If I had to distill what I am trying to get at here in one paragraph, it would be this:

Groups of analysts need a shared context that can store and display information in chronological order, recognizing entities in the field ranging from states to naval vessels to individuals. The system needs to be able to store documents, images, URLs, and other internet accessible content. The system need not perform link analysis, but it must be amenable to doing so with its content using a tool like Maltego or Gephi, and then making the analysis available as an integral part of the overall offering.

Read full post with many links and graphics.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: Confusion & Disinformation”

2013/05/192013/05/19

Poor Richard: PeerPoint – Open P2P Proposal

Software

PeerPoint

An Open P2P Requirements Definition and Design Specification Proposal

Google Doc created June 6, 2012

Last updated October 19, 2012

PeerPoint shares a vision of “Sovereign Computing”:

“To be the true owner of your information and of your computer's hardware resources, as well as to share these things in any way you want and only with whomever you want. To participate in the Internet free of the middleman, as an autonomous, independent and sovereign individual.” (Klaus Wuestefeld)

PeerPoint’s version of the sovereign individual is the peer. A peer is a critter of the bio-digital ecosystem. The bio-digital ecosystem includes nature, human culture, machine devices and the internet. The term “peer” can apply to a person or a machine, and either kind of peer can play different roles in various groups, networks, and communities. But there are no “second class” peers but trust relations between sovereign peers. A sovereign peer may choose to interact through any kind of network and with any entity whether it be a trusted equal or an untrusted corporate giant. A peer always retains an autonomy of agency to consent to or reject any relationship. There is no particular entity, group, or service in the “internets” that a sovereign peer can't go around or do without.

Arguably life on the internet is already like that and always has been. The problem is that for most internet users their agency, or sovereignty, is severely compromised. They submit to many relationships and services without really being informed. Is it their own fault? No, because the deck is stacked against them. Important facts and choices are unknown, withheld, or obfuscated. There are either insufficient alternatives or so many choices no human person has time to evaluate them all. Out of necessity we put our trust in proxies (others who make decisions for us), and that trust is very often betrayed.

The PeerPoint project is intended to serve several communities of interest from average internet users to social entrepreneurs and technology innovators. The project will need to present different faces and appropriate on-ramps to these different communities. This document is only a beginning.

DOCUMENT (142 Pages): PeerPoint

Text Only Below the Line. For Graphics Download the Document

Continue reading “Poor Richard: PeerPoint – Open P2P Proposal”

2013/05/162013/05/16

Berto Jongman: Interactive Political Risk Map

Analysis, Geospatial, Worth A Look

Map Format Options

Note: Political Risk Map and Terrorism Risk Map are hosted on the same website. Use the same login credentials to access both. Click the links below to access:

PDF Version

Online Version for 2013 Data Only (no registration required)

Login to Online Historical Maps and Analytics (if you already registered)

Value added features of Interactive Risk Map



Exposure Calculator allows clients to measure their financial exposures against country risk.		Map Analysis allows clients to measure countries against each other over time.

Click here for web page to register for access to historical maps and supporting analytics.

2013/05/162013/05/16

Michel Bauwens: Civilized Discourse Construction Kit

Advanced Cyber/IO, Architecture, Civil Society, Data, Design, Governance, Innovation, Knowledge, P2P / Panarchy, Software, Worth A Look

People are raving about this as a possible alternative command and control system for the public to use.

Civilized Discourse Construction Kit

Jeff Atwood

Coding Horror, February 5, 2013

EXTRACT:

After spending four solid years thinking of discussion as the established corrupt empire, and Stack Exchange as the scrappy rebel alliance, I began to wonder – what would it feel like to change sides? What if I became a champion of random, arbitrary discussion, of the very kind that I'd spent four years designing against and constantly lecturing users on the evil of?

I already built an X-Wing; could I build a better Tie Fighter?

Today we announce the launch of Discourse, a next-generation, 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.

The goal of the company we formed, Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc., is exactly that – to raise the standard of civilized discourse on the Internet through seeding it with better discussion software:

100% open source and free to the world, now and forever.
Feels great to use. It's fun.
Designed for hi-resolution tablets and advanced web browsers.
Built in moderation and governance systems that let discussion communities protect themselves from trolls, spammers, and bad actors – even without official moderators.

Our amazingly talented team has been working on Discourse for almost a year now, and although like any open source software it's never entirely done, we believe it is already a generation ahead of any other forum software we've used.

Continue reading “Michel Bauwens: Civilized Discourse Construction Kit”

2013/05/152016/03/26

Reflections on Alternative Command & Control and Four Transformation Forcing Concepts

#OSE Open Source Everything, Advanced Cyber/IO, All Reflections & Story Boards, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Key Players, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Strategy, Threats

I have been reflecting on the past twenty years, and the remarkable resistence of the US Intelligence Community, seemingly impervious to all manner of reform recommendations, be they presidential, congressional, or public. Reform is not transformation. This from Dr. Russell Ackoff, a pioneer in systems thinking and reflexive practice:

Reformations and transformations are not the same thing. Reformations are concerned with changing the means systems employ to pursue their objectives. Transformations involve changes in the objectives they pursue.

And now this from Ada Bozeman:

(There is a need) to recognize that just as the essence of knowledge is not as split up into academic disciplines as it is in our academic universe, so can intelligence not be set apart from statecraft and society, or subdivided into elements…such as analysis and estimates, counterintelligence, clandestine collection, covert action, and so forth. Rather … intelligence is a scheme of things entire. (Bozeman 1998: 177):[1]

The recent NATO Innovation Hub initiative in leveraging social media is a tiny but potentially potent transformation starting point. It reflects clarity, diversity, and integrity. After an open brainstorming session that identified 32 opportunity areas, enablers, and concerns, the team nurturing the NATO Innovation Hub settled on three areas for focus where concept papers will be developed:

-‐ Education and Training through New Media
-‐ Alternative Command and Control
-‐ Social Media Users Training

As one of the early invited participants contributing to the process, I offered the below comments toward the first draft of the concept paper for Alternative Command and Control, and am now adding to that a section on four forcing concepts or functions for transforming strategy, policy, acquisition, and operations via the alternative command and control concept.

Continue reading “Reflections on Alternative Command & Control and Four Transformation Forcing Concepts”

2013/05/152013/05/15

Berto Jongman: EU Emergency Response Centre (no NATO); E-Stonia; Google Takes Hit on Privacy; Strongbox Anonymous Document Sharing Tool

Architecture, Design, Governance, Software

Emergency Response Centre: for a faster and more efficient European response to disasters

“With the unfortunately increasing frequency and complexity of disasters, EU Member States need to cooperate even more closely. The new EU Emergency Response Centre provides a state of the art platform that allows them to coordinate under the most extreme circumstances, enables them to tackle these challenges even more effectively and thus helps to protect our citizens,” said Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.

How Estonia became E-stonia

In some countries, computer programming might be seen as the realm of the nerd

World from Berlin: A ‘Clear Defeat' for Google

A German high court has ruled that Google must remove automatically suggested search terms if they violate a person's privacy. Editorialists at the country's national newspapers see a defeat for the Internet giant and a victory for privacy law.

Introducing Strongbox

This morning, The New Yorker launched Strongbox, an online place where people can send documents and messages to the magazine, and we, in turn, can offer them a reasonable amount of anonymity. It was put together by Aaron Swartz, who died in January, and Kevin Poulsen. Kevin explains some of the background in his own post, including Swartz’s role and his survivors’ feelings about the project. (They approve, something that was important for us here to know.) The underlying code, given the name DeadDrop, will be open-source, and we are very glad to be the first to bring it out into the world, fully implemented.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: EU Emergency Response Centre (no NATO); E-Stonia; Google Takes Hit on Privacy; Strongbox Anonymous Document Sharing Tool”

2013/05/142013/05/14

Stephen E. Arnold: Open Source Software in Health — The Tsunami Rises

#OSE Open Source Everything, Software

List of New Open Source EHR Software Solutions

The innovative community of open source software developers have created many new applications in a variety of fields, but a recent Datamation article narrows in on one field in particular — health care. “50 Open Source Replacements for Health Care Software” shares a rundown on all fifty electronic health record software solutions.

A study from PricewaterhouseCooper revealed that 79 percent of health care execs expect to see an increase on their technology spending this year. EHR capabilities are a major area in need of an upgrade at many health care institutions but still others anticipate needing analytics to help improve care for patients. Costs may be an issue for some.

In light of expenses, the article states:

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Open Source Software in Health — The Tsunami Rises”