Introduction
OSINT and Intelligence Reform
– History
– Requirements
– Collection
– Processing
– Analysis
– Covert Action
– Counterintelligence
– Accountability, Civil Liberties, and Oversight
– Strategic Warning
– Strategic Sharing
– Emerging Prospects
— Digitization
— Visualization
— Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
OSINT and Electoral Reform
OSINT and Governance Reform
OSINT and Strategic Budgetary Reform
Notes 1-44
Volume II, Chapter 6, pp. 95-122. Edited by Professor Dr. Loch Johnson, the dean of the intelligence practitioner-scholars, this set, while expensive, is the best available total overview of the craft of intelligence.
I respect Michael Dowd very much, and I have for some time been following a number of authors who bring religion into play as a force for what Paul Goodman called Humanitas. I certainly do recommend this book, but more so, his forthcoming book that I link to below, along with others that I
have in my library that have impressed (I list only the religious, there is another whole list on ecological economics and natural capitalism, and another on the extremist Republican war against science (I am estranged moderate Republican)).
Executive Summary
– Definition and scope
– Open source intelligence and joint or coalition operations
– Private sector information offerings
– OSINT and the emerging future intelligence architecture of NATO
Introduction to Open Source Intelligence
– Definitions
– OSINT in context
– OSINT and information operations
– OSINT and national security
– OSINT and the larger customer base for intelligence
– OSINT and the levels of analysis
– OSINT and coalitions
– OSINT and saving the world
– OSINT as a transformative catalyst for reform
Open Sources of Information
Open Source Software and Software for Exploitation
Open Source Services
The Open Source Intelligence Cycle
Applied Open Source Intelligence
– Open source intelligence tradecraft
– Mission relevance of open source intelligence
— Missioon area applications
Conclusion
– Money Matters
— Funding trade-offs
— Contracting mistakes
— Metrics for measuring return on investment
—–Cost of secrecy
—–Relative value
—–Return on sharing
— Commercial strategy
— Budget and manning implications
– The value of sharing
References
Acronyms
Notes 1-30
This handbook is both much shorter than, and completely different from, the five-volume set on Strategic Intelligence. Edited by Professor Dr. Loch Johnson, the dean of the practitioner-scholars, it includes a Chapter 10 my updating and adaptation of the NATO Open Source Intelligence Handbook to be of gneeral=purpose utility to the public practitioner.
Our failure to plan for the return of our soldiers wounded in our Global War on Terrorism has made it necessary to examine our unprepared and overwhelmed military/veterans health care system. Much is at stake. We are engaged in de facto perpetual war that depends on volunteers for victory. On July 31, after five months of analysis and deliberation, the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors will present its recommendations. Co-Chairs Senator Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health Donna Shalala, both experienced and deeply committed to the task, will propose changes. The most significant effects of their recommendations upon the Nation and our maimed, cognitively impaired and traumatized service members and their families will accrue over a generation or more.
On that not yet foreseeable day when oil flows out of Iraq and international oil interests trumpet the event, wounded veterans will be reminded anew of their enduring courage and self-sacrifice, a gift to the Nation that made it possible for the rest of us to avoid conscription. Fraught with combat memories, flashbacks, and disabilities, that reminder could never be sweet, but it will not be bitter if they find themselves as welcome in rehabilitation as they were in recruitment.
When the Commission presents its recommendations, some 3,200 of our volunteer soldiers will have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about 900 will have died of “non-hostile” accidents, heat exhaustion and illness. Officially, about 28,075 have already been wounded: unofficial but authoritative analysis nearly doubles that number. But the signature wound of this war is a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting from the blast forces of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Blast-TBI (bTBI) is invisible to the naked eye as is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Military doctors tell us that the official count underestimates the number of our soldiers who will return to their families, communities and employers with TBI’s slowed thinking, deficits in attention and concentration, headaches, memory loss, sleep disturbance, and irritability and with PTSD’s flashbacks and crippling emotional conditions. The number of invisibly wounded soldiers now exceeds the number of visibly wounded. We must not feign blindness to the epidemic we have brought home from this war.
Integrated Review of Two Top Books That Mesh Well,
July 10, 2007
UPDATE 24 March 2014: This update applies only to Sun, Wind & Light: Architectural Design Strategies 3rd Edition
HUGE update. Focus is on zero-net energy and carbon neutral design, augmented by energy-plus building design. New material takes it up to over 800 pages. Nine new “bundles” of design strategies are added including topcis such as “neighborhood of light,” “passively cooled buildings” and “responsive envelope.” The book is now in PDF and also in print as a flat spiral bound volume for desktop ease of use. Navigation within this book — which was already superb in the original editions — has been augmented, to include graphic “Navigation by Design Strategy Maps” showing relationships among design strategies in six nexted levels of complexity. HUGH SQUARED: The book is now accompanied by a 62-page spreadsheet and separately, on the publisher's companion web site, 1400 pages of climate data and analytics on each US climate zone including five in Alaska, all downloadable [this is part of the purchase, download needs access card printed on inside of back cover of the book]. I continue to regard this book as one of the most exciting around and would not be at all surprised if the next edition includes urban farming that also cleans water and removes waste (sort of kidding, but not really).
Although I normally read books in twos and threes on the same topic to gain varied perspectives, this is the first time I am writing a single review encompassing two books. They mesh together so well that I cannot imagine studying this subject without having BOTH in hand.
Start with the introduction in the Guidebook, which is blessed with a Foreword from Paul Hawken and see especially page 13 where the cost benefits are shown, with 48% energy savings for Gold, 30% for Silver, and 28% for Certified. See also the illustration on page 15 that I have reproduced in the image I am loading for both books: the old decision model was Cost at the top, with Schedule and Quality anchoring the triangle. the new decision model still has cost at the top, but Schedule and Human Health, Safety, & Comfort are on corners of this new pentagon, and the bottom is achored by Quality and Ecology, or what Paul Hawken would call in his books, “true cost” to the Earth and Humanitas.
NOW shift to the Contents and the Detailed Contents of Sun, Wind, & Light. As one reviewer notes, this is a course book. I did not recognize it as such, I saw it as one of the most gifted complete collection of factors to learn and apply that I have ever seen for ANY topic of study. The content and organization of this book is nothing short of Nobel-level “wow.” Finish going through this book.
NOW go back to the first 218 pages of the Handbook, and study the checklists and varied helpful boxes and explanations. The rest of the book (217-459) is case studies of specific buildings, each a few pages, that can be left for last.
At this point, I went into the Glossaries and Bibliographies of both books. Each is distinct, neither supplants the other. They must be taken together. I read Glossaries, and Indices, as content, and use them as a form of “second look” (in extremely complex books, this is actually where I start).
NOW go back to the Case Studies in the Handbook, and read each from the point of view of what “take away” lessons are there for your own building.
Reading these two books was a real treat. Outside my office kitchen is a deck with an 11 point system for attracting birds from bluebirds and bluejays to cardinals, gold finches, two kinds of woodpecker, and a flicker as well as the more common birds. I believe in diversity, and I believe that if we don't get our act together and start living up to the ideals of Natural Capitalism (see other recommended books below), our world will go sterile and dark before out great-grandchilden can share in the beauty of this planet. These two books are part of the solution, and I am in serious awe of those who made them available to all of us, and at reasonable prices to boot. Well done!!!
Although I normally read books in twos and threes on the same topic to gain varied perspectives, this is the first time I am writing a single review encompassing two books. They mesh together so well that I cannot imagine studying this subject without having BOTH in hand.
Start with the introduction in the Guidebook, which is blessed with a Foreword from Paul Hawken and see especially page 13 where the cost benefits are shown, with 48% energy savings for Gold, 30% for Silver, and 28% for Certified. See also the illustration on page 15 that I have reproduced in the image I am loading for both books: the old decision model was Cost at the top, with Schedule and Quality anchoring the triangle. the new decision model still has cost at the top, but Schedule and Human Health, Safety, & Comfort are on corners of this new pentagon, and the bottom is achored by Quality and Ecology, or what Paul Hawken would call in his books, “true cost” to the Earth and Humanitas.
NOW shift to the Contents and the Detailed Contents of Sun, Wind, & Light. As one reviewer notes, this is a course book. I did not recognize it as such, I saw it as one of the most gifted complete collection of factors to learn and apply that I have ever seen for ANY topic of study. The content and organization of this book is nothing short of Nobel-level “wow.” Finish going through this book.
NOW go back to the first 218 pages of the Handbook, and study the checklists and varied helpful boxes and explanations. The rest of the book (217-459) is case studies of specific buildings, each a few pages, that can be left for last.
At this point, I went into the Glossaries and Bibliographies of both books. Each is distinct, neither supplants the other. They must be taken together. I read Glossaries, and Indices, as content, and use them as a form of “second look” (in extremely complex books, this is actually where I start).
NOW go back to the Case Studies in the Handbook, and read each from the point of view of what “take away” lessons are there for your own building.
Reading these two books was a real treat. Outside my office kitchen is a deck with an 11 point system for attracting birds from bluebirds and bluejays to cardinals, gold finches, two kinds of woodpecker, and a flicker as well as the more common birds. I believe in diversity, and I believe that if we don't get our act together and start living up to the ideals of Natural Capitalism (see other recommended books below), our world will go sterile and dark before out great-grandchilden can share in the beauty of this planet. These two books are part of the solution, and I am in serious awe of those who made them available to all of us, and at reasonable prices to boot. Well done!!!
Jennifer Smith Has the Substance, Here Are Some More Books
July 8, 2007
Theodore Dalrymple
I voted for Jennifer Smith's review, and I believe it captures the essence very nicely. However, the author, who cannot be faulted for protraying the reality as it is, is best understood in the context of a few other books–if you don't wish to buy them, just read my summative reviews:
