Kudos to the Open Source Center for producing a sensational conference
Last Updated on Sunday, 13 September 2009 09:15 Written by Jeffreycarr Sunday, 13 September 2009 09:15
I just got back from a really terrific event produced by the DNI Open Source Center – a one and a half day workshop on the Russian Internet.
For those of who you don’t know the work of the OSC, they have in my opinion single-handedly elevated the profession of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) collection and analysis from getting no respect inside the Intelligence Community (IC) to one that every agency is designating as a must-have.
The conference was only open to current members of the IC plus invited speakers, and the speakers came from very diverse backgrounds. In fact, I was the only speaker who focused on the Russian Internet from a cyber warfare perspective (i.e., the Internet as an attack platform and Social Networks as target-rich environments). Others were academics, journalists, and a few security and intelligence professionals, and everyone focused on a different area. It was very stimulating with lots of audience interaction both during the sessions (lots of time provided for Q&A), during the breaks, and afterwards.
Fortunately, Sensa Solutions who handled the logistics for the OSC has posted some of the presentations on their Website. I particularly enjoyed Persephone Miel (Which came first, Russian Media or Russian Reality) and Mikhail Alexseev (Internet Search Traffic and Ethnic Relations in Russia), but they are all worth reading.
I hope that I’m invited back next year, and that the OSC expands the length of the next conference to two full days. I understand that some folks who were invited, opted not to attend. All I can say is I hope you had a good reason because you missed something really special. For those of you who are eligible to attend next year, please make the effort to go. You won’t regret it.
I was just curious if you planned on posting any information from your presentation? Does it cover material that is not available through the Grey Goose reporting? Is it more in depth, what (if you can answer) were some of the topics that you specifically covered. My colleague was there and said that you had one of the more interesting presentations.
I agree that the Open Source Center has played a major part in getting the community to respect the role of Open Source Intelligence, but they hardly did so single-handedly. The 9/11 Commission Report, the 2004 WMD Report and the Director of National Intelligence’s National Open Source Enterprise (created in most part by ADDNI/OS Eliot Jardines) created an atmosphere that required the community as a whole to take a closer look at Open Sources and incorporate them into the intelligence cycle. That isn’t to say that no one had incorporated them before – in fact OSC’s predecessor FBIS (The Foreign Broadcast Information Service) had been giving agencies valuable foreign media intelligence for more that four decades – but that these agencies and all of their enterprises needed to mark open sources as such and provide funding to pursue open sources. My argument is not to take the duly deserved praise from the OSC, but rather to spread it around to those whose voices amplified what the OSC has been saying (mostly unheard) as FBIS for years.
Hi Chad, thanks for your question. I’ll post an outline of what I covered.
My decks are mostly speaking points so posting them wouldn’t really deliver much in the way of actual content.
Thanks, Kirby. You raise a good point. OSC is probably the best known OSINT provider, but other, newer efforts deserve praise as well.
Would you consider writing a guest post on the topic? I’d be happy to publish it here under the IntelFusion banner.
Absolutely. Give me a little time, I have no less than 4 papers in the fire at the moment. I will chat with you offline about it. Cheers!