According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation “Open source intelligence (OSINT) refers to a broad array of information and sources that are generally available, including information obtained from the media (newspapers, radio, television, etc.), professional and academic records (papers, conferences, professional associations, etc.), and public data (government reports, demographics, hearings, speeches, etc.).”
OSINT has been one of oldest, cheapest and the most easily available sources of intelligence. OSINT has grown exponentially in the past 20 years, specially with internet and rise of social media.
Today, it is estimated that nearly 80-95 percent of information used by the intelligence community comes from OSINT.
Despite rising prominence, OSINT is widely criticised for it’s sheer magnitude and easy availably, and therefore, considered less valuable compared to other sources of intelligence such as human intelligence (HUMINT), Signals intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery intelligence (IMINT) etc.
However, regardless of the above mentioned weaknesses OSINT proves to be a low cost and effective source of intelligence, specially because the pervasiveness of smartphones and social media.
Development of OSINT in past ten years
Internet has made collection of OSINT extremely cheap, easy and accessible. Furthermore, it has also made the skill of OSINT collection easy for a common man, and any child born after the year 2000 is practically born with this skill.
In the past seven to eight years OSINT has seen another upgrade with the rise of social media and smartphones. Smartphones and social media has allowed practically everyone in the world to easily publish content online.
Almost any incident that happens today is published online with pictures within minutes for the world to see.
Today, anyone with a social media account is a potential source of intelligence. Furthermore, social media has also created a culture of “stalking” people and organisations online.
Social media’s frequent and repeated use has also enabled its users to make accurate deductions out of information available online. Therefore, today anyone with an internet connection and a keen IQ is a potential OSINT analyst.
Challenges with OSINT today
The nature of challenges OSINT faces today is mostly the same as it did 100 years ago, i.e. volume and credibility of information available publicly.
-Volume of intelligence
More than 90 percent of world’s data has been created in the past seven years, and most of it is easily available online. Today, more than 24,000 gb of new data is added to the internet every second.
This has made it very easy for an OSINT analyst to access information online.
However, the sheer amount and variety of information in the form of transcripts, audio, video, and image overwhelms analysts, thus allowing important information available go unnoticed.
-Credibility of intelligence
Even though, computers have improved the process of OSINT collection and analysis, the total quality of intelligence has remained unchanged.
Any information announced publicly by any organisation has always had some hidden aspect to it, and this has remained unchanged even with social media.
Furthermore, a great part of the information available online may turnout to be unauthentic. This makes it very difficult for an intelligence analyst to differentiate between irrelevant information from relevant ones.
Another issue with OSINT from social media is sponsored information and manipulation of perception through it.
Alleged recent involvement of Russia in the US election through Facebook, spread of uncertified scientific papers and news reports, social media is widely used by organisations and private individuals to promote their agenda online.
Moreover, a major chunk of sponsored information and ads is disguised as genuine sources of information, and is used as a form of psychological warfare on a massive scale. This makes it difficult for intelligence analysts to identify genuine information, and assess public perception correctly.
In addition, advance softwares has made it easier to doctor texts and images. Today even videos and audio can be realistically altered with a pixel modification technology referred to as “deepfakes”, thus further complicating the process of intelligence analysis.
Benefits of OSINT from social media
Social media has expanded the reach of OSINT analysts. Today an OSINT analyst can not only easily gain information, but also directly reach out to its sources for further information. OSINT is also the cheapest as well as the fastest source of intelligence collection.
-Reach and speed of OSINT
From a strategic point of view OSINT does not hold much value compared to other sources of intelligence. However from the security point of view, OSINT has proved to be one of the most effective sources of intelligence.
Since most of the people are on social media, OSINT has the widest reach compared to other sources of intelligence.
OSINT has made investigations easier specially for law enforcement agencies, as information about most of the suspects and their associations is easily available online.
OSINT has also allowed investigating officers and intelligence analysts to easily contact civilians for information and feedback both publicly and anonymously throughout the world.
Social media is the fastest source of information today.
Any incident that happens is almost immediately available on social media. Thus giving OSINT immense tactical value during incidents like natural disasters, protests, fires, riots, terrorist attack, shootings, and other crimes.
-Legitimacy and variety of information
Regardless of the proliferation of false news and information online, OSINT on social media is driven by legitimate news outlets. Traditional news companies are still the most authentic source of information online.
Furthermore, social media is also the most popular platform for amateur journalists and sleuths to collaborate with each other and prove their skill.
Therefore, giving an OSINT analyst variety of sources with distinct knowledge and skillset.
Social media is driven by the trend of posting one’s pictures, interest and location online which is a gold mine for an OSINT analyst. This information can also be considered legitimate as most people don’t have anything serious to hide.
-Low cost
At the cost of reiteration it can be said that OSINT is most affordable source of intelligence.
It is freely available online and proliferation of smartphones and the culture of posting images online has also decreased to cost of imagery intelligence.
Additionally, decreasing costs of artificial intelligence, advance translation, facial, image, and video recognition softwares have made it easy to sweep internet for relevant information and present it in an intuitive manner.
In the past seven years social media has become the standard source of OSINT across the world. Its importance and power can be realised by the fact that non democratic countries such as China, Iran and North Korea keep a strict control on its usage.
Even though OSINT has its limitations, technology is evolving fast to break them.
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