The promise of open-source intelligence | The Economist

ab1630's bookmarks 2021-08-09

Summary:

"The great hope of the 1990s and 2000s was that the internet would be a force for openness and freedom. As Stewart Brand, a pioneer of online communities, put it: “Information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time.” It was not to be. Bad information often drove out good. Authoritarian states co-opted the technologies that were supposed to loosen their grip. Information was wielded as a weapon of war. Amid this disappointment one development offers cause for fresh hope: the emerging era of open-source intelligence (osint).

New sensors, from humdrum dashboard cameras to satellites that can see across the electromagnetic spectrum, are examining the planet and its people as never before. The information they collect is becoming cheaper. Satellite images cost several thousand dollars 20 years ago, today they are often provided free and are of incomparably higher quality. ...

Such an emancipation of information promises to have profound effects. The decentralised and egalitarian nature of osint erodes the power of traditional arbiters of truth and falsehood, in particular governments and their spies and soldiers. For those like this newspaper who believe that secrecy can too easily be abused by people in power, osint is welcome....

However, every source of information is fallible and the scrutiny of imagery and data is more empirical than most of them. Hence, when osint is mistaken or malign, competing osint is often the best way to put the record straight. And over time, researchers and investigators can build a reputation for honesty, sound analysis and good judgment, making it easier for people to distinguish trustworthy sources of intelligence from charlatans...."

Link:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/08/07/the-promise-of-open-source-intelligence

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » ab1630's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.reuse oa.security oa.images oa.data

Date tagged:

08/09/2021, 07:34

Date published:

08/09/2021, 03:34