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CIA Does Open Source?
I’m not sure what to make of this:
WASHINGTON — The CIA now has its own bloggers.
In a bow to the rise of Internet-era secrets hidden in plain view, the agency has started hosting Web logs with the latest information on topics including North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s public visit to a military installation (his 38th this year) and the Burmese media’s silence on a ministry reshuffling.
It even has a blog on blogs, dedicated to cracking the code of what useful information can be gleaned from the rapidly expanding milieu of online journals and weird electronic memorabilia.
The blogs are posted on an unclassified, government-wide Web site, part of a rechristened CIA office for monitoring, translating and analyzing publicly available information called the DNI Open Source Center.
It strikes me as a bit more than comical that an agency dedicated to covert operations would try to use the words “Open Source” in anything that they undertake. It shows either that they either (1) don’t understand the term at all, (2) are stupid, or (3) are trying to cash in on a popular phrase to help rehabilitate their image. I’m going to guess number 3 with a sprinkling of number 1. Or maybe it’s just symptomatic of a larger over-saturation of this term within the culture. When it’s usage becomes so broad that this happens, chances are it’s on it’s way to meaninglessness.
Maybe the funniest part of the whole thing though is that unless you’re a government employee, you can’t actually even access the damned thing. (Here’s the link.) It’s too bad really. I’d be curious to see what the hell kinds of stuff they are writing. I mean, if this is all unclassified, then by all means, open it up and let us all have a go at it.
November 28th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
I mean, if this is all unclassified, then by all means, open it up and let us all have a go at it.
And why stop there? Everything already is more or less declassified as it is. There is no hiding on this world wide web. Everything under the sun and that which is occluded by it is fair game now. All bases are covered. Question is: All whose base belong to who?
This is question that has harried and interested me these past few years. Which is bigger: the open source speculation on the WWW or the closed source machinations of the CIA? Out of the two, which has the most power to create the new memes that forge predictable social patterns? Or is there nothing predictable? And if a good portion of what can be predicted hits close enough to its targets, where then is the proof that there is any such concern as this concept they call “national security”? My humble thought experiments have led me to tentatively conclude that the federal government is now chiefly in the memetic chaff producing business as cover for what everybody already knows — they’ve ravaged the planet in humanity’s good faith and now need the protection of the only thing big, bad and powerful enough to protect them — the vast bureaucracies of the US Federal/Corporate government.
That they’ve “embraced” open source just means there is an enemy at the gates and the enemy is coming in from all ports, doors, slats, nooks and crannies. For the CIA has the power to monitor for instance, voting “irregularities” in and of closed source voting systems run by demonstrably iffy corporations. Yet they do not and/or they do not divulge that they know. The authority of the US government is now gone — usurped by fundamentalist corporatist control. Control of the vacuum is now the prime directive. There is probably uncertainty that they can maintain it and/or there is hubris that they are well ahead of the curve even though the “curve” has now stretched into the mathematical value known as uncertainty.
Unfortunately they are no better or worse than any of the rest — the smart ones know this, therefore they are as reachable as anyone. Another thing the humble thought experiments have informed me of, is that the only thing they really are good at is killing. That’s basically it.
November 28th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
try requesting the blog archives under the f.o.i.a. it will be interesting to see how much redaction there is.
November 28th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
Speaking of FOIA, here’s the online archives the FBI has made available:
http://foia.fbi.gov/index.html
November 29th, 2005 at 12:08 am
it`s difficult to make much of that exept to realise that they now know that someone at this key pad was poking around in thier mj12 files. paranoid?
November 29th, 2005 at 1:10 am
Now this I believe is a really good journal topic. It’s things like this, which in my mind hardly seperates the CIA in class (or smarts) above other covert intelligence agencies, such as the FBI, NSA and others. Or even puts the CIA above just normal average citizens who many times happen to have their own smart intelligent viewpoints. So hearing things like this definitely seems to lower my regard and esteem for the CIA, even if I don’t know what exactly the hell they do. Perhaps it’s better I didn’t know what they did, I might even become more pissed off. But anyway I’d like to apologize for some of my negative remarks, especially to Tim, because he definitely didn’t deserve it. I’m just a really antagonistic person by nature, I guess that’s my mean hypocritical way of getting my foot in the door. This Blog/Journal website actually ranks at one of my top 2 favorites, my other one is MichelleMalkin, but that bitch never answers my emails so screw her! lol jk And also, I actually do have my own journal/blog type of thing that I do, but it would be impossible for me to write in it every day. But then again it’s sort of a different nature, more personal, less mainstream. I’m a total dunce about web design, so it might be years before I ever have the intelligence or capabilities to create a nice site like this. But anyways cheerio everyone, and thanks for ya’lls kind feedback and welcome!
November 29th, 2005 at 1:51 am
“Open source” intelligence has been around for decades… it simply means that it is intelligence derived from sources “open” to all. Remember “Three Days of the Condor,” in which Redford was a CIA operative paid to read everything published? OSI. And funny, in retrospect… an army of CIA bloggers couldn’t read a tiny fraction of all the blogs out there.
But this is actually a good development… if the CIA did more of this, and less Patriot Act BS of trying to spy on citizens, we would all be much safer. The problem is not the lack of information, but a lack of intelligent analysis of the information in front of our eyes.
November 29th, 2005 at 1:59 am
Later in that article they say:
Funny, isnt that exactly Google’s mission statement?
November 29th, 2005 at 3:07 am
i listened to an interview on 2600.com with i guy from the itelligence community who said that 9/11 was a problem from within the culture of the intellegence community. it refused to hire anyone but iowa farm boys. subsequently nobody understood middle eastern culture and it`s methods of command and control. any intel that the cia got was lost on the staff. the president knew alright, but he had no idea what he knew. it didn`t help that clinton had cut the balls off the military and intelligence budget. deaf, dumb and blind is not a position of strength and so planes flew into buildings.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:11 am
lol jk
Because I do not know what you are “laughing out loud” at, I will continue. Actually reiterate.
What is the degree of separation between WWW speculation (open source) and CIA machinations (closed)? Seriously. Couldn’t the two be one in the same? It’s about what people believe right?
So therefore where is the pivot about which this world we all agree on rotates? Is it just myth and marketing or is it actually made up of real people? I think we, I, the CIA etc. are all at the same point in the game. We are humans and will be humane to one another or we will not. If we cannot be humane to one another then well, we usher in the new and improved iteration of human consciousness. Which is actually not new and certainly not improved.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:58 am
I think you’re blowing this out of proportion. Follow my link above and you’ll see what I found digging a little further than you did.
Among the acceptible affiliations is “BBC Monitoring Service employee” which led me to a posting on GlobalSecurity.org describing them as engaging in open source intelligence.
I think to them the word “Source” refers to “Intelligence Sources” hence an “Open Source” is something published in the open such as news media or blogging.
November 29th, 2005 at 11:24 am
M’eye perception only, here, but–eye feel it’s probably naive to think that they’re using the term ‘Open source” ignorantly or stupidly without a conception of what it means. Within the agency as a system there may be plenty of out-of-touch guys who don’t get it, but eye’d be surprised if there aren’t people who specifically specialize in internet and media culture, etc., who would be a part of blogspook. David’s explanation seems reasonable to kmee, especially if this blogging is mostly for “in house” users and viewers. Another suggestion is that they are also hijacking the term to confuse the waters. Obvious precursors/models for this would be the vast number of right wing or industry front groups with names like “Citizens for a Better Environment” (that’s not an actual example, eye just don’t have one ready at hand now, but it’s been covered in the news some), which could be mistaken for grassroots enviornmental groups, that actually serve interests diametrically opposed to what environmentalists are about. But, eye like Dave’s (can eye call ya Dave?) suggestion well enough.
November 29th, 2005 at 11:24 am
i think when the spooks use the term “open source” they are sliding by, semantically, into thier own definition for the term. typical obfuscation and slieght-of-phrase. they are prevaricators of the highest order and are, like all bureaucracies, autocratic.
November 29th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
David, I don’t see what you mean by that you “dug deeper” into this than me. Although I agree with your probable interpretation, that they meant their sources were freely available or whatever. But what I’m saying still stands: that’s not the culturally accepted meaning of open source. It takes a valuable concept and turns it on its head regardless.
I wish I could find the reference, but I think I read an article about this a few months back which explained the whole thing better. It was before they’d released this site, but they were talking about how information sharing within the agency isn’t all that it could be. And that this move was designed to get people sharing info one-to-one based on who was an expert and who was in need of expertise. In a sense, it just described the whole thing as more or less a corporate intranet which to me makes more sense than anything else. But still the name is a total farce. But hey, Freedom is Slavery, after all.
November 29th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
I just want to reiterate what Jay said. The term “Open Source” in intelligence (OSINT) pre-dates the software movement. It’s a method of intelligence gathering that relies on publicly available information. The fact that the CIA is including blogs along with the traditional periodicals, books, and broadcasts just tells me that they’re moving with the times.
Actually, the CIA has been pretty good at including as many media technologies as possible to collect intelligence.
There are many disciplines of intelligence, Open Source Intelligence being one of them. There’s also Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Geospacial (GEOINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), etc.
November 29th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
OH… I didn’t catch the point that their use of the term arose before the commonly accepted meaning with the open-source movement. My mistake. Still very interesting to compare the two culturally, I think.