Open-source intelligence 

(OSINT) is a multi-factor (qualitative, quantitative) methodology for

collecting, analyzing and making decisions about data accessible in publicly available sources to be
used in an intelligence context. In the intelligence community, the term "open" refers to overt,
publicly available sources (as opposed to covert or clandestine sources). OSINT under one name or
another has been around for hundreds of years. With the advent of instant communications and
rapid information transfer, a great deal of actionable and predictive intelligence can now be obtained
from public, unclassified sources. It is not related to open-source software or collective intelligence.
OSINT is the collection and analysis of information that is gathered from public, or open, sources.
[1]
 OSINT is primarily used in national security, law enforcement, and business intelligence functions
and is of value to analysts who use non-sensitive intelligence in answering classified, unclassified,
or proprietary intelligence requirements across the previous intelligence disciplines.
OSINT sources can be divided up into six different categories of information flow:[2]

 Media, print newspapers, magazines, radio, and television from across and between

countries.
 Internet, online publications, blogs, discussion groups, citizen media (i.e. – cell
phone videos, and user created content), YouTube, and other social media websites (i.e.
– Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.). This source also outpaces a variety of other sources due
to its timeliness and ease of access.
 Public government data, public government reports, budgets, hearings, telephone
directories, press conferences, websites, and speeches. Although this source comes from an
official source they are publicly accessible and may be used openly and freely.
 Professional and academic publications, information acquired from journals, conferences,
symposia, academic papers, dissertations, and theses.
 Commercial data, commercial imagery, financial and industrial assessments, and
databases.
 Grey literature, technical reports, preprints, patents, working papers, business documents,
unpublished works, and newsletters.
OSINT is distinguished from research in that it applies the process of intelligence to create tailored
knowledge supportive of a specific decision by a specific individual or group.[3]

Definition[edit]
OSINT is defined by both the U.S. Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Department of
Defense (DoD), as intelligence "produced from publicly available information that is collected,
exploited, and disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of
addressing a specific intelligence requirement."[4] As defined by NATO, OSINT is intelligence
"derived from publicly available information, as well as other unclassified information that has limited
public distribution or access."[5]
According to political scientist Jeffrey T. Richelson, “open source acquisition involves procuring
verbal, written, or electronically transmitted material that can be obtained legally. In addition to
documents and videos available via the Internet or provided by a human source, others are obtained
after U.S. or allied forces have taken control of a facility or site formerly operated by a foreign
government or terrorist group.”[6]
Security researcher Mark M. Lowenthal defines OSINT as “any and all information that can be
derived from overt collection: all types of media, government reports and other documents, scientific
research and reports, commercial vendors of information, the Internet, and so on. The main
qualifiers to open-source information are that it does not require any type of clandestine collection
techniques to obtain it and that it must be obtained through means that entirely meet the copyright
and commercial requirements of the vendors where applicable."[7]

History[edit]
Seal of the 9/11 Commission

OSINT in the United States traces its origins to the creation of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring
Service (FBMS), an agency responsible for the monitoring of foreign broadcasts. An example of their
work is reflected in the application of the correlation of changes in the price of oranges in Paris with
that of railway bridges being bombed successfully.[8]
The Aspin-Brown Commission stated in 1996 that US access to open sources was "severely
deficient" and that this should be a "top priority" for both funding and DCI attention.[9]
In July 2004, following the September 11 attacks, the 9/11 Commission recommended the creation
of an open-source intelligence agency.[10] In March 2005, the Iraq Intelligence
Commission recommended[1] the creation of an open-source directorate at the CIA.
Following these recommendations, in November 2005 the Director of National
Intelligence announced the creation of the DNI Open Source Center. The Center was established to
collect information available from "the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial
data, photos and commercial imagery."[11] In addition to collecting openly available information, it
would train analysts to make better use of this information. The center absorbed the CIA's previously
existing Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), originally established in 1941, with FBIS
head Douglas Naquin named as director of the center.[12] Then, following the events
of 9/11 the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act merged FBIS and other research
elements into the Office of the Director of National Intelligence creating the Open Source Enterprise.
Furthermore, the private sector has invested in tools which aid in OSINT collection and analysis.
Specifically, In-Q-Tel, a Central Intelligence Agency supported venture capital firm in Arlington, VA
assisted companies develop web-monitoring and predictive analysis tools.
In December 2005, the Director of National Intelligence appointed Eliot A. Jardines as the Assistant
Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source to serve as the Intelligence Community's
senior intelligence officer for open source and to provide strategy, guidance and oversight for
the National Open Source Enterprise.[13] Mr. Jardines has established the National Open Source
Enterprise[14] and authored intelligence community directive 301. In 2008, Mr. Jardines returned to
the private sector and was succeeded by Dan Butler who is ADDNI/OS[15] and previously Mr.
Jardines' Senior Advisor for Policy.[16]

Value[edit]
OSINT is valuable because it has less rigorous processing and exploitation processes and timelines
than more technical intelligence disciplines such as HUMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, GEOINT, etc.
Additionally, OSINT collects a valuable variety of opinions because it encompasses a great variety of
sources.
According to the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding
Weapons of Mass Destruction report submitted in March 2005, OSINT must be included in the all-
source intelligence process for the following reasons (as stated in the report):
 1. The ever-shifting nature of intelligence needs compels the IC (Intelligence Community) to
quickly and easily understand a wide range of foreign countries and cultures. – … today's
threats are rapidly changing and geographically diffuse; an intelligence analyst may be
forced to shift rapidly from one topic to the next. Increasingly, IC professionals need to
quickly assimilate social, economic, and cultural information about a country—information
often detailed in open sources.
2. Open-source information provides a base for understanding classified materials. Despite
large quantities of classified material produced by the IC, the amount of classified
information produced on any one topic can be quite limited, and may be taken out of context
if viewed only from a classified-source perspective. A notable example relates to terrorism,
where open-source information can fill gaps and create links that allow analysts to better
understand fragmented intelligence, rumored terrorist plans, possible means of attack, and
potential targets.
3. Open-source materials can protect sources and methods. Sometimes an intelligence
judgment that is actually informed with sensitive, classified information can be defended on
the basis of open-source reporting. This can prove useful when policy-makers need to
explain policy decisions or communicate with foreign officials without compromising
classified sources.
4. Only open source can store history. A robust open-source program can, in effect, gather data
to monitor the world's cultures and how they change with time. This is difficult, if not
impossible, using the snapshots provided by classified collection methods.[17]

Process[edit]
OSINT is a highly diverse form of intelligence collection and analysis. It does not have its own
agency, however, units are scattered within the Department of Defense and the State Department.
[18]
 Most OSINT collectors need to take precautions while collecting information from the Internet.
This can come in the form of using a VPN to anonymize their identity and collect information more
discreetly. This is where evaluating sources becomes important to the overall OSINT collection and
analysis process. An OSINT analyst needs intelligence evaluation to determine a true process or
expose a false process that would affect predicting the future. Finally, the analysts need to find use
of the evaluated intelligence so that it can be incorporated into a finished classified, unclassified, or
proprietary intelligence product.
See also: Big Data

Information collection in OSINT is generally a different problem from collection in other intelligence
disciplines where obtaining the raw information to be analyzed may be the major difficulty,
particularly if it is to be obtained from non-cooperative targets. In OSINT, the chief difficulty is in
identifying relevant, reliable sources from the vast amount of publicly available information.
[19]
 However, this is not as great a challenge for those who know how to access local knowledge and
how to leverage human experts who can create new tailored knowledge on the fly.[citation needed]

Open Source Intelligence analysis software[edit]

There are several categories of tools intended for OSINT analysis. The first category includes open
source tools to query multiple search engines simultaneously such as IntelTechniques or search
engines that provide results separately such as All in One or DuckDuckGo. This category also
includes social media search engines and search engines of domains and people such as Pipl.com,
Whois.net, Website.informer. The second category is designed for big data analytics platforms such
as DataWalk which combine OSINT insight with local, internal data for further visual analysis and to
conduct link analysis to identify connections across a large volume of records.
Tools[edit]
A list of some tools used for collecting open source intelligence:

 Whois
 Nslookup
 FOCA
 theHarvester
 Shodan
 Maltego
 Recon-ng
 Censys
 Social Links
 Spectrum

OSINT community disciplines[edit]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July
2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

United States[edit]
Government[edit]
There are a large number of open-source activities taking place throughout the US Government.
Frequently, these open-source activities are described as "media monitoring", "media analysis",
"internet research" and "public surveys" but are open source nonetheless.
The Library of Congress sponsors the Federal Research Division (FRD) which conducts a great deal
of tailored open-source research on a fee-for-service basis for the executive branch.
Intelligence[edit]
The US Intelligence Community's open-source activities (known as the National Open Source
Enterprise) are dictated by Intelligence Community Directive 301 promulgated by the Director of
National Intelligence.[20] The Directive establishes the authorities and responsibilities of the Assistant
Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source (ADDNI/OS), the DNI's Open Source
Center and the National Open Source Committee.
Prior to the establishment of the National Open Source Enterprise, the Foreign Broadcast
Information Service (FBIS), established in 1941, was the government's primary open-source unit,
transcribing and translating foreign broadcasts. It absorbed the Defense Department's Joint
Publications Research Service (JPRS), which did a similar function with foreign printed materials,
including newspapers, magazines, and technical journals.
Armed forces[edit]
The former Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Dr. Stephen Cambone encouraged in part
by the Defense Science Board reports on strategic communication and transition to and from
hostilities, created the Defense Open Source Program (DOSP). The current under-secretary of
defense for intelligence is assigned executive agency for this program to the Defense Intelligence
Agency.
U.S. military offices that engage in OSINT activities include:

 Unified combatant command

 Defense Intelligence Agency
 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
 US Army Foreign Military Studies Office
 EUCOM JAC Molesworth
 Foreign media monitoring in support of information operations, U.S. Strategic Command
Homeland Security[edit]
The Department of Homeland Security has an active open-source intelligence unit. In congressional
testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee's Intelligence, Information Sharing and
Terrorism Risk Assessment Subcommittee, Undersecretary of Homeland Security Charles Allen
indicated on February 14, 2007, that he had established the "Domestic Open Source Enterprise" to
support the Department's OSINT needs and that of state, local,Ο and tribal partners.
Law enforcement[edit]
The law enforcement OSINT community applies open-source intelligence (OSINT) to the prediction,
prevention, investigation, and prosecution of criminals including terrorists. Additionally, fusion
centers around the US are increasingly utilizing OSINT to support their intelligence generation and
investigations.
Examples of successful law enforcement OSINT include Scotland Yard OSINT; Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) OSINT.
INTERPOL and EUROPOL experimented with OSINT units for a time, but they appear to have
atrophied with the departure of their individual champions.
New York Police Department (NYPD) is known to have an OSINT unit, as does the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department, housed within the Emergency Operations Bureau and affiliated with the
LA Joint Regional Intelligence Center.
Business[edit]
Business OSINT encompasses Commercial Intelligence, Competitor Intelligence, and Business
Intelligence, and is often a chief area of practice of private intelligence agencies.
Businesses may use information brokers and private investigators to collect and analyze relevant
information for business purposes which may include the media, deep web, web 2.0 and commercial
content.
Private specialized business[edit]
Another related business group within the United States that relies upon OSINT is the commercial
bail-bond industry. This related industry, servicing the court system, is apart from the
above Business Intelligence sector. OSINT is useful to bail-bond agencies that employ a private
fugitive recovery agency to locate and apprehend their absent client; i.e., a criminal defendant who
has failed to appear for court and subsequently a warrant for arrest was issued. OSINT is the first
method of discovery to help locate the defendant when initial interviewing of the bond co-signers,
defendant's relatives and friends is lacking. OSINT gathering leads the investigator to discover an
alternate hypothesis to analyze and then match relevant data for making a prediction regarding the
fugitive's location; e.g., data is scrubbed from web access on Facebook entries, Twitter messages,
and Snapchat.
Should those methods fail, the next step is to seek the specialized behavioral intelligence services
that reference OSINT to aid in establishing the veracity of subjects during the forensic interview and
is used to create a behavioral profile. OSINT data is correlated with interview data to include a
variety behavioral patterns; e.g., a list of daily personal contacts, habits of activities, visited places of
interest, vehicles used, favorite group involvements, etc. According to the director, psychologist and
forensic interviewer at MN-Behavioral Intelligence Agency, (2016) OSINT data base has to be
critically filtered and analyzed before it can be applied within investigative interviewing and
interrogation.

Risks for practitioners[edit]

A main hindrance to practical OSINT is the volume of information it has to deal with ("information
explosion"). The amount of data being distributed increases at a rate that it becomes difficult
to evaluate sources in intelligence analysis.
Accredited journalists have some protection in asking questions, and researching for recognized
media outlets. Even so, they can be imprisoned, even executed, for seeking out OSINT. Private
individuals illegally collecting data for a foreign military or intelligence agency is
considered espionage in most countries. Of course, espionage that is not treason (i.e. betraying
one's country of citizenship) has been a tool of statecraft since ancient times.[21]