Osint.org is a collaborative C3I media monitoring dashboard, forum for OSINT analysts and a series of workshops on application of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) in market context. C3I stands for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence.
OSINT Concept
Nothing beats Three Days of the Condor, a 1975 American political thriller film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow, based on the 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, brilliantly describing the very essence of OSINT:
“Listen. I work for the CIA. I am not a spy. I just read books! We read everything that’s published in the world. And we… we feed the plots – dirty tricks, codes – into a computer, and the computer checks against actual CIA plans and operations. I look for leaks, I look for new ideas… We read adventures and novels and journals. I… I… Who’d invent a job like that?”, says Joe Turner, an OSINT analyst from Three Days of the Condor caught in a whirlwind of spy intrigue.
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is 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. OSINT draws from a wide variety of information and sources, including the following:
Mass Media: Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and other computer-based information.
Public Data: Information derived from government reports; official data, such as data on budgets and demographics; hearings; legislative debates; press conferences, speeches, directories, organizational charts, marine and aeronautical safety warnings, environmental impact statements, contract awards, and required financial disclosures, and other public sources.
Gray Literature (or Grey Literature): Opensource material that usually is available through controlled access for a specific audience. Gray literature may include, but is not limited to, research reports, technical reports, economic reports, travel reports, working papers, discussion papers, unofficial government documents, proceedings, preprints, studies, dissertations and theses, trade literature, market surveys, and newsletters. The material in gray literature covers scientific, political, socioeconomic, and military disciplines.
Observation and Reporting: Information of significance, not otherwise available, that is provided by, for example, amateur airplane spotters, radio monitors, and satellite observers. The availability of worldwide satellite photography, often in high resolution, on the Web (e.g., Google Earth) has expanded the public’s ability to acquire information formerly available only to major intelligence services.