Social media plays a growing role in open source intelligence, experts say

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk (at) c4i.org>

http://www.nextgov.com/mobile/2012/07/social-media-plays-growing-role-open-source-intelligence-experts-say/57143/

By Eric Katz
July 31, 2012
Nextgov.com

Analysts increasingly are turning to social media forums such as Facebook and 
Twitter to gather valuable information that can be used to help predict social, 
cultural and political shifts, and events before they might otherwise be 
apparent, intelligence community veterans Tuesday said at a panel discussion on 
open-source intelligence hosted by Government Executive.

"We take a large look at the world and see if there's a surprise out there," 
said Patrick O’Neil, analytic director of the Open Source Center for the Office 
of the Director of National Intelligence. "We're trying to avoid a surprise."

The intelligence community has long debated the value of open source 
intelligence, which is collected from public data, as opposed to covert or 
clandestine sources. While the panelists all were proponents of open source 
intelligence, they noted although social media offers significant new 
collection sources, its role should not be overstated.

"There are adopters of technology but that doesn't mean they carry the voice of 
a nation or an entire populous," said Craig Parisot, chief operating officer at 
Invertix, a technology company with more than a dozen patents in messaging, 
search and data mining innovations.

[...]



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