Information sharing and communication in the Intelligence Community

Excellent 2013 thesis on information sharing in the US intelligence community (NCTC) by Bridget Rose Nolan , I have been referred to by Dalene Duvenage (Pretoria).

Summary: „The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) was established to serve as the primary  organization in the U.S. Government for the integration, sharing, and analysis of all terrorism and counterterrorism intelligence. To date, no study has sought to illustrate whether and how NCTC overcomes the barriers to information sharing among agencies and the people that comprise them. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the micro-level ways in which intelligence work is conducted in a post-9/11 world and to examine the circumstances that both facilitate and discourage collaboration. By presenting detailed ethnographic evidence and the in-depth interview perspectives of the people who actually do this work daily, this study provides a sociological analysis and discussion of best practices to help identify ways in which NCTC can move closer to fulfilling its mission.“

A very interesting read that dives right into discourse analysis and observations on organizational culture.

Comparable analyses in the public domain for Europe usually are much less detailled, such as Sven Litzke’s and Horst Schuh’s 2001 study on „Nachrichtendienste“ as learning organizations (in German).

Recently, Bob de Graaff’s and James M. Nyce’s „Handbook of European Intelligence Cultures“ (published 2016) provides a good launch point for further research.

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New analysis about IS on twitter

See a new piece of analysis by RAND-researchers analyzing communication dynamics and Twitter-communities with regard to IS-followers and IS-opponents.

While showing methodically the power of big data social network analysis for counterterrorism comms, the study’s recommendations are especially noteworthy:

• „Twitter should continue its campaign of account suspensions: This campaign likely harasses ISIS Twitter users, forces them to lose valuable time reacquiring followers, and may ultimately push some to use social media channels that are far less public and accessible than Twitter.
• U.S. military Information Support Operations planners, as well as State Department messengers, should continue to highlight ISIS atrocities. The Twitter impact of the burning of the Jordanian pilot as well as previous findings suggesting a relation between ISIS atrocities and ISIS opposition on Twitter indicate that such atrocities may galvanize opponents.
• Nations and organizations (such as U.S. military and State Department messengers) looking to countermessage ISIS on Twitter should tailor messages for and target them to specific communities: The ISIS Twitter universe is highly fragmented and consists of different communities that care about different topics.“ (Source: summary)

We will see how these findings impact twitter info wars in the future!

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Neue Risk Management Lösungen: OSINT, Länderrisiken und Reise-Sicherheit

Jenseits der für den deutschen Raum – gerade unter Preis-/Leistungs-Aspekten wegweisenden Traxpat-Lösung für Reisesicherheit und taktisches Krisenmanagement bieten sich für OSINT-Anwendungen auch Echosec (für geo-basierte Suchen) und gegebenenfalls im angloamerikanischen Raum auch operative Produkte von NC4 oder iJet an.

TRAXPAT: „Der traxpat® Global Risk Monitor ist ein globales 24/7 Krisen-Informationssystem, mit dessen Hilfe kritische Ereignisse weltweit detektiert, analysiert und über ein Geoinformationssystem dargestellt werden. Kommunikation und Alarmierung erfolgen automatisiert. Ereignisse der folgenden Kategorien werden georeferenziert abgebildet:

• Meteorologie, Umwelt, Geologie
• Politik/Sicherheit
• Technologie, Transport
• Biologie, Gesundheit
• Komplexe Notfälle.

Über unternehmensspezifische Layer können Zusatzinformationen wie z.B. Länderdaten, Flughäfen, Krankenhäuser, Gesundheitsinformationen, Reisewarnungen und Risikobewertungen eingebunden und verknüpft werden.“ (Quelle: Website)

NC4: „NC4 Signal™ is a social media monitoring tool that is designed to filter through the endless flow of information across major social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, and presents you with a customized stream of rich, relevant data in real-time. NC4 Signal provides law enforcement, public safety and emergency management with the ability to leverage social media in developing intelligent insight. Delivered through the Microsoft Azure Government cloud, it is available anywhere, anytime from any web-enabled device.“ (Quelle: Website)

iJet: „iJET’s Global Intelligence solutions are designed to protect your personnel and help to ensure continuity of operations. (…) Our Global Integrated Operations Center (GIOC) is founded upon best practice methodologies pioneered by the world’s most advanced intelligence organizations, and staffed by analysts and subject matter experts with diverse backgrounds appropriate for supporting our nine threat categories – Entry-Exit, Communications/Technology, Legal, Financial, Environment, Culture, Health, Security and Transportation. We maintain an in-depth intelligence database on more than 191 countries and 363 cities. Our expert analysts monitor the globe in 30 languages, 24 hours a day, to ensure that our clients have the best information available to aid in critical decision-making.

• Worldcue Global Control Center: iJET’s global intelligence subscription-based products available in a single tool that allows clients to prepare for, monitor and respond to threats that may impact their people and assets around the world.
• Intelligence Alerts: SMS- and email-based notifications ensure clients are aware of potentially dangerous or disruptive incidents before they occur, or as they unfold in real-time.
• Daily Intelligence Brief: Released at 0630 EST, Monday-Friday, this tactical product covers recent developments by region and includes all alerts and situation reports from the previous 24 hours.
• Health Intelligence Monitor: iJET’s weekly publication capturing the latest intelligence on a range of diseases, and more deeply exploring recent developments in the field of travel medicine.
• Monthly Intelligence Forecast: Designed as a more long-term, strategic outlook, this publication offers our clients a 30-90-day assessment of key regional developments.
• Airline Safety Newsletter & Worldcue Airline Monitor: iJET’s Worldcue® Airline Monitor and quarterly Airline Safety Newsletter provide business leaders with two powerful tools to make decisions about airline carrier safety and help reduce travel risk across the entire organization.“ (Quelle: Website)

Wer Intelligence-Support auf der strategischen Ebene sucht, der wird möglicherweise – neben den bereits in diesem Blog diskutierten Angeboten von Recorded Future oder (für Web-Intelligence) Blab auch das Leistungsspektrum von Predata prüfen:

Predata: „Subscribers to the full Predata platform receive access to the prediction engine, which runs regressions between signals and event sets to identify sources indicative of volatility and build predictive indicators based on them. Predictions can be run using current data or benchmarked using historical data to calculate standard statistical measures of efficacy.“ (Quelle: Website)

Der hier verlinkte Bloomberg-Beitrag – das Medien-Unternehmen nutzt selbst die Dienstleistungen von Predata – gibt interessante Hintergrundinformationen. Die folgende Grafik verdeutlicht die Logik-des Systems am Beispiel des Social Media-Pegels zu unterschiedlichen Terror-Anschlägen.

Quelle: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/this-startup-is-predicting-the-future-by-decoding-the-past#media-2

Neue Literatur für Compliance und Unternehmenssicherheit: ein Streifzug

Hinreichend weit vor der Frankfurter Buchmesse, aber pünktlich zum Herbstanfang einige Leseempfehlungen im Überschneidungsbereich von Unternehmenssicherheit und Compliance:

• Bernd-Uwe Stucken / Philipp Senff (Hrsg). (2015). Compliance Management in China. Praxishandbuch für Manager. Freiburg: Haufe. Der Titel sagt schon alles. Nicht billig, aber lesenswert!

• Maren Richter (2014). Leben im Ausnahmezustand. Terrorismus und Personenschutz in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Eigentlich ein Zufallsfund, der sich als spannende und einzigartige historische Studie zum Personenschutz in der Zeit der RAF-Bedrohung in der alten Bundesrepublik entpuppt hat.

• Steve J. Martin, Noah J. Goldstein & Robert B. Cialdini (2015). Überzeugen mit einfachen Kniffen. Göttingen: Hogrefe. Eine Goldgrube für den Nachttisch: erfrischende Tipps für Überzeugung und Einflussnahme – flott geschrieben und durchgängig empirisch abgesichert!

• Geoff Dean (2014). Neurocognitive risk assessment for the early detection of violent extremist. Heidelberg: Springer. „Harte Kost“, aber ein extrem spannendes Thema. Es lohnt sich, „Geoff Dean“ zu bookmarken, um zu schauen, was aus dieser neurowissenschaftlichen Anwendungsforschung für die Terrorismus-Forschung entstehen wird!

• Jens Hoffmann (2015). Menschen entschlüsseln. München: MVG. Empfehlenswert – eine gute Übersicht über „Profiling im Alltag“ des bekannten Kriminalpsychologen.

• Michael Maccoby (2015). Strategic Intelligence. Conceptual Tools for Leading Change. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Gutes Change Management-Buch, dem auch Compliance- und Security-Praktiker in der Prohjektumsetzung etwas abgewinnen werden!

Moderne OSINT-Tools

Proteus Secur Consulting and Solutions GmbH arbeitet an einem Überblick über online-gestützte Verfahren und Anbieter von Open Source Intelligence, die sich mit der Analyse und Bewertung von Sicherheitsrisiken und ihrer Dynamik in sozialen Netzwerken und georeferenzierten Suchmaschinen befassen. Zu den Unternehmen im Fokus gehören z.B.:

• das schwedisch-amerikanische Start-Up Recorded Future
• und der Predictive Intelligence-Spezialist BLAB aus Seattle/USA
• sowie die Geo-Suchmaschine Echosec.
• Im erweiterten Fokus liegen OSINT-Instrumente, wie z.B. SHODAN oder die Datenbankrecherchen, die investigative dashboard erlaubt.

It’s getting crowded in the niche of predictive intelligence and web-based future forecasting

… well, somewhat at least, as there is no longer only Recorded Future on the playing field.

They are ahead of the crowd, as they have rapidly expanded and promoted the integration of other services with their offerings (such as imaging, ethnographic sentiment analysis or forensic data analysis software), making higher value-offerings as well as conceding (at least as subtle byline) that the new toys are by themselves not as far-reaching, as expected …

But, while Google ventures-backed Recorded Future aims high at the intelligence and security communities, Seattle-based Blab seems to be targeting primarily those who want to see the next shitstorm coming right ahead (as a comment at „Gruenderszene“ aptly states it).

Want to try another angle? Look at renewed efforts to bring crowd-based intelligence prediction to life, e.g. as EMBERS is going to do (with an excellent overview on their background research-papers here)!

DNA-7? – A great tool for Organizational Network Analysis (ONA)

Looking for an ONA-tool that is producing reliable results and has a visual interface that You can show everybody on C-level who not neccessarily has gone through an extended sociology Ph.D?

Well, then try DNA-7!

I like the look and feel, as well as the way these people do listen to customers and contacts.

Social web sites: a guide for the open source analyst

Not much talking: just the link to an excellent guiding document on what and how to do in OSINT, when exploring Twitter, Facebook and the like. May come as a wake-up-call, if you have until now not intensely reflected what other people might be able to do with your posts …

Mattew Aid’s blog has reminded me of the document and the Blog, it comes from. By the way, another post by Benavides is listed right here!

Now, that’s BIG DATA: Google’s GDELT Project

„GDELT is an initiative to construct a catalog of human societal-scale behavior and beliefs across all countries of the world over the last two centuries down to the city level globally, to make all of this data freely available for open research.“ (website)

This is the short description of what GDELT, which reads „Global Database of Events, Language and Tone“ in full, is all about:

„GDELT is the most ambitious effort to date to overcome these problems, and that ambition is helping to pull empirical social science in some new and productive directions. GDELT uses software to scour the web for media stories that contain information about a large but predetermined array of verbal and physical interactions. These interactions range from protests, threats, and attacks to more positive things like requests for aid and expressions of support. When GDELT’s software finds text that describes one of those interactions, it creates a record that includes numeric representations of words or phrases indicating what kind of interaction it was, who was involved, and where and when it took place. Each of those records becomes one tiny layer in an ever-growing stack. GDELT was only created in the 2010s, but its software has been applied to archival material to extend its coverage all the way back to 1979. The current version includes roughly 2.5 million records, and that number now grows by tens of thousands every day.“ (Jay Ulfelder)

Of course, GDELT is not perfect (not in its current form and one may question, if it will ever be), as e.g. Weller and McCubbins have pointed out.

But it offers some fascinating insight into trends and directions of massive social science data analysis and current and future analytic as well as pedagogical applications!

Currently, Ulfelder’s concluding remarks perfectly resonate with my own feelings towards these new „tools of the trade“:

„I’ll wrap this up by saying that I am still really, really excited about the new possibilities for social scientific research opening up as a result of projects like GDELT and, now, the Open Event Data Alliance it helped to spawn. At the same time, I think we social scientists have to be very cautious in our use of these shiny new things. As excited as we may be, we’re also the ones with the professional obligation to check the impulse to push them harder than they’re ready to go.“ (Jay Ulfelder, see above for source)

 

Will the next big innovation, please, stand up? If not, we will find out anyway!

„A project backed by a US intelligence agency might soon make it much easier to predict which technologies will one day become game-changers. Results revealed this week by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) suggest that clues in the wordings of, and relationships between, scientific papers and patents could foretell research successes.“

This passage from a recent Nature-piece nicely sums up the essence of  FUSE – with the acronym standing for „Foresight and Understanding from Scientific Exposition“, a massive text-mining approach that ist intended to go beyond traditional content and scientific influence analyses.

„FUSE takes this further by mining millions of papers and patents in both English and Chinese, two of the most commonly used languages in scientific literature. (…) The analysis and indicators can predict whether a nascent field will become prominent or whether it is simply a source of excitement that will soon die out.“

One of the FUSE-teams uses software algorithms to analyse ‘sentiment’ in the natural language of papers. „For instance, authors might say that their work builds on or contradicts a cited paper, or use descriptive language that expresses excitement“ (Nature).

To get an idea, how FUSE will actually work, there is a niece little twist on this story on US intelligence analysis, as some principles for the programme actually might be traced back to soviet-era russian innovation researcher Genrich Altshuller, whose TRIZ-system is still influencing innovation processes and their evaluation today.

Indeed, interesting perspectives for extended intelligence analysis! For an open source overview of FUSE, have a look here: FUSE: concept and overview.