All You Need to Know About Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

BY JIE YEE ONG

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Open Source Intelligence is produced using online resources - online magazines, social media, etc. Is there Open Source Intelligence about you?

Ever wondered how investigative journalists, government agencies or law enforcement agencies are able to compile some of the most obscure information?

You may have heard of a term called “open source intelligence” (OSINT). It probably sounds complex and outside your scope, but that is not the case.

What Is Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)?

First, we need to break the term down into two parts.

On the internet, “open source” refers to any information that is publicly available online. “Intelligence” means any information collected for a discreet, professional purpose. Together, they refer to information gathered from public resources on the internet.

According to the US Department of Defence, OSINT is defined as “intelligence that is produced from publicly available information and is collected, exploited, and disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of addressing a specific intelligence requirement”.

At the same time, it should be stressed what OSINT is not: collecting information that is private to you, such as your text messages between friends or email threads between your colleagues.

A simple Google search does not exactly count as OSINT. The practice goes beyond typing keywords on a search engine, and dives into what is known as the “deep web”---sites or pages that exist on the internet, but cannot be accessed via your usual search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

The deep web and the dark web both sound scary and nefarious, but the dangers have been overblown. Here's what they actually and how you can even access them yourself!

Where Did OSINT Come From?

The practice of OSINT is not new. Its origins can be traced back to the US military during World War II, where the government established what was called the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS) to gather, analyze, and access public information released by foreign organizations.

Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the US government founded the Open Source Center (OSC) under the CIA.

Before the internet, OSINT was gathered through more traditional sources, such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio recordings, photos, and so on. With social media being part and parcel of many, if not all personal and professional activities in the twenty first century, gathering public information on social media platforms has become a part of OSINT. A new term has also emerged to describe this, SOCMINT (social media intelligence), and it is classified as a subset of OSINT.