In today’s information-rich environment, both the amount of information and the types of information available from open sources at our fingertips are greater than ever before. People often think that, just because there is so much information available, that is all they need. There is no analysis to determine the reliability of the source or accuracy of the information. Yet Web sites and other open sources vary in quality and usefulness. Of this, the useful portion is perhaps 1 to 10 percent. Sorting useful intelligence from the overwhelming deluge of information can be difficult. The problem is how to find that useful portion and exploit and analyze it into a useful intelligence product. While the Internet is perhaps the most easily accessible source of potentially useful information, it is by no means the only source of raw data and information that can be used in open-source intelligence (OSINT). No official definition of intelligence says that it has to be classified. Analysts in designated intelligence production agencies may find a use for the unclassified information within their own products. However, the unclassified information, if incorporated into a paragraph or table also containing classified material, may no longer be identified as unclassified. Also, if the overall content of those products is classified, they normally do not enjoy as wide a distribution as, for example, the totally unclassified materials produced by organizations such as TRISA.
OSINT IS NOT NEW
Although the term OSINT first came into official use in the 1990s, this is not really something new. For example, the British general whose division was tasked to attack the fortified monastery at Monte Cassino in 1944 learned that neither Corps nor Fifth Army Headquarters had any detailed intelligence or any information at all about the monastery building. So he sent one of his men to Naples, just 50 miles away, to scour the bookshops for information. The man found a book published in 1879 that described the construction of the monastery in some detail, confirming how the original monastery had been strengthened as a fortress over the centuries. The book revealed that the monastery walls were 150 feet high and at least 10 feet thick, making them beyond the capabilities of field engineers to breach. That OSINT led to the Allied bombing that completely destroyed the monastery in 1944. Had someone searched more bookshops and libraries, they would have found another book from 1733 that provided a detailed architectural survey with floor plans and cutaway drawings of buildings and fortifications throughout the entire complex. The original plans from the 1733 book were used to rebuild the monastery after World War II.