Infobrokerstwo

The use of open sources in the intelligence activities: history, practice, perspectives.

The book provides an analysis of using publicly available sources in intelligence activities, with reference to history, practice and further perspectives. Also, it includes an overview of the most important present-day open sources as well as identifies certain trouble areas, in which the open source intelligence method can be used most effectively.

The primary objective of the analysis is to present the specifics of open sources intelligence (OSINT), while presenting both its advantages and potential, as well as its limitations and drawbacks. The book’s aim is also to show the importance of the role that open source information has in the contemporary theory of intelligence, as well as the significance of the information technology revolution and the development of the Internet in OSINT’s evolution.

The first chapter of the book focuses on three aspects. First of all, it contains a conceptual grid, necessary for further analysis, and gives an explanation of the concept of open sources and open source intelligence. Secondly, the chapter defines OSINT as a distinct intelligence discipline. Thirdly, it shows the advantages and potential as well as drawbacks and limitations of OSINT, which are always involved in intelligence collected from open sources, while outlining new challenges and perspectives of their use.

The second chapter focuses on the history of OSINT, identifying a number of factors which have determined its creation and have affected its evolution. This part of the book presents an extremely rich and varied tradition of using open source information, both by state security services, as well as private entities. Particular attention was paid to outlining the history of the development of OSINT in Poland, ranging from the Second Polish Republic, through the Polish People’s Republic period, to modern times.

The third chapter is an analysis of various open sources of information; both traditional sources such as newspapers, grey literature, radio and television and generally available records and documents as well as more contemporary ones – geo-information and the Internet. In particular, the latter source, or more precisely this “meta-source” of information is analysed thoroughly, showing its almost unimaginable potential in intelligence activities.

The fourth and final chapter presents selected areas of the use of open source information; in the private sector – business information agencies, multinational corporations providing strategic intelligence services or finally, independent information brokers; in the public sector – activities of secret services, police and selected branches of public administration. The chapter ends with an analysis of the role that the open source intelligence method plays
in terrorist activities.

The major conclusion drawn from the book is that the most important factor resulting in a significant increase in the role and scale of use of open sources in intelligence activities is the continually advancing revolution in information technology, in particular the creation and development of the Internet.

Boolean operators in search queries.
This article deals with using Boolean operators in search engine queries. The author distinguishes between the basic and the advanced use of these operators based on three criteria. The first is a syntactic one. As for basic use cases, there is no risk of an amphiboly error, which occurs with advanced use. The second criterion is a semantic one. It concerns the relationships between sets of search results. The basic use of operators either only expands these results or only restricts them. On the other hand, advanced usage both expands and restricts search results at the same time. The last criterion is a pragmatic one and it takes into account technological aspects. Basic use is relatively independent of the search engines that are being utilized, while advanced use is highly dependent on the search engines in use. The author also draws attention to two combinations of operators that are used in advanced search. They are very useful for
formulating complex and non-trivial queries because they allow one to significantly reduce the number of redundant search results.

Celem artykułu jest ocena czy i w jakim zakresie wybrane narzędzia komunikacji wiedzy, podlegają ochronie w ramach prawa własności intelektualnej. Rozważono także możliwość objęcia ochroną efektów stosowania wybranych technik. Szczegółowej analizie poddano  kwantyfikowanie wiedzy, mapowanie myśli, klaryfikacja oraz dialogi wiedzy. Prawo własności intelektualnej zapewnia ochronę jedynie niektórych efektów aktywności ludzkiego umysłu i to po spełnieniu określonych warunków. Istotne jest zatem prawidłowe zakwalifikowanie danego wytworu intelektu, wedle wymogów stawianych przez poszczególne ustawy. Może się zatem okazać, iż wykorzystywane narzędzie nie podlega, przykładowo, ochronie wynikającej z prawa autorskiego, jednak może być uznane za przedmiot ochrony własności przemysłowej. Świadomość granic prawa własności intelektualnej pozwala skutecznie zarządzać dobrami niematerialnymi, związanymi z komunikacją wiedzy. Umożliwia także realną oceną postępowania konkurentów oraz podjęcie adekwatnych kroków w przypadku ewentualnych naruszeń.

Międzynarodowe organizacje rządowe, takie jak ASEAN, Bank Światowy, FAO, ILO, NATO, OECD, ONZ, UNESCO, Unia Afrykańska, Unia Europejska, WHO, WTO i inne należą do największych niekomercyjnych producentów i dystrybutorów informacji. W artykule dokonano przeglądu wybranych elementów ich oferty informacyjnej dostępnej w Internecie, ze szczególnym zwróceniem uwagi na cechy i typy udostępnianych źródeł.

The purpose of this article is to provide adequate characteristics of problem identification in systemic information brokerage. A systemic information broker is an
interdisciplinary professional who is responsible for creating pertinent content in an organization and who respects the accepted standards of record keeping. According to John Dewey’s theory of inquiry, problem identification is a stage between a felt difficulty and the formulation of the problem. The author of this article proposes a twolevel description of problem identification. At the macro level, problem identification is understood as identifying the respected way of thinking in an organization and, more specifically, as identifying the divergence between the respected way of thinking and one’s declared way of thinking. At the micro level, problem identification involves identifying keywords. Once identified, keywords are used to formulate problems in the form of how-questions.