Freeing knowledge, telling secrets: Open sourceintelligence and development

[Extract]
There are two key areas under constant pressure as the information revolution accelerates that
must be addressed; knowledge and knowledge management, or in other words, collection and
production. In relation to security matters, the question is how to find the best information to
produce relevant and useful intelligence, and then what is the best method to understand that information
and develop the appropriate responses. This task has traditionally been the domain of
the varying intelligence agencies, who have cultivated an air of mystery and secrecy that is ill
fitted to meet the demands of modern counter-terrorism, or even the level of information sharing
that is required in the network-centric warfare championed by many in the Pentagon. As the information
revolution continues and more individuals have more access to more and more information,
it becomes clear that attempting to restrict and control information flows becomes an
exercise in futility. It also is apparent that while society at large, and particularly the business
community, have begun to embrace the potential offered by information technology advances,
the intelligence community lags behind. This research paper will introduce two constructs for
dealing with information flows that take full advantage of technological gains, while challenging
traditional methods and assumptions about knowledge and knowledge management. For collection,
open source intelligence; for production, open source development.