Open Source Intelligence and Terrorism

As a key content in the field of national security, terrorist activities have always been the focus of attention of countries all over the world. Major countries in the world have also actively invested a lot of manpower and material resources to carry out counter-terrorism intelligence work. Undoubtedly, doing a good job in anti-terrorism is related to national security, public safety and the safety of people's lives and property. However, with the continuous development of the Internet, the dependence of terrorists on the Internet will inevitably become higher and higher.

Social platforms have gradually become the "virtual command post" for terrorist organizations to premeditate terrorist activities. Terrorism has entered the new media era, and the Internet has become a key chain of terrorist activities. Their actions are more concealed, their whereabouts are unpredictable, and prevention is more difficult.

In this context, relevant institutions in the United States have been continuously established and put into operation. According to the 2004 "U.S. Intelligence and Combating Terrorism Reform Act", the Director of National Intelligence of the United States has the overall leadership and coordination of open source intelligence activities, and the Deputy Director of National Intelligence responsible for open source intelligence will actually perform the functions.

The Open Source Center of the US Director of National Intelligence involves the wider circle of the intelligence community, government, private industry and academia to ensure the implementation of open source intelligence concepts in the US intelligence community. The Open Source Information Center's actions are driven by current open source needs in its annual assessment-approved information-gathering plan. The Open Source Information Center monitors and obtains open source information in more than 160 countries and 80 languages, and analyzes the content and behavior of the media and websites of countries around the world and transnational actors related to major policies of the US government.

After years of systematic development, the proportion of open source intelligence work in the intelligence community is increasing, its intelligence effectiveness is gradually increasing, and it has gradually become a strong support for the formulation of the US national security strategy. It has played a considerable role in the early warning of terrorist activities and the recovery of major emergencies.

According to the statistics of the US Central Intelligence Agency, more than 80% of the total intelligence collection in 2007 came from open source intelligence. Beyond state agencies, the role of civilians in criminal investigations is changing, and rapid technological developments are causing substantial disruption and impacting every sphere of human activity.

For example, after the "9.11" incident, Krebs and others also made statistics on the passports, destinations and other data held by the 19 hijackers who participated in the terrorist attack with the help of relevant information released by the government afterwards. In this way, a hidden relationship network among terrorists is established, and the relationship strength and centrality in the network are analyzed, and the core figures in the network are found.

Using open source intelligence monitoring systems like Knowlesys Intelligence System, you can collect information from specified data sources. Knowlesys Intelligence System is developed based the world's leading open source intelligence extraction technology, with the advantages of quick identification and full coverage. It enables users to monitor the whole Internet, including social media(Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram...), traditional websites (Forum, Chat Room, News...) and dark web in a timely manner.