OSINT-WM 2010 Inaugural Talk

Please Hurry

Arno H.P. Reuser
Chief, Open Source Intelligence
Defence Intelligence and Security Service The Netherlands

ABSTRACT

The world of information is seeing almost as much change today as it did back in the early 16th century when moveable type bookprinting was invented by Johannes Gutenberg. It took him some time to print his world famous 42 line bible, but just a few years later the technology had advanced so rapidly that Martin Luthers 95 theses could be disseminated in about 300.000 copies in two years!

Early this year the rise of social networks has shown to be fenomenal.The number of queries in Facebook has for the first time surpassed the number of queries in Google. The number of Tweets reaches 50m per day.
Although there is also news that indicates that Twitter is actually on the decline. Email is certainly on the decline, gradually being replaced by communication through social networks.

Crime too, makes increased use of the Net and social networks. Microsoft claims 50bn spam messages per day. Ebay is increasingly being used for fraud. It is so much easier to steal 10 euro about 50 million times than to break in a bank or two for which you need the whole night. Banks in the NL are victims of fraud, many webshops considered to be a Walhalla of fraud. People are very careless with the Internet. On Twitter it is completely normal to inform the world you are NOT at home (www.pleaserobme.com).

Remember the Dragon Hack? And the break in attempts at Google and other big US firms, a crime attributed to PR China? Facebook and the like are even used for murder.

Social networks are a gold mine for terrorists and criminals alike. Acccording to the Simon Wiesenthal Center the use of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter by militant groups grew 20% in 2009. All that data (almost) is available in open sources such as weblogs, forums, newspapers, video, SMS messages, social network sites, journals, radio broadcast, etc. The by far majority of information is no longer available in text but in some other format. We have the analysts to interpret the information, to analyse it and produce actionable intelligence. What we do NOT have is scientists to create that information from the raw data. That is where you, conference delegates, come in. To produce the single, ultimate, all encompassing, universal 100% reliable algorithm to find the answers in network analyses. You have exactly three days to do it!

Short Biography

Arno Reuser is a professional librarian / information professional with more than 30 years experience in information handling and -processing. He founded the Open Source Intelligence Unit of the Dutch Defence Intelligence & Security Service about 15 years ago and still heads it today. Mr. Reuser holds a bachelor degree in librarianship and has completed many courses in digital information management, Internet search strategies, update workshops etc. He learned the technical requirements of today's digital world by learning how to write software, program scripts to automate tasks, building websites, getting the most out of the Internet by studying network theory, all in support of OSINT information management.

In addition to his work with the Dutch Defence and Intelligence Service, Arno established his own company "Reuser’s Information Services" in conjunction with his current position as head of OSINT. RIS’ primary goal is to teach Open Source Intelligence (systematic searching, finding and reporting with security in mind) and provide consultancy for government and private sector institutions worldwide.

Arno has an extensive history of teaching OSINT, and OSINT training has been a core focus of his professional activities for decades. Today, he teaches OSINT, search strategies, information handling and security to a wide range of audiences. He travels regularly to the United States, Switzerland, Austria, and United Kingdom to teach to a wide range of multilingual, multicultural audiences and is thus used to communicating with people from different backgrounds and possessing different language skills. Arno is a recognized expert on OSINT and speaks regularly at international conferences and workshops on the organization and maintenance of Open Source Intelligence Services, at home and abroad, for a diverse audience such as international organizations, government institutes, intelligence, military, and information professionals.

Arno is the owner and maintainer of Reuser's New Repertorium, an online categorised annotated listing of intel sources and search engines. He also wrote his own multisearch search engine Isolde to enable building block search strategies, and is the owner and moderator of NEDBIB-L listserv discussion list with 2000 participants.

Arno writes a regular column and has written journal articles and book chapters on OSINT.

ASONAM 2010 and OSINT-WM 2010 Invited Talk

Trends in Terrorist Propaganda

Berto Jongman
Dutch Ministry of Defense

ABSTRACT

Without communication there can be no terrorism. This was a conclusion drawn a quarter century ago and it still holds true. Without effective communications, a terrorist movement would be unable to recruit new members into its ranks, motivate and inspire existing members to carry on with the struggle despite formidable odds as well as expand the pool of active supports and passive sympathizers from the movement draws its sustenance. Bruce Hoffman recently indicated that the art of terrorist communication has now evolved to the point where terrorists can effortlessly and effectively control the communication of their ideology of hate, intolerance and violence: determining the content, context and medium over which their message is projected; and towards precisely the audience (or multiple audiences) they seek to reach. A decade ago there were about twelve terrorist group websites. Since then the number has increased to well over 7,000 such sites. Virtually every terrorist group in the world today has its own Internet website and, in many instances, maintain multiple sites in different languages with different messages tailored to specific audiences. The amount expanding amount of terrorist propaganda has been the subject of research by law enforcement and intelligence services. A small cottage industry of research institutions has developed which analyze the output of terrorist organizations. In the presentation the results will be shown of the work of number of these institutions (e.g. SITE Intelligence group, ICT’s Jihadi Website Monitoring Group). Their efforts offer important clues with respect to ongoing terrorist plans, emerging modus operandi, communication strategies of different terrorist organizations and increasing skills in exploiting the Internet for operational purposes.

Short Biography

Albert J. Jongman (1955) majored in western sociology at the University of Groningen in 1981. During his studies he gained practical experience as a research assistant at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in Sweden. From 1982 to 1987 he worked as a researcher at the Polemological Institute of the University of Groningen where he dealt with several research topics including the quantitative study of war, political violence, armament and disarmament issues and human rights. In 1987 he moved to the University of Leiden where he acted as Data Manager of the Project on Interdisciplinary Research on the Root Causes of Gross Human Rights Violations (PIOOM). He also worked on several research projects, including the World Conflict and Human Rights Map, 20th Century Genocides and Monitoring Human Rights Violations. In 2002 he moved from academia to government. Since early 2002 he works as a senior terrorism analyst for the Dutch Ministry of Defense. His 'World Directory of Terrorist and other Organizations associated with Guerrilla Warfare, Political Violence and Protest,' was included in the award-winning 'Political Terrorism. A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature' (2nd edition, 1988) edited by Alex P. Schmid. During the 1990s he regularly contributed to the Dutch Yearbook on Peace and Security. Currently an update of Political Terrorism is being prepared under the title Handbook of Terrorism Research that will be published by Routledge in 2010. In his current function he participates in a number of Advanced Research Working Groups of NATO and in activities of the Dutch National Coordinator for Counterterrorism

Keynote Speakers

Enhancing Early Warning with Open Source Intelligence

Johnny Engell-Hansen
Head of Operations Unit
Council of the European Union
General Secretariat / EU Situation Centre

ABSTRACT

Open Source Intelligence can play an important role in producing early warnings about developing international crises. A timely and relevant warning buys time to involve international policy makers in creating the needed policy action to mitigate possible effects of a crisis. The European Union relies on its own Situation Centre (EU SITCEN) to produce early warnings based on, among other things, intelligence derived from open sources. First, the talk gives an overview about the exact role and responsibility of the EU SITCEN. Secondly, the process it uses to acquire and process information from all kind of sources is described. Finally, the talk explains how OSINT contributes to create early warnings. The nature of OSINT contributions and its relation with other kinds of sources, e.g. Intelligence, will be discussed.

Short Biography

Johnny Engell-Hansen joined the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in 1994 and is currently Head of Operations Unit in the EU Situation Centre. The Unit's areas of responsibility include; monitoring and assessing world-wide events on a 24/7 basis and alerting senior EU officials and EU Member States to politically significant events; Open Sources Intelligence capability; deployable teams to ensure strategic information in a crisis situation; provision of core infrastructures (human and material) to support EU decision-making in case the EU Emergency and Crisis Coordination Arrangements are triggered; and implementation of IT platforms to optimise information exchange between the EU Situation Centre and its customers/partners in EU institutions, EU Member States and other international organisations.

Johnny Engell-Hansen has participated in work in support of the development of African Union early warning capabilities, e.g. its Situation Room, its Open Sources information system and its "Continental Early Warning System". He has served as an adviser to the EU border management agency FRONTEX on the setting up of its own Situation Centre.

Johnny Engell-Hansen has been a co-initiator in the creation of a forum for cooperation and information exchange between bodies within International Organisations responsible for "early warning" and "crisis response".

Other professional activities include participation in fora aiming to enhance the exploitation of Open Sources information (e.g. the Budapest Club, an informal gathering of EU government officials). He is also a frequent speaker / participant in conferences and workshops dealing with "early warning" and "crisis response".

Within the EU General Secretariat of the Council Johnny Engell-Hansen has previously held positions in departments dealing with Energy Policy and Organisational Development. In the framework of an exchange programme he was seconded to the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the German Federal Ministry of Defence in 2002.

Prior to joining the EU General Secretariat of the Council Johnny Engell-Hansen had a career as an officer in the Danish Armed Forces. During this career he was, among other things, seconded to the EU Monitoring Mission in ex-Yugoslavia in 1993 where he served in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania.

Operating Risk Intelligence in an Age of Information Abundance

Andrew Chester
Juno Risk Solutions
Annapolis, Maryland

ABSTRACT

Intelligence is what business refers to as risk assessment. While financial risk management has matured in recent decades – along with a solid discipline based upon quantitative measures of risk – other non-financial operating risks have not been systematically treated with the predictive analytics, data mining or knowledge management tools that have been emerging. This corporate need can draw its intellectual lineage from government and military intelligence doctrines developed over the last 60 years; the requirements of the corporate risk intelligence community are richer, more quantitative and heavily reliant upon open sources for their information solutions. This presentation will define the relationship and highlight the distinctions between government and corporate risk intelligence needs. It will argue that the exacting needs of business decisions require a quantification of risk to a much greater extent than the typical intelligence consumer. The focus for solution development should be on discovering, vetting and exploiting unique data and open information sources for quantifiable decision-making in a scalable and repeatable fashion. It will conclude with a framework for approaching the development of operating risk solutions using technology to exploit a dynamic interaction between risk takers and risk modelers.

Short Biography

Chester worked for two decades in Canadian naval intelligence, where he pioneered the application of open sources of information to a broad range of intelligence problems. He was the principal architect of the Canadian Maritime Network, a command and control system that coordinated all Canadian federal maritime surveillance efforts. On behalf of NATO, Chester developed and directed its Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Initiative. In this role, he spearheaded a groundbreaking innovation to integrate commercial information sources with classified intelligence. Chester authored several prominent monographs on analytic techniques and international trade, including a piece titled "Intelligence Exploitation of the Internet," and co-authored "The NATO Open Source Intelligence Handbook."  
 Following his naval career, he has continued his work fusing intelligence, business and legal concepts into information solutions for governments and corporations. He has created intelligence solutions for corporate risk, border security and trade-based risk assessment. Chester serves as a principal in Juno Risk Solutions, an international provider of products and services that enables companies to embed transaction risk quantification into their business processes. He is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and the U.S. Naval War College. Chester also earned a master’s degree from the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, and holds a J.D. from the College of William & Mary School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar.

Bridging the "Two Cultures" of Open Source Intelligence

Chris Pallaris
Director and Principal Consultant
i-intelligence

ABSTRACT

Short Biography

Multilingual Event Extraction for Border Security Intelligence Gathering

Jakub Piskorski
Research and Development Unit
Frontex
Warsaw, Poland

ABSTRACT

This talk gives an overview of an effort on deploying news event extraction technology for border security intelligence gathering and real-time situation monitoring for Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member Stated of the European Union. In particular, a hybrid multilingual event extraction system has been constructed on top of the Europe Media Monitor, a large-scale news monitoring aggregation engine. The hybrid system integrates two existing event extraction engines, namely, NEXUS - developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, and PULS - developed by the University of Helsinki. The presentation explains the entire event extraction processing chain and highlights various aspects of information access, moderation and visualization.

Short Biography

Jakub Piskorski received his M.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Saarbrücken, Germany in 1994 and Ph.D from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland in 2002.
His areas of interest are centered around finite-state technology, shallow text processing, information extraction, efficient application oriented natural language processing solutions and open source intelligence.

Jakub is currently working in the Research & Development Unit of the Warsaw-based EU Border Security Agency Frontex and he is also a Research Associate at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
Previously he has worked for the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Saarbruecken and the Department of Information Systems at Poznan University of Economics. He also has been consulting several companies on text mining and information extraction technology.

Jakub is author and co-author of around 80 peer-reviewed international conference papers and journal articles, which cover various topics related to natural language processing, text mining and security applications.