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Credit to Author: Alexa O’Brien| Date: Tue, 24 May 2022 11:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Alexa O'Brien<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n An open source<\/span> panopticon\u2014from commercial big data aggregation to information infrastructure across mobile, smart devices, and social media\u2014is reshaping the way intelligence is collected and used in conventional war.<\/p>\n Open source intelligence is information that can be readily and legally accessed by the general public. It was used in war and diplomacy long before the internet\u2014alongside information stolen or otherwise secretly obtained and closely held. But its prevalence today means what was once cost-prohibitive to many is now affordable to myriad actors, whether North Korea, the CIA, journalists, terrorists, or cybercriminals.<\/p>\n One consequence of widely available open source information is that anonymity is eroding, not only for ordinary civilians, but also for members of law enforcement, military, and the intelligence community<\/a>. Even missing information can alert an adversarial spy service, says a former US intelligence official who spoke on background. When the US State Department unfolded a public diplomacy strategy<\/a> in 2008 that emphasized the use of social media, a foreign counterpart joked to the former US intelligence official that CIA officers, working under nonofficial cover at US embassies, were easily deduced because they lacked Facebook profiles. The US government has a gargantuan effort<\/a> underway to address similar issues brought on by an absence or expectation of digital exhaust associated with intelligence officers\u2019 cover identities.<\/p>\n When it comes to modern intelligence collection, closed societies like North Korea, Russia, and Iran have an advantage against open ones. Both secrecy and transparency\u2014or the control of information, whether by individuals or governments\u2014are integral to the freedom and security of those individuals and societies. Closed societies can collect an open one\u2019s information with ease, all the while preventing access to similar information from domestic political opponents or hostile foreign actors.<\/p>\n But too much secrecy on the part of governments and militaries\u2014including those of Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin\u2014can also prevent them from knowing<\/a> themselves, which may contribute to strategic blunders. Information technology, by its nature, disintegrates boundaries. It erodes barriers to markets across sectors and societies: from journalism to intelligence, crime to terrorism\u2014and now it seems, with Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, conventional war.<\/p>\n Intelligence isn\u2019t just information, says Jeff Rogg, a historian of US intelligence whose work focuses on civil-intelligence relations. The objective of intelligence, compared to just information, is obtaining or maintaining an advantage over one\u2019s adversaries\u2014whether that intelligence is secret or open source. This principle is at play when the Biden administration declassifies<\/a> intelligence in an unprecedented manner in order to counter Russian misinformation or shares<\/a> secret intelligence with Ukrainian counterparts.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the emphasis placed on open sources in the war in Ukraine, it\u2019s easy to forget how successful intelligence outcomes can also depend on secrecy, and even a bit of deception. Attributing successes in Ukraine to open sources can also offer a cover of sorts for more closely held sources and methods,\u201d says Rogg.<\/p>\n British scholar Matthew Ford, coauthor of an upcoming book<\/a> on the impact information infrastructure and connected devices have on conventional military conflicts, calls the phenomenon \u201cradical war.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford says that the high level of mobile connectivity among Ukrainians and a notable absence of combat footage from smartphones and headcams, especially in the early phases of the war, suggest an effective information operation may be underway. \u201cNo doubt the Ukrainians fear such images will reveal their tactics, techniques, and procedures,\u201d says Ford. So Ukrainians may simply be censoring themselves.<\/p>\n Social media platforms and cell phones are also a force multiplier for traditionally weaker military powers, like Ukraine, especially when it comes to coordinating intelligence collection for targeting activities. \u201cTargeting information is now being exchanged online,\u201d Ford says. \u201cSuccessful kills have been celebrated on Telegram. Chatbots have been established, helping Ukrainians share target coordinates with their smartphones. Identifying targets doesn\u2019t involve complex military systems; it works from civilian information infrastructures.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with crowdsourced intelligence in a war like Ukraine is standardizing the reporting,\u201d Ford says. For example: \u201cYou want to be able to identify the vehicle, geo-locate it, then map against any available signals or satellite imagery, or other collection disciplines, fusing it into actionable target information.\u201d<\/p>\n Virginia Heffernan<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Andy Greenberg<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Vittoria Elliott<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not only the 21st century\u2019s first conventional war in Europe, it is the \u201cmost digitally connected in history,\u201d according to Ford. \u201cIf the Ukrainians can make that intelligence actionable quicker than the Russians, they can use their limited remote fires, artillery, drones, and maybe even missiles or air power effectively. The objective, therefore, is to find, fix, and finish Russian forces more quickly than the Russians can do this themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in late February, the US<\/a>, its allies<\/a>, and Russia<\/a> concluded that Ukraine\u2019s forces were asymmetrically disadvantaged against Putin\u2019s endowed and historically brutal counterpart. US officials expected the country to fall in days. Yet despite the US\u2019s monumental success predicting Russia\u2019s intentions and plans and offering warnings, American intelligence agencies incorrectly assessed Ukraine\u2019s prospects\u2014the current subject of an internal review<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facing the full onslaught of Russia's armed forces, Ukraine\u2019s military resilience may even have come as a bit of a surprise to Ukrainians themselves, Ford suspects. Yet mistaken judgments about the expected balance between strong and weak powers, accompanied by strategic surprise, may be a common occurrence in the information age. Before the acknowledged role<\/a> of social media in fueling the Arab Spring, or the reported significance of thumb drives in more recent counterintelligence failures<\/a>\u2014telecommunications, open source infrastructure, and cheap and accessible consumer technology have impacted the parity calculus for state and non-state actors alike.<\/p>\n Indeed, it was the worldwide growth of telecommunications in the 1990s that empowered Al-Qaeda to conduct its successful covert military attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001. But in the run-up to those attacks, the US Department of Defense hadn\u2019t drafted a net assessment on the military or intelligence capabilities of what was later described by the 9\/11 Commission as America\u2019s \u201cmost dangerous foreign enemy<\/a>.\u201d The concept was unimaginable then, but it shouldn\u2019t be now.<\/p>\n Similarly, the intelligence community had not authored a national estimate that comprehensively evaluated or articulated the strategic threat<\/a> posed by Al-Qaeda before its 2001 attack. This category of cognitive bias is called the \u201cparadox of expertise<\/a>.\u201d Genuine experts may communicate incredible nuance and understanding of a subject but overlook indicators of seismic changes within the domains of their knowledge.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also possible to make analytical errors by overstating or inflating the impact or outcomes of technology and information on civil society\u2014or any domain\u2014including conventional war. The internet, which promised us a techno-utopian commune of open source information, has arguably turned large swaths of civil society into psychedelic hellscapes, much like the Charles Manson murders after the Summer of Love.<\/p>\n Civilian noncombatants\u2019 use of open source platforms and consumer devices in support of hostile military actions raise serious questions about blurred lines between civilian and combatant\u2014lawful or otherwise\u2014leading to the same subjects becoming legitimate targets or tried for espionage under the law of war. Civilians are legally protected under international humanitarian law, as long as they are not party to military conflicts.<\/p>\n According to recent reports, US intelligence support led to the successful targeting of Russian generals<\/a> and the Moskva<\/em><\/a>, Russia\u2019s flagship in the Black Sea. \u201cOne of the intelligence concerns people have voiced is that these leaks unnecessarily raise the risks of escalation<\/a>,\u201d Rogg says. \u201cBut consider the Javelins, Stingers, and military hardware we are publicly providing. The US and its allies are fighting an overt\u2014as compared to covert\u2014proxy war against Russia. That\u2019s one of the key distinctions in this conflict from, for example, US support to the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which is one of the popular comparisons you read about today: The US is taking a risk by abandoning some of the hallmarks of intelligence and advantages of covert action, like plausible deniability. That being said, there is still plenty that we do not know. Putting aside all the reporting, leaks, and official disclosures, the exact role and impact of US intelligence in Ukraine will be a source of study and debate for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n