

The open source intelligence revolution is coming – ex CIA spy - rosser
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/19/open-source-revolution-conquer-one-percent-cia-spy

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hyperion2010
I think an analogy to alchemy is very apt in this situation. Prior to the
scientific revolution alchemy was always practiced in secrecy. Techniques for
finding out about the world were guild secrets and hidden away. Many early
scientists would almost certainly have been classified as alchemists in their
own times. With the advent of the scientific revolution (which in part
necessitated a political change) the 'methods' of the alchemists could now be
openly discussed and tested in public. How to measure or name something became
a matter of open debate and experimentation, and the rest is history.

Gathering "intelligence" is no different than making any other measurement
about the world, economists do it all the time. Right now intelligence
agencies are operating in the alchemist mode, hoarding their methods and
hiding them from view to protect themselves, in this case form inquisitions
that might be led by various governments if they discovered how poorly vetted
and reviewed some of these data collection techniques really were ("How do you
know that eating this herb will make me better?" "Well...").

I think the argument made by Steele is spot on in the sense that as our world
is now monstrously complex, we MUST subject our data gathering methodology to
rigorous and public review or we will flounder. Not only that but if we take
the analogy to alchemy seriously then perhaps we will see a revolution not
unlike the one witnessed around about the latter half of the 1600s.

tl;dr Current intelligence agencies are alchemists and what we need more of is
science.

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platz
This is funny coming right after this:
[http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/21/welcome-to-
extremistan/](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/21/welcome-to-extremistan/)

Technology is concentrating wealth, not spreading it.

Letting folks download some source code won't help; that's not where the value
is.

~~~
rosser
_Letting folks download some source code won 't help; that's not where the
value is._

Did you read the article? It's less about open source _code_ than it is open
source _intelligence_.

~~~
contingencies
Did _you_ read the article? It's clearly about both, but more so I'd say it's
mostly about the abstract observation that our world appears to rest at the
cusp of great social change where decentralized systems with bottom-up, opt-
in, democratic, geographically distributed qualities are about to usurp the
balance of power from barrel-of-a-gun hierarchies such as the establishment US
political / military intelligence community, which Steele pulls no punches in
describing here as "working for Wall Street and the City of London". It's
definitely worth reading the whole article again in depth if you missed this.

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lukifer
Robert David Steele has been talking about the value of open source
intelligence for many years, and has given several fascinating talks at hacker
conferences.

Hackers on Planet Earth:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txugDFRVbeQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txugDFRVbeQ)

Gnomedex:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afb8H-1fcYU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afb8H-1fcYU)

~~~
gdewilde
In the first link he mentions that if we read one thing in our lives it should
be _" philosophy and the social problem."_ (It is on my todo list, I haven't
actually read it.)

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42880/42880-h/42880-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42880/42880-h/42880-h.htm)

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ChuckMcM
Ok, what I got from that (and to be honest I didn't give it a close read, so
its fair to say that this is completely wrong) was that the subject of this
article, Robert David Steele (which strangely was the name I took for a
fictional secret agent), is an avid reader but not a very discriminating one.
And by that I mean there seems to be little in the way of systemic analysis of
the validity of what he reads or in the application of various bits toward
testable hypothesis in an effort to deduce what is real and what is fanciful.
Almost a caricature of the Robert Redford character from "3 Days of the
Condor."

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rdtsc
Just FIY, "Open Source" in spy-speak is not typically talking about software.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-
source_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_intelligence)

In other words the title is not about open source software revolutionizing
intelligence agencies. It is about something else.

~~~
contingencies
Actually it _is_ largely about that and applying the same principles to other
areas of society, such as finance. The subject of the article, Robert David
Steele, calls this _Open Source Everything_ and draws attention to the
strength these disparate applications derive from cooperation: _The open
source ecology is made up of a wide range of opens – open farm technology,
open source software, open hardware, open networks, open money, open small
business technology, open patents – to name just a few. The key point is that
they must all develop together, otherwise the existing system will isolate
them into ineffectiveness._

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thyrsus
In this context "Open Source" means publicly available (as in published or
broadcast), not some variant of copyleft.

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spikels
Since when did the opinions (half-baked ones in this case) of the CIA count
for anything at the guardian?

It's interesting how as long as someone is saying something you want to hear
is doesn't matter who they are but once they start saying thing you don't like
you immediately want to attack the messenger. This is one of the many
weaknesses of human thought.

~~~
lukifer
Steele left the CIA quite some time ago, after his advocacy for open source
intelligence gathering failed to gain any traction. He's specifically
criticizing their methodology: "I'm a spy who's telling you that spying
doesn't work."

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Apreche
I've seen this guy in person before. He's just a conspiracy nut. Do not give
him any more attention than he deserves, which is zero.

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lifeisstillgood
Commoditisation of everything is attempt to place markets / exchanges in the
market and so introduce efficiencies in allocation of resources. This is hard
to argue as a bad thing, and hard to argue as a recent thing too.

In an open source world an exchange is an excellent approach to openly finding
a price for a commodity, and so the radicalism espoused might be more
effective if it focused on improving intelligence about the world not blaming
"finance" for something that is simply regulatory capture not evil plans

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jqm
It seems pretty obvious to me that capital can't continue to concentrate
indefinitely. And there is a limit to what people will tolerate from those in
power. Is this guy right and we are about at the limits and ready to make real
changes? I don't know. But... interesting take on the situation.

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dang
Can anyone suggest a less baity title?

Edit: we took out "it will conquer the 1%" and added "intelligence" to make it
clear that he's not talking about software.

~~~
voltagex_
The article itself is very baity, but maybe something along the lines of "Ex-
CIA officer suggests new intelligence sharing framework"?

IDK, I'm not even sure why OpenBTS gets a mention in there.

