Monday, August 12, 2013

SPACE Analysis

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With the focus on NSA and regime surveillance still at the front of our minds, I just wanted to write some thoughts (and doctrine) regarding friendly indicators of communication.  I still need to finish the prior OPSEC article but consider this an addendum in advance.

On the subject of link analysis (of which I still need to pen a lengthy dissertation, as it’s the bread and butter of just about any analysis of an insurgency or resistance movement), consider yourselves pegged.

During my last tour in Afghanistan, Palantir was quickly becoming the sweetheart analysis software of the Army and Marine Corps.  Before I deployed, I sat through a class offered by the company, and immediately recognized that it’s great software.  Intelligently designed, easy to use, top notch functionality, and categorization options allow an end-user to drill down and really dissect the adversary and surrounding events.  It is, however, only as powerful as the end-user allows it to be.

By the time I left the intelligence community, I had become disillusioned with the state of the average analyst (though not every analyst) and his leadership which is more interested in developing the latest tools instead developing the minds of their analysts.  Intelligence analysis is, and likely will be for as long as I’m alive (which I’m hoping is a long time), 80% investigation and 20% tools.  Without a highly inquisitive mind motivated to find the solutions to unanswered or seemingly unanswerable questions and the proper analytical methods to pick apart your adversary, your analysis of information of intelligence value will be found wanting.  But I digress…

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