Quick-Linksstarter

DOI: March 2006

Quick-LinksStarter

HandbookFor The

Open SourceAnalyst

Table Of Contents

Foreword6

I NEED YOUR HELP7

911 Final Report8

Acquisition 8

Agriculture8

Area Codes8

Aviation 8

Banking & Finance9

Blogs 9

Bridges9

Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) 9

CAMS Around the World9

Chemical/Biological/Radiological10

China10

Country Links 10

Crime & Justice11

Cryptome (controversial site but has good information)11

Cultural Intelligence11

Cyber & Information Warfare 12

Databases (Some Searchable) 12

Defense 13

Demographics & Religion 13

Denial & Deception 14

Department of Homeland Security 14

Department of The Treasury 14

Directories of the World 14

Domain Name Servers 15

Drugs and Terrorism 15

Drug War 15

E-Mail Lookups 15

Embassies of the World 16

Energy 16

Experts On Demand 16

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (now known as the OpenSourceCenter) 17

Federal Government 17

Gangs 18

Global Threats 18

Google 18

Homeland Security 19

Human Trafficking 19

Image, Audio, VideoFinder 19

Improvised Explosive Devices 20

Intelligence 20

International Intelligence Agencies 20

Internet Privacy and Security 20

Iranian Military 21

Iraq 21

Islamic Web Sites 21

Library Resources 21

Liquified Natural Gas Facilities 22

Logistics 22

Mapping and Related Material 22

Medical Intelligence 23

Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) 23

Missile Threat 23

Muslim Brotherhood 23

National/International Most Wanted WEB Sites 24

Newspapers Around The World 24

North Korean Military 24

Nuclear Reactors and Storage 24

Nuclear Terrorism 25

Oil 25

Online Links 25

Organized Crime 26

Ports Worldwide 26

Propaganda (anti-U.S.). You may feel discomfort reading some articles. 26

Public Data On Sex Offenders 26

Rail26

References 27

Satellite and Space Views (real time) 27

Search Engine Report and Search Engines 27

Secret Armies 27

Secure Email 27

Shopping Malls 28

Steganography and Terrorists 28

Terrorism 28

Terrorist Targets 29

Terrorist Websites 29

Tracerouting 30

Translations Online 30

Transportation 30

Tunnels 30

Water Conflict 30

Weapons Around The Globe 31

Weapons of Mass Destruction 31

Weather 31

World News Network Sitemap (make this your first stop) 32

A Research Guide For Students 32

Open Source Intelligence Cycle Idea 33

This is a starter handbook for your use. It is not complete by any stretch of the imagination and is intended to help you get started building your own handbook. You can add and delete as you wish. The idea is to get you started on something you can continue to build on and share with others. Hopefully at some future date all can be brought together for the benefit of all who use this handbook.

FOREWORD

How many times have you selected your favorite search engine and typed in a search parameter only to have 50,000 or more hits? What to do? Obviously you cannot read each hit, and trying to make sense of the boolean logic and other advanced search techniques just doesn’t seem to produce results in this fast paced intelligence environment where quality rather than quantity is the target. Not an easy task. For this reason I have put together what I would like to think is an answer to your dilemma.

This guide tries to keep you on track and away from the surfing we generally end up doing. Very easy to get distracted when doing a search and curious/eye-catching links take us away from our primary objective. Before you know it, you are in South America, Israel, Belarus or some other exotic place and you forget what you started out to do. As you know, borders do not exist on the internet and you can wind up anywhere if you’re not careful.

This guide contains links to get you the information you require in as short a time as possible and is especially helpful to the MI soldier. The intent is to keep you as focused as possible. This is not to say that search engines are no longer needed, they are indeed. But maybe, just maybe, this guide will help you conduct searches without the distractions.

I also would like to point out that everything in this handout is available to anybody anywhere. Thisincludes criminals and terrorists. But while they may use it for illegal activities we can use it to counter those activities.

Serious peoplemine the WEB, others surf.

The following is taken from the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center that sponsors open source training. The handout is titled Open Source Exploitation: A Guide for Intelligence Analysts.

Recently, the total quantity of data available on the Internet was estimated to be 7,500 terabytes total, withonly 25 to 50 terabytes indexed by search engines (one terabyte = 1,000 gigabytes).While that may seemto be a tremendous amount of data, the United States Library of Congress has more than 100 million publicationsin its collection, or roughly 100 terabytes of textual information.So, while data on the Internetcan be searched quickly, it represents only one of many forms of open source information.

It is also important to understand the volatility of Internet data. A 2000 University of California at Berkeleystudy estimated the average life of an Internet document was 44 days.Whole Internet sites appear and disappearfrequently and without notice. For the open source analyst, this means that any attempts to catalogInternet sites will be difficult and require continuous maintenance to stay current. In short, it may not beenough to simply bookmark Web resources in a browser. Effective open source exploitation may requireactual archiving of Internet sites.

The first mistake one makes when doing research is to just insert words into the search engine without really having a plan for what is needed.

What is your objective? That is, what exactly are you researching? Once you have determined this, then you must take the time to write down key words and not hit the search engine until you are satisfied with your listing. I know it’s hard to do this, but you must take the time, or else you’ll be searching longer than required. If you haven’t found what you’re looking for within the first 20 minutes, then you haven’t mapped out a strategy. However, if after mapping out a strategy you still haven’t found what you’re looking for,then the local library or university should be your next option. Remember, there are vast amounts of information still to be digitized and sad to say only about 20% exists on the Web. Now is the time to visit the subject matter experts in the library. These individuals (librarians) are extremely intelligent and know where to find the information you’re looking for. If they don’t know, they probably know someone who does.

While I have tried to get you to your objective as quickly as possible, there is still no substitute for effective searching techniques. I strongly recommend looking over this very basic WEB searching techniques site and download the tutorial with powerpoint slides and handouts. I think you’ll be impressed with it and it doesn’t take long to complete.

There are two areas one cannot get away from on the WEB, pornography and political agendas. I have definitely made sure that none of the links end up with the former, but the latter cannot be avoided.

WEB Favorites

NOTE: Links with osis.gov require password access to the open source information system. Personnel will not have any problems if they are on a .mil server and have an AKO account. However, there will be occasions when you may not have access to a .mil server because of maintenance or other problems.

911 Final Report

911 Commission Final Report

Acquisition

DefenseAcquisitionUniversity

Office Of Naval Research

Office Of The Under Secretary Of Defense

Defense Procurement And Acquisition Policy

DoD Acquisition Information

Agriculture

Agricultural Terrorism

Economic Research Service

Area/International Codes

Area Code Listing by Number

All Area Codes

Canadian Code Availability

Geographic Areas

U.S. Area Codes and Time Zones

Area Codes Map

International Dialing Codes

Aviation

Airport directory, flight planning, weather

US military bases (Air Force Bases, Navy Bases, Marines Bases, Coast Guard Air Stations and

Army Air Fields) all over the world.

Airport Search

Airport Information

Airport hotels, limo, quick aids

Flight planning & aviation weather

Air traffic publications library

Aviation crime prevention

Aviation weather at BASEOPS

Defense Internet NOTAM Service

Regulatory Support Division

NationalAviationSafetyDataAnalysisCenter

Interagency Airspace Coordination

National Air Traffic Controllers Association

National Transportation Safety Board

U.S. Military Aviation

World Aeronautical Database

Airports Quick Aid

Airports Serving Mexican Border Region

Pilot Getaways

FAA Notices To Airmen

Airport Taxi Diagrams

Banking & Finance

Banking & Financial Crimes

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

Financial Scandals

Countering Financial Crime Risks in Information Security

Money Laundering and Financial Crimes

Money Laundering, Terrorism and Financial Institutions

Money Laundering

Transnational Threats

United States Secret Service

BLOGS

Fresh brewed news plus stewing views

Global Politics, Economics & Ideas

Bridges