Rebranding second-generation open-source intelligence: “It’s not your father’s OSINT”

For decades, first-generation open-source intelligence (OSINT), largely based on the translation and analysis of foreign-language radio, TV broadcasts, newspapers, and other publicly available documents, was exclusively performed by intelligence organizations. Since the 1990s, due to the impact of Information Age technologies, OSINT has steadily increased in importance. The multiple technological advances driving OSINT’s ongoing evolution, which led some scholars and intelligence professionals to refer to its current state as “second-generation OSINT,” have impacted which skills OSINT practitioners require, what OSINT tradecraft should be employed, what OSINT can and should collect, how that research and collection is best performed, how source and data validation is performed, how technical and topical risk mitigation is conducted, and how OSINT analysis is conducted. The ever-increasing and changing big data environment has also had a significant impact on the changes in OSINT practices. Thanks to these tectonic shifts, second-generation OSINT hardly resembles what it had originally been. Just like most intelligence disciplines, OSINT’s rapid, ongoing evolution necessitates rebranding because OSINT practitioners, managers, and customers must all fully understand and appreciate what OSINT can do, how it can be successfully integrated with other intelligence collection disciplines, and what its ethical, legal, and operational limitations might be.