Expertise hubs and the credibility challenge for open-source intelligence: insights from usage patterns of a web-controlled radio receiver and related Twitter traffic in the Ukraine war

2024/11/11 by Anne van Harten, Shawn Donnelly, Pieter-Tjerk de Boer +1 · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence

paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/09662839.2024.2421262

openalex publication_date 2024/11/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

This article analyses how new open-source intelligence methods democratise and complement traditional signals intelligence while bundling dispersed expertise required to ensure the quality of data and the confidence we can have in analysis. It examines the case of OSINT activity on web-controlled radio receivers since 2022 about Russian military communications in Ukraine. It uses network analysis to show the extent of information leakage, analysis and collaboration by various actors that perform different tasks of crowdsourcing, vetting and interpreting information to make it actionable. We advance the field in knowledge of open-source intelligence gathering, dissemination and use.

Citations

• Balancing National Security and Privacy: Examining the Use of Commercially Available Information in OSINT Practices
• The Power and Peril of International Regime Complexity
• The Politics of International Regime Complexity
• Fusing algorithms and analysts: open-source intelligence in the age of ‘Big Data’
• The Social Ties that Bind: Unraveling the Role of Trust in International Intelligence Cooperation
• There Is No Such Thing as Open Source Intelligence
• Intelligence warning in the Ukraine war, Autumn 2021 – Summer 2022
• Caught off guard? Evaluating how external experts in Germany warned about Russia’s war on Ukraine

Discussions

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