Open Source Information System (OSIS)

References

Assessing Emerging Threats Through Open Sources by Graham H. Turbiville Jr.; Lieutenant Colonel Karl E. Prinslow, US Army; and Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Waller, US Army, Retired Military Review September / October 1999
Meeting the Open-Source Acquisition and Exploitation Challenge by Colonel Edward F. Dandar Jr., US Army Reserve, Retired Military Review, March-April 1997
OSS Notices July 1995
COSPO/CENDI Industry Day OSS Notices June 1995
How Deep is the OSIS Walter Lazear The Edge
Summary of the 11th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference by Charlie Payne, Secure Computing Corporation and Ron Ross, Institue for Defense Analyses Electronic CIPHER, Issue 12, February 14, 1996

Open Source Information System (OSIS)

The Open Source Information System (OSIS) is an unclassified confederation of systems serving the intelligence community with open source intelligence. Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO) supports all aspects of open source information systems, spanning collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination, to include network and distributed computing resources. The National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) is the Executive Agent for a major element of OSIS, the Open Source Service Agent (OSSA). Dr. Joseph Markowitz, Director of COSPO has noted that while Allen Dulles was fond of saying that open sources provided 80% of the input to the all-source intelligence production process, "the more common contribution of open sources to the average all-source product is on the order of 20 to 30 percent."

OSIS contents include:

CIRC (Central Information Reference and Control) Database of over 10 million titles on scientific and technical topics, including patents, standards, military equipment and systems.
Conference Database of upcoming symposia, congresses, and conventions in the areas of science, technology, engineering, politics, and economics.
DTED (Digital Terrain Elevation Data) map collection [from NIMA] provides global coverage (the database is stored on a 500 CD-ROM jukebox).
FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service) products include the Daily Reports, Science & Technology Perspectives, Trends, and Pacific Rim Economic Review.
IC ROSE database service provides searchable text articles from hundreds of periodicals on a wide range of subjects.
TCOM (Telecommunications) contains abstracts and complete articles on telecommunications related topics.
TEL (Technical Equipment List) indexes over 100,000 brochures and manuals on telecommunications and related equipment.

Additional commercial datasources, such as Oxford Analytica, as well as unclassified library holdings of several OSIS member agencies, including DIA, reside on OSIS.

OSIS also offers specialized software and other tools to assist users in analysis and graphical interpretations of data. OSIS currently makes available the National Air Intelligence Center's (NAIC) SYSTRAN ® machine translation (MT) capability to provide "real time" rough translations of foreign language information.

The MITRE Corp. has implemented a new, firewall-based architecture for OSIS. The previous architecture did not support direct connection between the internal network and the Internet, and each node required strong authentication. MITRE developed hybrid, virtual private network architecture that stresses usability and connectivity between nodes while retaining an acceptable level of security. It permits WWW between OSIS nodes providing node-to-node connectivity and Internet connectivity while reducing the need for strong authentication.

Open Source Information System (OSIS) Sites

OSIS - Open Source Information System (AIA) Air Intelligence Agency, Kelly AFB, San Antonio, TX
IC-ROSE (CIA) Central Intelligence Agency, Reston, VA
(DIA) Defense Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.
(NSA) National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Laurel, MD
(NIMA) National Imagery & Mapping AgencyFairfax, VA
(NAIC) National Air Intelligence Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH
(NGIC) National Ground Intelligence Center, Charlottesville, VA
(MCIC) Marine Corps Intelligence Center, Quantico, VA
(NMIC) National Maritime Intelligence Center, Office of Naval Intelligence, Suitland, MD
(ISMC) Intelink Service Management Center, Ft. Meade, Laurel, MD

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