Blogging the DNI’s Open Source Conference

Conference season continues apace, and with a wealth of interesting material surfacing for public discussion in the intelligence studies world. We note with great interest the rather unusual collection of blog entries by multiple contributors regarding the events. We are used to seeing this at the major tech conferences, but are frankly surprised to see it in the intelligence community. It simply would not have occurred to us that such a thing would happen, if not in due to overt security restrictions then in the face of the normal culture which prevails at such events.

It is however a harbinger of things to come, we think. We ourselves are of mixed minds on this matter – we have for a long time supported the Chatham House rule in order to encourage a more frank discussion free of political and career considerations (which can be far more damning than any security officer’s checklist). We fear that routine blogging of these rare unclassified events may greatly impair free flowing debate – and may indeed limit attendance in ways we cannot currently predict.

But in this case, the deed is done, and for those interested, a short collection of some relevant links:

DNI Open Source Blog 2007

a thaumaturgical compendium:
Hidden in plain view
Knowledge Management
Media as the Open Source
Technology: Improving the Use of Open Sources
Open Source on the Web


We should also note that the recent Boyd Conference has also generated quite a bit of interesting blogging in the 4GW and future warfare space, well covered by others.... see the usual suspects over at Zenpundit, Shloky, Simulated Laughter, Soob, and tdaxp