The sudden explosion of the Internet all over the world has been the most singular event in the digital world. This has been facilitated with the rapid development of Internet over mobile phones providing easy access to people at all times and at all locations. The availability of cheap smartphones across the world has changed the way people access information.
The availability of information on the Internet has increased with the all traditional newspapers and television channels also providing easy access to their content over the Internet. All such organizations have moved over to the digital world over the internet and are in a constant race to provide information to their target audience and clientele.
The surge in social media has been spurred by various applications like Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn and others which invite people to share their lives and thoughts freely over the digital media and to stay connected with their friends, family, and associates at all times. These applications had been around on the internet but quickly adapted to the mobile phone phenomenon and thus have gained tremendous popularity all over the world. Numerous other similar applications have also come up which are also very popular in use.
The rapid increase in people sharing their lives and thoughts over the internet provides an additional mode to the security agencies to gain information on the undercurrents in society especially reasons for protests, social unrest, and resistance to authority. This form of gathering intelligence from open sources over the Internet is termed as Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). The free sharing of information of their locations, activities, photos are all potential sources of information for the law enforcement agencies and defense forces which provide information on potential targets or events occurring at different locations.
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) methods use means to collect information from public access to numerous sources including newsgroups, blogs, chatrooms, forums, news publications in addition to social media applications like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Shoghi has extensive experience in the Intelligence domain with numerous products for monitoring of various communication media which has provided deep insight into Internet traffic. The ability to search for potential targets in the vast mass of data gathered from monitoring systems is greatly applied in the search for potential information on specific topics, issues, events from both within the country or even from outside the country.
Shoghi has developed an OSINT solution which can be deployed for gaining actionable intelligence from the Internet regarding potential threats from selected individuals, terrorist groups, criminal gangs or adversaries. Its main features are listed below:-
- An intelligent decision support and operations management platform built around a network-centric geospatial platform
- Capable of mining and analyzing the large amount of text, unstructured and transaction data
- Provides a visualization platform and advanced analytics
- Custom built reporting formats based on customer requirement
- Geospatial analysis of information with the location as an important parameter for emerging trends or patterns
- Multi-lingual capability in English and other languages.
- Can be linked to existing databases of various monitoring platforms
Shoghi can provide a suitable Intelligent and Strategic OSINT solution to its government customers which will involve setting up the system as well as intense training of the selected personnel who would be responsible to use the system. Training duration and close support can be based on the level of competence of the personnel and periodic training can also be provided based on the entry of fresh personnel in the customer organization. Shoghi believes in the long haul of maintaining close contact and intimate support to its customers for the success of their utilization of these products.
