The OSINT Library

On this page we collect academic and professional books, articles and papers that can be relevant or interesting to read on the (wider) topic of Open Source Intelligence. Some are already a bit older and maybe do not contain current content (anymore). These are kept in the list for historical purposes to show the development of OSINT as an academic discipline. Others may have a title in which the word OSINT does not appear, however, rest assured, all books relate to the (historical) use of OSINT in some form or way.

You will also notice resources that focus more on intelligence analysis. These are added with a view to balance the predominant focus on the (technical) collection challenges as usually found in publications on OSINT.

Obviously, this page is never finished, so you may want to revisit sometimes (pro tip: use VisualPing or Versionista to monitor this page for changes). Suggestions for titles to include are welcome, especially from before the year 2000 when OSINT was still emerging and especially in languages other than English as the list (and the OSINT field) currently seems somewhat Anglocentric.

Where possible we will include a link to the original source and otherwise the articles / books are available via your (university) library or a proper search. If you really cannot find a specific article, feel free to contact me. [last updated: 29 November 2021]

• Akhgar, B., Bayerl, P. & F. Sampson (eds.) (2016) Open Source Intelligence Investigation: From Strategy to Implementation. Springer.
• Akın Ünver, H. (2018) Digital Open Source Intelligence and International Security: A Primer. Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.
• Appel, E. (2011). Internet Searches for Vetting, Investigations, and Open-Source Intelligence. CRC Press.
• Bagnall, J. (1958) ‘The Exploitation of Russian Scientific Literature for Intelligence Purposes‘, Studies in Intelligence, Vol 2(3): pp. 45-48.
• Bartlett, J. and C. Miller (2013) The State of the Art: A Literature Review of Social Media Intelligence Capabilities for Counter-Terrorism. London: Demos.
• Bayerl, P. and B. Akhar (2015) Surveillance and Falsification. Implications for Open Source Intelligence Investigations’, Communications of the ACM, vol 58(8): pp. 62-69.
• Bean, H. (2007) ‘The DNI’s Open Source Center: An Organizational Communication Perspective’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 20 (2): 240-257.
• Becker, J. (1957) ‘Comparative Survey of Soviet and US Access to Published Information‘, Studies in Intelligence, Vol 1(4): pp. 35-46.
• Best, R. and A. Cumming (2007) Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): Issues for Congress. Congressional Research Service, Washington.
• Blancke, S. (2010) Private Intelligence : geheimdienstliche Aktivitäten nicht-staatlicher Akteure. Dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin.
• Boerma, M (2020) Open Source Intelligence: De sleutel tot een (vrijwel) ongelimiteerde bron van informatie. Scriptie, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
• Calkins, L. (2011) ‘Patrolling the Ether: US–UK Open Source Intelligence Cooperation and the BBC’s Emergence as an Intelligence Agency, 1939–1948’, Intelligence and National Security Vol. 26(1): pp. 1–22.
• Carvalho de Sousa Rodrigues, P. (2019) An OSINT Approach to Automated Asset Discovery and Monitoring. Thesis, Universidade do Porto.
• Croom, H. (1969) ‘The Exploitation of Foreign Open Sources’, Studies in Intelligence (Summer 1969-declassified article): 129–30.
• Crowder, Nicholas (2015) OSINT Glossary – Guide to keywords, phrases for improved internet search results – Volume I. Crowder Publications.
• Crowe, J. and T. Davidson (2008) ‘The „Grey” Intersection of Open Source Information and Intelligence’, Tenth International Conference on Grey Literature: Designing the Grey Grid for Information Society, 8-9 December 2008, Amsterdam.
• Davitch, J.M. (2017) ‘Open Sources for the Information Age’, Joint Force Quarterly, Vol. 87(4): pp. 18-25.
• Dedijer, S. (1992). Open Sources Solutions, Intelligence and Secrecy, Open Source Solutions Symposium, December, 1-3, Washington, D.C.
• Department of Justice Cybersecurity Unit (2020) Legal Considerations when Gathering Online Cyber Threat Intelligence and Purchasing Data from Illicit Sources. Washington, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section Criminal Division U.S. Department of Justice
• Department of the Army (2006) Open Source Intelligence. Field Manual Interim No. 2-22.9
• Director of National Intelligence (2006) National Open Source Enterprise, Intelligence Community Directive 301.
• Director of National Intelligence (2015) Analytic Standards, Intelligence Community Directive 203.
• Donnelley, M. (1995) Open Source Intelligence in the Information Age: Opportunities and Challenges. Thesis, Georgetown University.
• Dover, R., M. Goodman and C. Hillebrand (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Intelligence Studies. London: Routledge.
• Eldridge, C., C. Hobbs & M. Moran (2018) ‘Fusing algorithms and analysts: open-source intelligence in the age of ‘Big Data’, Intelligence and National Security, 33(3): pp. 391-406.
• Fernandez, M., A. Millington, M. Monday and E. Sarpa (2019) Elementary… the Art and Science of Finding Information. BookLocker: St. Petersburg, USA.
• Gibson, S. (2004) ‘Open source intelligence’, The RUSI Journal, 149(1): 16-22.
• Gibson, s. (2007) Open source intelligence (OSINT): a contemporary intelligence lifeline. PhD Thesis, Cranfield University.
• Glassman, M. and M. Ju Kang (2011) ‘Intelligence in the internet age: The emergence and evolution of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)’, Computers in Human Behaviour Vol. 28: pp. 673–682.
• Ghoshal, S. (1983). Corporate Intelligence Gathering – Scanning for International Business Information Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Gonçalves Evangelista, J., R. Sassi, M. Romero and D. Napolitano (2020) ‘Systematic Literature Review to Investigate the Application of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) with Artificial Intelligence’, Journal of Applied Security Research.
• Harper, M. (1961) ‘A New Profession to Aid Management’, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 25 (3): pp. 1-6.
• Hayes, D. and F. Cappa (2018) ‘Open-source intelligence for risk assessment’, Business Horizons, Vol. 61(5): pp. 689-697.
• Heuer, R. (2006) The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis.
• Hobbs, C., M. Moran and D. Salisbury (2014) Open Source Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Holland, B. (2012) Enabling Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in private social networks. Thesis, Iowa State University.
• Hribar, G., Podbregar, I., & Ivanuša, T. (2014). ‘OSINT: a “grey zone”?’ International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 27(3): pp. 529-549.
• Hulnick, A. (2002) ‘The Downside of Open Source Intelligence’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 15, pp. 565-579.
• Irwin, D. and D. Mandel (2019) ‘Improving information evaluation for intelligence production’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 34(4): pp. 503-525.
• Johnson, L. (ed.) (2009) Handbook of Intelligence Studies. London: Routledge.
• Joint Military Intelligence Training center (1996) Open Source Intelligence: Professional Handbook. Department of Defense.
• Ju, Y. et al. (2020) ‘Study on application of open source intelligence from social media in the military’, Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1507.
• Kelley, W. (1965) ‘Marketing Intelligence for Top Management’, The Journal of Marketing, Vol. 29(4): pp. 19-24.
• Krejci, R. (2002) Open-source intelligence in the Czech military knowledge system and process design. Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.
• Lepaja, A. (2017) ‘Le renseignement d’origine sources ouvertes pour les opérations militaires’, Revue Défense Nationale 2017/5 (N° 800): pp. 161-166.
• Marlin, T. (2019) Detecting Fake News by Combining Cybersecurity, Open-Source Intelligence, and Data Science. Thesis, Utica College.
• Mercado, S. (2001) ‘OSINT from the Airwaves: FBIS Against the Axis, 1941-1945’, Studies in Intelligence, Vol 11: pp 33-43.
• Mercado, S. (2004) ‘Sailing the Sea of OSINT in the Information Age‘, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 48(3): pp. 45-55.
• Miller, B. (2018). ‘Open source intelligence (OSINT): An oxymoron?’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 31(4), pp. 702-719.
• Monaghan, R. (2019) ‘Loyalist supergrass trials: an opportunity for open source intelligence?’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 34(7): pp. 1014-1026.
• Nance, M. (1994) The Generation Gap: Open-Source Information, Intelligence, and the Government. National War College.
• NATO (2002) Open Source Intelligence Handbook.
• NATO (2002) Open Source Intelligence Reader.
• NATO (2002) Intelligence Exploitation of the Internet.
• NATO (2018) ‘Communicating Uncertainty, Assessing Information Quality and Risk, and Using Structured Techniques in Intelligence Analysis’, proceedings of the SAS-114 Workshop held from 5-7 December 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Noble, D.F. (2004) Assessing the Reliability of Open Source Information. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Information Fusion.
• Noël, R. (2014) Contribution à la veille stratégique : DOWSER, un système de découverte de sources Web d’intérêt opérationnel. Thèse de doctorat. Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Rouen.
• Norman, D. (2001) How to Identify Credible Sources on the web. Thesis, Faculty of the Joint Military Intelligence College.
• Ogar, S. (2019) Covert Networks – A comparative study of Intelligence Techniques used by Foreign Intelligence Agencies to Weaponize Social Media. MA Thesis Johns Hopskins University, USA.
• Olcott, A. (2012) Open Source Intelligente in a Networked World.
• Omand, D. (2012) ‘Introducing Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT)’, Intelligence and National Security Vol. 27(6): pp. 801–823.
• Omand, D. (2020) How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence.
• Pallaris, C. (2008) Open Source Intelligence: A Strategic Enabler of National Security. CSS Analyses in Security, Vol.3, No. 32. ETH, Zurich.
• Pastor-Galindo, J., P. Nespoli, F. Gomez Marmo, and G. Martinez Perez (2020) ‘The Not Yet Exploited Goldmine of OSINT: Opportunities, Open Challenges and Future Trends‘, IEEE Access, Vol. 8: pp. 10282-10304.
• Pedersen, T. and P. Jansen (2019) ‘Seduced by secrecy – perplexed by complexity: effects of secret vs open-source on intelligence credibility and analytic confidence’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 34(6): pp. 881-898
• Perito, D., C. Castelluccia, M. Kaafar and P. Manils (2011) How Unique and Traceable are Usernames? Conference paper ArXiv.
• Pherson R. and R. Heuer (2020) Structured Analytic Techniques. Sage, London.
• Politi, A. (2000) The birth of OSINT in Italy. International conference OSS 21, Information-Sharing Scenarios Panel, Washington DC.
• Pouchard, L., J. Dobson and J. Trien (2007) A Framework for the Systematic Collection of Open Source Intelligence. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
• Pringle, Robert W. (2003) ‘The Limits of OSINT: Diagnosing the Soviet Media, 1985-1989’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 16(2): pp. 280-289.
• Pythian M., (Ed.) (2013) Understanding the Intelligence Cycle. London: Routledge.
• Quick, D. and K. Choo (2018) ‘Digital forensic intelligence: Data subsets and Open Source Intelligence (DFINT+OSINT): A timely and cohesive mix’, Future Generation Computer Systems, Vol. 78(2): pp. 558-567.
• Rasak, M.J. (2021) ‘Event Barraging and the Death of Tactical Level Open-Source Intelligence’, in Military review, Vol.101 (1), p.48-57.
• Reuser, A.H.P. (2017) ‘The RIS Open Source Intelligence Cycle’, Journal of Mediterranean and Balkan Intelligence, Vol. 10(2): pp. 29-44.
• Roop, J. (1969) Foreign Broadcast Information Service. History, Part I: 1941-1947. CIA.
• Saunders, K. (2000) Open source information: A true collection discipline. Thesis, Royal Military College of Canada.
• Schaurer, F. And J. Storger (2010) The Evolution of Open Source Intelligence. International Relations and Security Networks, Zurich.
• Shamaeva, I. and Galley, D.M. (2021) Custom Search – Discover more:: A Complete Guide to Google Programmable Search Engines. Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Sigurdson J. and P. Nelson (1991) ‘Intelligence Gathering and Japan: The Elusive Role of Grey Intelligence’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 5(1): pp. 17-34.
• Steele, R. (1993) ‘National Intelligence and Open Source: From School House to White House‘, American Intelligence Journal, Spring/Summer 1993, pp. 29-33.
• Steele, R. (1995) ‘Private enterprise intelligence: Its potential contribution to national security”, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 10(4): 212-228.
• Steele, R. (2004) Special Operations Forces Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Handbook. OSS International Press, Oakton.
• Steele, R. (2009) ‘Open Source Intelligence’, in L. Johnson (ed.) Handbook of Intelligence Studies. London: Routledge.
• Studeman, W. (1993) ‘Teaching the Giant to Dance: Contradictions and Opportunities in Open Source Information within the Intelligence Community‘, American Intelligence Journal, Spring/Summer 1993, pp. 11-18.
• Travers, M., L. van Boven and C. Judd (2013) ‘The Secrecy Heuristic: Inferring Quality from Secrecy in Foreign Policy Contexts’, Political Psychology, Vol. 35(1): 97-111.
• Trottier, D. (2015) ‘Open source intelligence, social media and law enforcement: Visions, constraints and critiques’, in European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol 18 (4-5), pp. 530-547.
• U.S. Army (2012) ATP 2-22.9 Open-Source Intelligence. Headquarters, Department of the Army.
• U.S. Army (2013) JP 2-0 Joint Intelligence. Chiefs of Staff, United States Army.
• Umphress, D. (2005) ‘Diving the Digital Dumpster: The Impact of the Internet on Collecting Open-Source Intelligence’, Air & Space Power Journal, Vol. 19 (4): pp. 82-91.
• Waltz, E. (2003) Knowledge Management in the Intelligence Enterprise. Artech House.
• Watson, D. (2007) ‘Stealing corporate secrets using open source intelligence (the practitioner’s view)’, International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics (IJESDF), 1(1).
• Watson, D. (2010) ‘Open Source Intelligence’, Handbook of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, pp. 263-277.
• Wells, D. and H. Gibson (2017) ‘OSINT from a UK perspective: considerations from the law enforcement and military domains‘, in Proceedings Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, 16 : From Research to Security Union. Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, pp. 84-113.
• Westcott, C. (2019) ‘Open source intelligence Academic research, journalism or spying?’, in The Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies, pp. 383-393. London: Routledge.
• Wheatley, B. (2017) British Intelligence and Hitler’s Empire in the Soviet Union 1941-1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Wheatley, B. (2018) ‘British open source intelligence (OSINT) and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union: persecution, extermination and partisan warfare’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 33(3): pp. 422-438.
• Williams, H. and I. Blum (2018) Defining Second Generation Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for the Defense Enterprise. RAND Research report.
• Wirtz J. and J. Rosenwasser (2010) ‘From Combined Arms to Combined Intelligence: Philosophy, Doctrine and Operations’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 25(6): pp. 725–743.

Legal and Ethics

• Cuijpers, C. (2013) ‘Legal aspects of open source intelligence’, The computer law and security report, Vol. 29(6): pp.642-653.
• Dubberley, S., A. Koenig and D. Murray (eds) (2019) Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation, and Accountability. Oxford Public International Law.
• Gradecki, J. and D. Curry (2017) ‘Crowd-Sourced Intelligence Agency: Prototyping countersurveillance’, in Big Data & Society, January-June 2017, pp. 1-7.
• Hulsen, L. Ten (2020) ‘Open Source evidence from the internet – the protection of privacy in civilian criminal investigations using OSINT’, Amsterdam Law Forum, Vol. 12 (2).
• Kidd, J. (2019) ‘Secret and ethically sensitive research’, The Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies, pp. 265-271. London: Routledge.
• Rønn, K. and S. Søe (2019) ‘Is social media intelligence private? Privacy in public and the nature of social media intelligence’, Intelligence and National security, Vol 34(3): pp. 362-378.
• Sampson, F (2017) ‘Intelligent evidence: Using open source intelligence (OSINT) in criminal proceedings’, in The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, Voil 90(1), pp. 55-69.
• Saugmann, R. (2019) ‘The civilian’s visual security paradox: how open source intelligence practices create insecurity for civilians in warzones’, Intelligence and National Security, 34(3): pp. 344-361.
• United Nations (2020) Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. A Practical Guide on the Effective Use of Digital Open Source Information in Investigating Violations of International Criminal, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Technical

This section contains the more technical publications, often with an overlap into digital forensics.

• Bazzell, M. (2020) Extreme Privacy. What it takes to Disappear. (2nd edition. NB: 3rd edition coming soon, already available via Amazon US).
• Bazzell, M. (2021) Open Source Intelligence Techniques. Resources for Searching and Analysing Online Information (8th edition).
• Chauhan, S. and N. Panda (2015) Hacking Web Intelligence – Open Source Intelligence and Web Reconnaissance Concepts and Techniques. Syngress.
• Cuesta Martín, C. (2019) Fuentes de Información OSINT para la Clasificación y Selección de Perfiles sobre Repositorios. Thesis, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.
• Hassan, N. and R. Hijazi (2018) Open Source Intelligence Methods and Tools: A Practical Guide to Online Intelligence. Apress.
• Lallie, H and D. Benford (2011) ‘Challenging the Reliability of iPhone Geo-tags’, The International Journal of Forensic Computer Science, Vol. 1: pp. 59-67.

Application

This section contains articles showcasing real life research applications of OSINT tools and techniques.

• Kpozehouen et al (2020) ‘Using Open-Source Intelligence to Detect Early Signals of COVID-19 in China: Descriptive Study‘, JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, Vol. 6(3). 
• Maybir, J. and Chapman, B. (2021) ‘Web scraping of ecstasy user reports as a novel tool for detecting drug market trends’, in Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation, Vol 37.
• Yates, A. and N. Zvegintzov (1999) ‘A Siberian reality check on open source information’, Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 51(6): pp. 175-186.