3 ms·

> open sources surveillance (search engines and warez sites) That's the first time I've heard "open source" used to refer to a warez site. Is this overloading

by ptx 7y ago

> open sources surveillance (search engines and warez sites) That's the first time I've heard "open source" used to refer to a warez site. Is this overloading of the term being seeded by someone in order to, in a roundabout way, discredit the open source movement? A few years ago there would have been an obvious suspect for such FUD, but they seem to have embraced open source these days, so that wouldn't make sense. Weird.

frobozz 7y ago
Open Source surveillance means "looking for/at stuff that is openly published" - e.g. looking on warez sites for keys being shared.. I'm pretty sure the term has been in use since the 1940s
- ptx 7y ago
  Ah, I guess so. Thanks. Perhaps my tinfoil hat got in the way of seeing the context.
  - p_l 7y ago
    It is called some other terms depending on country, so it can be non-trivial to grok when you first encounter it. (For years, I knew it as "White Intelligence")
toyg 7y ago
"Open source" is a term long-used in intelligence/police circles that refers to the means of obtaining information, e.g. a newspaper article is an open source. As most intelligence-related terms do, it has inevitably spread out to the wider audience of wannabes and obsessives about military things. Realistically, you don't use it in normal conversation, particularly in places like HN, precisely to avoid confusion... unless one wants to signal that he's using it in the "intelligence" term, i.e. that one is a sad wannabe.
jlgaddis 7y ago
> That's the first time I've heard "open source" used to refer to a warez site. I think "open-source intelligence" [0] is probably a little more commonly used but both terms basically refer to the same thing -- the acquiring and/or gathering of data or information from public, or "open", sources. Originally, it was mostly a government/intelligence thing: > Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is data collected from publicly available sources to be used in an intelligence context. In the intelligence community, the term "open" refers to overt, publicly available sources (as opposed to covert or clandestine sources). More recently, it has been used to refer to the act of gathering information by searching the Internet. > Is this overloading of the term being seeded by someone in order to, in a roundabout way, discredit the open source movement? To be clear, this usage of "open-source" predates open-source software and "the open source movement" by a few decades, at least. Additionally, as the Wikipedia article explicitly points out (in the first paragraph), "it is not related to open-source software". --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSINT
Anthony-G 7y ago
Upvoting this comment (and its informative responses) because I was equally as confused by the wording in that phrase.

by ptx 7y ago

frobozz 7y ago

Open Source surveillance means "looking for/at stuff that is openly published" - e.g. looking on warez sites for keys being shared.. I'm pretty sure the term has been in use since the 1940s

ptx 7y ago
Ah, I guess so. Thanks. Perhaps my tinfoil hat got in the way of seeing the context.
- p_l 7y ago
  It is called some other terms depending on country, so it can be non-trivial to grok when you first encounter it. (For years, I knew it as "White Intelligence")

toyg 7y ago

"Open source" is a term long-used in intelligence/police circles that refers to the means of obtaining information, e.g. a newspaper article is an open source. As most intelligence-related terms do, it has inevitably spread out to the wider audience of wannabes and obsessives about military things. Realistically, you don't use it in normal conversation, particularly in places like HN, precisely to avoid confusion... unless one wants to signal that he's using it in the "intelligence" term, i.e. that one is a sad wannabe.

jlgaddis 7y ago

> That's the first time I've heard "open source" used to refer to a warez site. I think "open-source intelligence" [0] is probably a little more commonly used but both terms basically refer to the same thing -- the acquiring and/or gathering of data or information from public, or "open", sources. Originally, it was mostly a government/intelligence thing: > Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is data collected from publicly available sources to be used in an intelligence context. In the intelligence community, the term "open" refers to overt, publicly available sources (as opposed to covert or clandestine sources). More recently, it has been used to refer to the act of gathering information by searching the Internet. > Is this overloading of the term being seeded by someone in order to, in a roundabout way, discredit the open source movement? To be clear, this usage of "open-source" predates open-source software and "the open source movement" by a few decades, at least. Additionally, as the Wikipedia article explicitly points out (in the first paragraph), "it is not related to open-source software". --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSINT

Anthony-G 7y ago

Upvoting this comment (and its informative responses) because I was equally as confused by the wording in that phrase.