OSS. Symposium Speaker Biographies. 1994-11
Open Source Solutions, 11005 Langton Arms Court, Oakton VA 22043-1735,
Tel: 703-242-1700, Fax: 703-242-1711, Internet: oss@oss.net Third Annual
Symposium on "National Security and National Competitiveness," Alexandria,
Virginia, November 8-10, 1994. Speaker Biographies.
For years now, Robert D. Steele has been spreading his gospel of
"open source intelligence," with stunning success. His annual intelligence
symposiums bring together KGB colonels, corporate leaders, CIA officers,
and legendary hackers, all in apparent amity. In addition to intelligence
types, Steele's first such symposium featured addresses by information gurus
Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow. Steele's most recent symposium, held in
the Washington DC area in November of 1994, was addressed by, among others,
Stewart Brand (founder of The Well) and Emmanuel Goldstein (since 1984,
publisher of the cult hacker publication, "2600 Magazine").
Steele is now setting up a prototype operation that will specialize in
online research for the benefit of private clients with deep pockets. "If
you are a potential client of Steele's," says Olivier Schmidt, the founding
editor of Intelligence Newsletter in Paris, "you should nevertheless do your
own intelligence legwork to see if your current or future adversaries are
also Steele's clients." When applied to competitiveness in the private
sector, it seems that the philosophy of "open source intelligence" soon
generates its own contradictions.