Babbage: Open-source intelligence

Amateurs, activists and academics are using technology and open-source data to uncover state secrets. Shashank Joshi, The Economist’s defence editor, explores how open-source intelligence is disrupting statecraft and asks John Brennan, a former director of the CIA, how these techniques are being used alongside secret intelligence to detect missile silos in China.

Guests include Elliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, an open-source intelligence collective; Melissa Hanham, affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation; and Dr Amy Zegart, author of "Spies, Lies and Algorithms".

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