Crowd-Sourced Intelligence Agency

The Crowd-Sourced Intelligence Agency (CSIA) is an online application and interactive artwork that allows users to experience how Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is processed by intelligence agencies. The app is designed to emulate aspects of systems found in technical manuals, research reports, academic papers, and documents that were leaked or released through Freedom of Information Act requests in order to expose potential problems, assumptions, or oversights inherent in the processes currently being used. The application consists of three main parts: a surveillance interface where users can evaluate Tweets based on their threat to national security, a feature that allows users to test and search their own social media posts, and a Naïve Bayes supervised machine-learning classifier. Users can review the algorithm’s decisions for accuracy and idiosyncrasies. The CSIA provides first-hand experience with social media monitoring, allowing users to choose how they want to navigate social media surveillance.

This work is a collaboration between Derek Curry and Jennifer Gradecki and was made possible by the generous support of Science Gallery Dublin.