Open Source Analysis in Support of Nonproliferation Monitoring and Verification Activities: Using the New Media to Derive Unknown New Information

This paper describes evolving techniques that are synergistically being applied in unique ways to make new information discoveries that might otherwise have likely remained unknown. These techniques leverage multiple freely available open source social media venues, as part of the encompassing “New Media,” to derive cueing information for indications of previously unknown and hence undeclared activity. When such cueing relates to physical infrastructure (facilities and equipment), and thus has a strong geo-positional component, it can be followed-up with open source geospatial visualization tools (“geographic browsers” or “virtual globes”) and commercial satellite imagery (with its ever improving spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions) to significantly expand the nuclear nonproliferation knowledge base as will be shown by way of a review of some recent exemplar cases. The methodological application of such techniques can complement other forms of open source data mining for safeguards purposes to improve the likelihood of the remote detection of undeclared nuclear related facilities and/or activities.