OSINT and Journalism

Speaker 1: Welcome to the World of Intelligence, a podcast for you to discover the latest analysis of global military and security trends within the open source defense intelligence community. Now onto the episode with your host, Harry Kemsley.

Harry Kemsley: Hello and welcome to this edition of World of Intelligence by Janes. I'm your co- host Harry Kemsley, and as usual Sean Corbett is with me. Hello, Sean.

Sean Corbett: Hello, Harry.

Harry Kemsley: Good to see you again. We get quite a lot of comments on our podcast, I'm pleased to say, and some of them are actually quite positive from time to time, which is a pleasant surprise. We also get quite a few requests or topics or things you might want to discuss. And one of those has come up quite a lot recently is to look at how the journalism world deals with open source intelligence. And so in direct response to that request from several of our listeners, we thought we might actually bring an eminent force in the journalistic world who also knows a bit about open source intelligence. So we've invited a highly successful journalist from an internationally recognized newspaper who was recently written about OSINT and I guest today is Warren Strobel. Hello, Warren.

Warren Strobel: Hello. Good to be with you both, Harry and Sean.

Harry Kemsley: Thanks. Thanks, Warren. Thanks for being here. For any listeners that do not know Warren, he covers intelligence security at The Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau. He has traveled with eight US secretaries of state and covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere. He and his colleagues' award- winning work at Knight Ridder newspapers challenging the Bush's administration's case for invading Iraq was featured in the 2018 Rob Reiner movie, Shock and Awe. Since late 2021, Warren has written extensively about how open source intelligence has transformed the war in Ukraine and the global understanding of that conflict as well as its impact on the mission of US and Five Eyes Intelligence Agencies. Warren, thank you so much for being here.

Warren Strobel: I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Thank you for having me.

Harry Kemsley: As are we. So we almost always... in fact, I think it is always, we go through a definition of what we mean by open source intelligence, Warren, just to set the standards, set the understanding of what we mean by open source intelligence. I'll get Sean to do that in just a moment to make sure that we are all talking about and listening to the same concept. Sean, open source intelligence, what are our four defining features?

Sean Corbett: Yeah. At risk of boring our regular listeners, but actually it's quite important just to make sure we're defining our parameters, but for us there are four components of open source intelligence. First of which it has to be derived from information that is freely or commercially available to all. So you might have to pay for it, but anybody in the street can actually access it. The second and very much linked is that it has to be derived from legal and ethical sources and techniques. So we don't do any of the gray area stuff. And then the final two really are as relate to all sorts of intelligence actually, not just open source. And that to be intelligence as suppose information, it has to be applied to a specific problem set or requirement. And then finally, it has to add value, the so what as I call it.

Harry Kemsley: Great stuff. And Warren, hopefully that all makes sense to you as well, given your particular role in world?

Warren Strobel: Yeah, it does. I mean, I think one of the quandaries, at least on the US side, is there are different definitions that are bantered about, and people use the term open source intelligence a little too loosely sometimes. So I'm really glad that you have a... definitions are important. I'm glad you have a strong definition there.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. And we will come back to that if we need to. Maybe certainly separate out information from intelligence for the reasons that Sean has said, but as we said at the beginning, useful to be clear about what we mean by open source intelligence or OSINT. All right. Where I'd like to start first, Warren, is around your view on the utility or value of that open source environment for information and intelligence and how that supports you in the work that you do, which we can describe as being responsible investigative journalism rather than the more tabloid version of that perhaps, but we'll come back to that point later. So how do you use the open source intelligence and information environment in your work, Warren?

Warren Strobel: Well, I think it's just exploded in the recent years, the amount of information that's available to me as a journalist. It really came to the fore with Putin's buildup to the invasion of Ukraine and then the actual invasion. I remember 20, 30 years ago I wrote an article about commercial satellite technology and this was when it was first, at least in the US side, being migrated slowly from governments to where commercial satellite, very low resolution was available. And then you fast forward into today where there was just so much information available to us about battlefield in Ukraine, satellite imagery, social media postings, and that in turn is being analyzed by very smart people, not just people off the street, but people who have a background in OSINT or former US Military, former UK Military, former intelligence officers. And I think it just kind of transformed our ability to understand what was going on and report about it.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, we might spend up a few minutes in a second talking about what specifically has changed and how that has driven open source intelligence inside the intelligence community. But also for you, Warren, in terms of as a journalist, what specifically has changed, but we'll come back to that in a minute. How do you feel though, Warren, the changes, the increased availability of open source information and intelligence has affected your ability to get to" the truth," the ability to get to actually what's happening versus maybe not quite a clear picture in the past perhaps?

Warren Strobel: Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, I think as journalists and as former intelligence officers, you don't rely on any one source. And open source, broadly speaking, is just one source of information for us.

Harry Kemsley: Right.

Warren Strobel: But it's an increasingly important one. And when you can see pictures of Russian battalion tactical groups moving or on the ground, raid in certain ways and analyzed by smart people about where that BTG came from, what it means, that helps a lot. But it's vital also to put that together where there are on the ground reporters and the journalists had many people covering the conflict in really dangerous situations as well as our own sourcing in Washington. Human sources, US officials, US intelligence officials, other sorts of analysts. And so we try and do what you call all source, but open source is an increasingly important part of that.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. I remember, Sean, from our previous conversations where we've talked about the utility of open source across the intelligence spectrum. We've talked about things like the fact that it gives us a better context in which we might see discreet actions, events. We've also talked about the ability for us to understand the implication of things more broadly because it shows those things more carefully in open source. But in a few words, Sean, what do you think are the big changes that the intelligence community have seen? And we've talked about before, for the open source intelligence availability. What are the things that have come forward for the intelligence community?

Sean Corbett: I think the most important thing probably, and Warren's touched on all of it actually, is just the exponential increase in technology really. I mean, the imagery that you mentioned, not just the resolution, the fact it's in color, but the fact that you can actually access it and you can buy it not quite near real time, but the proliferation of satellites now is extraordinary at the level of resolution that would be happy to actually do analysis of. But it's not just the imagery side either. Of course, you've got RF as well, so that's almost like commercial inaudible. So you can actually locate stuff by what it's emitting and then there's radar, et cetera. But also, I think I would touch on the fact that... and we've talked about this before as well, that every person is their own sensor and the fact that the internet is out there and all pervasive means you can basically access every sensor all the time. So bringing those all together, I think that does give challenges in itself in terms of there is so much data out there, how do you then filter it and make sure it's done in the right way? And just finally, I know you said briefly, but that's one of the definitions of OSINT that we kind of do touch on sometimes. So open source intelligence does comprise commercial inaudible, so it's different to the others.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, it is. And at the risk of diving too deeply into that, let's just step back for a second, Warren, and look at the problems that we have certainly talked about in our recent episodes. And we'll be talking about again and again, I'm sure, which is the problem of this explosion of information and the power in that information driving mal- intent. The disinformation that you can find in the open source environment and how that might be deliberately trying to derive certain understandings of things or misinformation, which could be where things are not necessarily intended to derive the wrong outcome and understanding, but are doing so anyway. How does The Wall Street Journal deal with mis- and disinformation?

Warren Strobel: That's a really good question and it's a huge concern. The more information you get, the more opportunities there are for bad actors, or as you said, maybe even people who aren't intending to be bad actors to recirculate something that's misinformation or deliberate disinformation. We have a very structured process, and I don't like to overstate the similarities between journalists and intelligence analysts, but actually there are quite a few and a very simple rule, which is the more controversial, the more important, the more impactful the information, then the higher the level of scrutiny it goes.

Harry Kemsley: Right.

Warren Strobel: So at the Journal, if we're going to write a front page story that is going to affect geopolitics or a business sector, there is a very, very structured process in terms of looking at the information. Our editors can ask who our human sources are, how many, are they in a position, where they're in a position to know what they're telling us? And then if you get into the non- human sources where we're basing our conclusions on, commercial inaudible which as Sean said, is now somewhat available or imagery, you want to cross- check that with other sorts of information to make sure you're accurate. And the last point I would make is that we also have begun to go through training at the Journal, and I'm sure other major news organizations are doing this both in the US and UK where we've gone through training about what is a deep fake, how to spot them, how prevalent are they becoming? We're far from perfect, but there is a process.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. I mean, Sean and I had a conversation with Di Cooke who talked to us a great deal about deep fakes, synthetic material. And actually the impression I got from her was that there was a growing war of AI. AI trying to create deep fakes, AI trying to detect deep fakes. And actually the battle was not going the right way. It was the impression I got from our conversation, Sean. But nonetheless, I think we came to the conclusion, did we not Sean, that trade craft remains a key component in the mitigation of that, which is what you've just spoken about.

Sean Corbett: And this is the art versus science of intelligence really, whether it's open source or not. It's all about trusting the data and doing everything you can to trust what you've got by... And I'm sure Warren's got his sources where he just knows that if somebody says something, that's right. So that's derived over time, but you've got to cross- refer that with the more tangible stuff, like if you can see it on imagery or if there's something that is being emitted or even multiple people saying the same thing, so the whole corroboration thing. But it all comes down in the end to trusting that data, which is something that comes in time. And I would say the reason it's called intelligence is because it's the best analysis and assessment you can come up with, with the information that's available, otherwise it would be called information, so.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Yeah, fair point. All right, let's pivot round a little bit from where we are then in terms of the overall use to the... What has changed in the recent times? You mentioned this in your introduction, Warren, in terms of that change from 30 years ago where satellites were pretty much the domain of government only. And now I think we talked about this before, you can almost task a satellite on a credit card transaction, almost there right now. But let's focus this around Ukraine because you've written an article on the open source value that's being derived in Ukraine, how that's changing things, which will... By the way, for the listener, we will have that in the link for this podcast for you to go and read that article. In your mind, what are the big things, Warren, that have changed in the open source information and intelligence environment using Ukraine as an example? What are the kind of things that leap out at you as being the big, big change tickets in more recent times?

Warren Strobel: Let me start off by saying, as a journalist, I need to be a little bit humble in that I think I know that open source is getting me closer and closer, larger percentage of what intelligence agencies can see, but it's not a hundred percent. And I for example, did not have Mr. Putin's secret war plan to invade Ukraine. Whereas it's been reported that the CIA, and I'm sure the allied partners in the UK did have all, or part of that plan. I as a journalist using open source, couldn't find Ayman al- Zawahiri and kill him in a safe house in Kabul as the CIA did. I'm sure with help from allied partners. So open source doesn't get us a hundred percent of the way there, but increasingly I can see a picture that is more like what intelligence analysts in their classified spaces are seeing based on some of the things you talked about, Harry. And again, it's not just imagery, that's one thing, but there's the social media. You had in the early days of the Ukraine conflict images of Russian tracked vehicles moving into Ukraine. And you had analysts who previously worked for the US government looking at the tracks of those vehicles and saying those things aren't very well maintained. These people have watched these particular class of weapons and they could actually look at them and say there are problems there. And that's just one example. There's the RF example that Sean mentioned. There's a company in the US who I won't mention because I don't want to do PR for them, but they have a fleet of satellites up there to intercept RF signals and they've done some really interesting work catching the Chinese commercial fishing fleet encroaching on an environmental zone in the Galapagos, for example. And all sorts of other things. The Wall Street Journal has an informal partnership with Maxar Satellite Imagery. And increasingly, we're probably going to look at other sorts of cooperation with companies doing RF and stuff. And we might even be able to say, " Hey, we can't pay you, but we'll task you to do this particular problem for us, and you get public relations benefit from it."

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Yeah. We're actually partnered with the same organization as well as with the Maxar organization you've talked about. Which leads me, Sean, to a question that we've discussed before about this ecosystem of the commercial and the government environments. The fact that it's not yet fully formed or working as effective as it could be is perhaps the criticism of both sides. But I think there's a great deal of power, is there not, in such an ecosystem being formed and of the sharing of what we're finding in the open source environment to create really insightful intelligence? Sean?

Sean Corbett: Yeah, undoubtedly. And it's something that I think the Russian crisis, if there is a positive out of it at all, has actually made both sides more intuitively aware of the other and what the needs are. And I think it's a really important point that Warren said, there's that I don't think open source will ever give a hundred percent the answer, certainly not on everything. And so, it must be used in sympathetic inaudible and even integrated into the high side stuff. So for me, the real value of open source intelligence right now is, as you mentioned before, the context, the basic intelligence, the foundation intelligence that starts you off in terms of" Right, where are we trying to go with this?" Now that's not to say there aren't elements of open source intelligence that are unique. And I think it's fair to say that in any intelligence organization or any government, there are not unlimited resources. So there are places they're going to be heavily focused on so they can get inaudible here and other things like that. And other things that they simply aren't going to be able to looking at. And you gave a couple of great examples there. So I think there's definitely some coordination, cooperation need in terms of, " Well, look, we are doing this high side stuff, the operational stuff, what we need from you is either foundational stuff or something that is not maybe number one priority." So there's a real conversation that needs to be had there. And then there's the element which we might come and talk to about the immediacy. We always use inaudible intelligence community within the UK that we can't beat the CNN factor, we're never going to get first information. Well, if we use that same information then maybe we are going to beat the same time. The key though is to make sure that you are as accurate and correct in the reportings possible. There's a lot in there.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. The immediacy versus accuracy point is worthy of discussion perhaps another time. I think as well as the context, time sensitivity piece, the indicators and warnings you can get out of open sources that haven't quite reached the ambient noise level for others to leap on it. But if you can find that signal in the noise, you can act on it. Let's turn this around now, Warren. I'm now working as an intelligence analyst in a government organization and I've just read your article and thought, " How did he know that? I'm going to speak to Warren. I'm going to try and see if he can help me in my work." So how do you deal with that? Because let's be honest, we talk about social media, there's also a more traditional media as an open source. If the Wall Street Journal is saying something, I'm going to read it because it's an eminent publication which will have done its homework and we trust its standards and its ethics process for example. So how do you deal with that intelligence inquiry when I'm going to ask you to become a source for me?

Warren Strobel: How much do I help you guys, is what you're asking me?

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. How much could you help me?

Warren Strobel: Yeah. This is a really kind of gray area for us as journalists. We want to do everything to make sure we, in my case, maintain independence from the US government and do not become an arm of the US government, do not become an intelligence source for the US government. But at the same time, there's several things going on. There's a normal interaction in Washington, in London and other western capitals of journalists with officials including intelligence officials. And in order to get information, sometimes I might have to share information and certainly we want to compare notes with a knowledgeable official. So that's sort of sanctioned. I think where it kind of crosses the line is if I would ever get into a position where I'm providing a steady stream of intelligence on an issue of common concern with a US intelligence agency that is not something I'm reporting to my readers because my readers who pay to read the journal or read it online are the audience. So yeah, I need to interact but maintain my independence. It's a bit of a juggling act.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Sean, we spoke about ethics recently, did we not, with Dr. Amy Zegart on the episode a few months ago now. Warren, ethics I know will be in the standards and practices and processes of The Wall Street Journal. How do you deal with that ethical issue? Because I think what you've just said about working with the intelligence agencies is raising an ethical issue, isn't it? How do I operate as a journalist seeking the truth, seeking to report the truth for the greater good, but do so in an ethical way? What are the approaches to the ethics of the open source environment?

Warren Strobel: So in terms of covering intelligence agencies, I'm going to talk about my trade craft here a little bit, but the CIA is the main agency I have to cover along with ODNI in my daily work. And it's a tough place to cover for a number of reasons. Everything is classified and sort of a self- protective cult of people who have a mission and they're all very good, but it's a closed system. So I do trust building. It's the only way I've figured out of how to do it. And so I take my time, I'd be patient, I get people to understand that I'm not looking for some sensationalist scandal and that I understand what I'm talking about and that I don't want to do fluff pieces, soft pieces, but I want to really understand what's going on. So that takes time. I don't think that's so much of an ethical question, but then there is the concern, am I being too easy on US intelligence and the proof in the pudding there is if and when... I shouldn't say if. When the next intelligence scandal surfaces, I will hopefully write it a little bit hard. Yeah. I also wanted to say, Harry and Sean, the sort of interaction I think between reporters and intelligence officials may change a little bit when you're on the battlefield.

Harry Kemsley: Sure.

Warren Strobel: Where issues are a little bit more acute and I think there's a natural sort of cooperation and coalescence of two people who are in different professions yet kind of trying to seek truth on the battlefield.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. And under similar physical threats. Sean, does that sound familiar to you? Go ahead.

Sean Corbett: Yeah, it does. And it's back down to the trust word, but this time, not in the data, but in each other, particularly military people and the IC. Very, very skeptical at all times of journalists because there's been fingers burnt where you've said stuff off the record, there's no such things off the record, we know that. But where it might harm or actually harm you personally in terms of your boss gives you a really hard time for saying something they shouldn't have done because of operational security, all the rest of it. And there was a little game, we're kind of through that now, but certainly in the nineties where some of us who were on the pointy end would actually do the media opt courses so that we knew the ABC, answer, bridge, communicate because we knew that we were trying to get information from us, but we didn't want to catch ourselves out. I think we're a little bit more mature with that. So then the journalists would then go to the senior N show who hadn't had that training and gave more information out. But I do think that the closer you get to the battlefield where you are sharing those experiences, particularly with... and I call it responsible journalism, where you want to report on what it's actually out there on the front line, what are we actually seeing as opposed to what all the filters come up and then back in our capitals is like looks good to report. So I think there is a real value there in getting to that tactical truth. And then there's the human stories as well. So it's, it is a tricky one, but it's all down to exactly as Warren said, developing trust that someone isn't going to, in my term, stitch me up, but equally get the story out without being too subjective either side.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. So Warren, let me just take us back a couple of points ago. Sources. In the Janes world, they have a golden set of sources that we use from open source environment regularly because they're known to be reliable and they provide us with good insight to things that we are interested in. Presumably in your own trade craft, in your own journalist endeavor, you have similar sources, do you not? Do you have an ability to reach out to certain places to get the information that you need and do so reliably?

Warren Strobel: Yeah. Often, if I want to get a source that is not sort of just... I don't want to use the parroting because majority of it is repeating the official line of the US government or something. It takes trust building, it takes meetings, it takes a little bit of convincing. But after you've dealt with somebody for some period of time and they have not led you astray and they tell you what they know and what they don't know, and it's clear that they don't have an agenda beyond trying to help you, then that becomes what you call a golden source. And even then, there's very few human sources that I would trust 100%, but that gets you to about 90%, right? Then there's other things when as a journalist, somebody calls, emails, texts, you sort of as we say over the transom and they have something sensational they want to share and I want to talk to that person for sure, but I'm not going to take it without a huge grain of salt until I get to know them and their information and what their background agenda is. And I think getting back to some points that Sean was making in this analysis, it's more art than science and something that I've as a professional journalist for 35 years and you all have done for decades as well, and there's a sort of a calibration radar factor that is kind of hard to put into words.

Harry Kemsley: Just quickly, let me squeeze this one in before we close or start to close, how do you validate from a source that you are less familiar with, that you don't have that sense of trust, but there's a big story that you need to get in front of and you're hearing this story from a location that you're not used to dealing with. How do you deal with the validation of that?

Warren Strobel: Yeah, that's a tricky situation because let's say there's an example that it has to do with Ukraine and it's a competitive story. It's a story of global import and life and death really. And somebody comes in over the transom with important information that would put The Wall Street Journal ahead of that story... I mean, there's a human tendency to want to believe that. But I think my first move would be to gather around a few trusted colleagues who have the good sources of their own, who know the US national security apparatus and the global scene and share it with them and see if they can get corroboration or confirmation.

Harry Kemsley: So plausibility and then corroboration. Plausibility when people think, " Yeah, that sounds about right." Sean, does this sound familiar to you at all?

Sean Corbett: Yeah, it's almost definition of trade craft, really. You get the resources you can, but you develop it over time and without getting into technology, it's exactly the same with AI algorithms. If over time, they're proving to sort of give insight, this turns out to be right, then you're going to trust them and continue with them. But some of them are absolutely rubbish. And it's the same with sources. And I think there's another point there because everyone thinks that humans, as I would call it, so talking to people, if it's human, it must be right because you've spoken to somebody and they've said something, even if they're not, there's no disinformation there. It's still all about people's perspectives. So you're talking to someone who believes something, but that's not necessarily based on validated information themselves. So you've got to go through those layers. But ultimately, exactly as you said, Warren, you've got to go with the best possible... It's the art of assessing. Does that feel right? Does it sound right? Does it meet all the rest of the things that you know about? And then the final thing I would say on this particular piece is that the expertise, the background, the experience of the individual, whether it's an experienced journalist or whether it's an experienced intelligence person, is so important. That is about the art. You know, mentioned about the Russian vehicles been send there for ages. It wasn't just they weren't being serviced, it was the fact that the tires, if they're not run frequently, just go off and you can't use them anymore. But only a logistician or somebody that's an expert on tires, I don't know who they are, would've come across with that and they go, " Oh, right. Yeah, okay. I didn't know that." So it's the background knowledge in all of our spheres that's important.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Warren, where did the buck stop when the story was going to be put on the front page? The Wall Street Journal's going to put something on the front page, that's a significant event. That's not a non- trivial, " Oh, we just have to put a story." Where does the buck stop for that to happen? Who actually makes the call on that?

Warren Strobel: That's a good question. You're right. It's a non- trivial event. Obviously there's some stories like our current political turmoil in the US that are going to land on the front page. But if it's a story that's more investigative or as we say enterprise and it has some controversy to it, it's going to ruffle feathers. It's been worked on for weeks or months, then it's ultimately the editor- in- chief. But we also have an editor who is... their only job is their editor of the front page. And we have a very senior member of the leadership team, the standards and ethics editor, who has the power to review and to hold or ask questions. So it is what we call stadium editing. It goes up the... Yeah.

Harry Kemsley: We have something similar in Janes and I have to tell you that people in Janes who have to do that editing aren't always the most popular with our analysts and indeed our journalists because they" slow things down." But to use the point we made earlier, immediacy versus accuracy, we'd rather be right than first. And in some cases for Janes, that's more important than it is in others. All right, look, I know that time is going to... In fact, time has elapsed on us. I'm going to start drawing stumps on this conversation. Sorry, a cricket reference there for the non- English listeners.

Warren Strobel: You'll have to explain that to me.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, I'll do that off mic. So Warren, in a second, I'm going to ask Sean first, I always ask our guests if you had one thing you wanted the listeners to take away from this conversation in this case about journalism and open source intelligence, what's the one thing you'd want them to remember out of this conversation? So I'm going to throw the ball at Sean first because I always end up eating his sandwiches by going first normally. So I'll go with Sean first. Sean, what's your one takeaway from today?

Sean Corbett: Oh, that's great because you're not going to eat my sandwiches and as always I'll cheat because I think there are two. I think it's very striking the similarities within the process we have to go through between the intelligence community and responsible journalists in terms of making sure the sources are correct, making sure that you are ethical, legal, and all those good things. And using a lot of the same sources actually in a different way. And the second thing that's linked to that is that not all journalists are the same. Investigative journalists like yourself, responsible ones, are absolutely brilliant and can really help with intelligence community. I don't see what some people might call the mainstream media as being journalists. I've seen them as sensationalists, so I'll leave it there.

Harry Kemsley: Warren, what's your one takeaway for today?

Warren Strobel: I think the one takeaway is the world of secrets is shrinking. As we've said a couple times, I'm now able to access 90, 85, 92% of what government intelligence analysts can. That puts a little bit of a stress on me. It's more information, it's more information to analyze and to verify, to make sure it's not disinformation. But it also, I think, and we haven't really discussed this because it's not the main topic of the podcast, but it puts huge stresses on Five Eyes Intelligence Agencies. How do you gather that expanding list of information, vet it, and how do you use it to properly queue the smaller amount of activity that only the intelligence agencies can do? How do you properly use your secret assets to the best of their ability? Sometimes being tipped and cued by the open source.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, that's actually a perfect segue for my one takeaway, which is almost exactly that, which is that ecosystem point we made some minutes ago. The idea that the commercial environment, the open source environment and the classified closed environment should or could be working much more collaboratively. Getting this stuff done is difficult in terms of security protocols. It's difficult in terms of commercial protocols as well. I get all of that. But the reality is we have a joint problem of dealing with the world of information, disinformation and misinformation. And that can be largely... not entirely, largely addressed by open sources. All right. Warren, I am as ever, immensely grateful for any guest but particularly yourself coming in at short notice to talk to us about the world of journalism and open source. I suspect much of what we talked about for you will feel like" What's changed?" I mean, we've always used open sources in the journalism world, but you've shone a light for us into the world of open source intelligence and its relevance to you as a journalist at an august publication like The Wall Street Journal. So thank you so much for your time. Very, very grateful.

Warren Strobel: Thank you. It was really a great conversation and a pleasure to be here.

Harry Kemsley: Thank you, Warren. Sean, as ever, thank you and we'll come back and do this again sometime soon. Thank you again.

Sean Corbett: Thank you. Good to meet you, Warren.

Harry Kemsley: Bye-bye.

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