Revealing The Dark Arts - 30 Key Intelligence Terms Defined
07 Dec 23
Intelligence
We’re passionate about encouraging people into intelligence careers. It matters not if you’re a school-leaver or someone with an extensive career who’s decided to pivot and change paths – if you’re interested in a role within intelligence, then we want to help.
Equally, we feel that companies could benefit from integrating intelligence practises and approaches into their day-to-day business. From streamlining decision-making processes to analysing sales data, thinking with an intelligence mindset can really help businesses grow.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be giving you some helpful tips on how to get started with using intelligence – whether you’re an individual moving into an intelligence role or a business wanting to bulletproof your processes.
Key intelligence terms
Intelligence is frequently seen as the realm of the dark arts – an area where you cannot ask questions and when you do, you can't get answers if you're not in the circle of trust!
However, we love people asking questions. And if you’re moving into a new role in intelligence – or are a business looking to utilise intelligence principles for the first time – then it’s so important to be inquisitive.
We find that when people and organisations do start to ask questions, a lot of them are about key terminology and what things mean.
Here are our definitions of the terms asked about most frequently.
Agent Handler. An individual working for an intelligence agency who interacts with the agent.
Agent. The individual who collects the information on behalf of the intelligence agency.
Backdoor access. A way that data can be accessed without having to formally ask for access.
Buddy list. A list of people that a user is connected to on social media.
Classified. The level of classification that is applied to intelligence.
Collect. Information that is used in the production of the intelligence.
Collection requirements. Information that organisations want collected to answer specific questions.
Collection. The process of gathering information to be converted to intelligence. There are four types: intentional, inadvertent, incidental and reverse.
Counterintelligence. The practise of limiting or stopping collection activities against you.
Declassification. The process of downgrading or declassifying intelligence.
Demand. There is a considerable demand signal from a customer for the intelligence that you are producing.
Drill down. Access the detail of the data you are viewing.
EEI’s. ‘Essential elements of information’ are those items of intelligence that are considered essential for making timely decisions.
ELINT. Electronic intelligence. Intelligence gathered using electronic sensors.
Encrypt. Converting plain text into encrypted text.
Five Eyes Alliance. A coalition of US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand intelligence organisations.
Hamshaw Thomas. The Grandfather of imagery analysis who put in place key techniques for imagery analysis during WWII.
HUMINT. Human intelligence. The use of people to collect intelligence.
IMINT. Imagery intelligence. Images are collected and processed to gather intelligence.
Intelligence. The process of taking information, processing it and turning it into insights.
Keyhole. Satellite collection that was started by the USA.
Nadir. The direction pointing directly below a collection sensor.
Network. The linkages between a group or an organisation that you are analysing.
NIIRS. National Image Interpretability Rating Scale. A US scale that is widely used to allow analysts to understand how good the imagery is.
OSINT. Open-source intelligence. Using readily available information to answer collection requirements.
Overhead. Satellite imagery.
Product. An intelligence report that is produced for a customer.
Propaganda. Information that is put out to either cause damage or to influence opinion on a specific subject.
SIGINT. Signals intelligence. The collection of signals for conversion into intelligence.
Traffic Analysis. Understanding the structure of an organisation based on the pattern of traffic that is sent by them.
For those that have left intelligence and moved into business, you might find that a lot of these terms are still relevant; albeit with a business perspective. All of us working within intelligence at Inzpire have been surprised at how the same information requirements are needed; it’s just the context and ability to get the answers that changes! This is particularly true of network analysis and the use of OSINT to answer every day business-related questions: who, what, when, where, how and most importantly, why?
We’ve packaged all of these terms into a downloadable glossary for you to refer back to.
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