Editorial Board Contents - Bureau of Police Research and ...

Human Intelligence (HUMINT), but has evolvedin the creation of all together new disciplines,dependent almost totally on technology, suchas Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Geospatialintelligence (GEOINT), Measurement andSignature Intelligence (MASINT), Imageryintelligence (IMINT), Open Source intelligence(OSINT) and so on.Figure 1: Intelligence CycleSource: Author, adapted from Henry 1. Stimson CentreReport 70 s .1.1 Phase 1: Intelligence Collectionand Technology1.1.2 Human Intelligence (HUMINT)Human Intelligence (HUMINT) is one of theoldest disciplines of intelligence institutions.HUMINT is usually defined as “a category ofintelligence derived from information collectedand provided by human sources” 9 . In contrastto the conventional dictum, this discipline isextensively dependent on technology in variousaspects. Covert communication and exchange ofinformation from foreign agents, i.e. the “deaddrops” 10 , is one most critical component of aclandestine HUMINT operation. Technologyis extensively employed in terms of advancedencryption systems for the creation of securecommunication channels on IP as well as RFlink 11 .Some of the techniques commonly used arecipher based communication, involving milgrade symmetric encryption of 512bit keyand above 12 ; Digital steganography 13 basedtechniques of embedding information in imagesand videos(Figure 2); IP based covert channelsof communication involving embedding covertinformation as part of protocol streams orredundant bits, thus obfuscating contemporaryInternet interception mechanisms 14 ; Use of remoteVPS and VPN servers for obfuscation of agent’s IPdetails and communication path for track back,along with mail-eliminator for removing the tracesof emails sent from the agents, especially to evadecounter intelligence cyber forensics; and hushmaillike services involving a single mail creationfor a single communication and subsequentlypurging of the account and auto creation ofsubsequent accounts for next communication 15 ;Spread spectrum and frequency hopping basedencrypted communication channels for tacticalcommunication devices required extensivelyin covert reconnaissance and direct actionoperations; Espionage based equipment suchas digital transmitters, GPS locators; Similarlyadvanced bugging devices for surveillance andso on.Similarly, one of the key components in HUMINTis the process of interrogation. Here again,technology has revolutionized the way in whichinterrogation is conducted with advances suchas the Psychoactive medication 16 , or the truthserums and advanced behavioral analysis basedlie detectors, involving vital bodily parametricmeasurement and correlation.Figure 2: Digital Steganography process 17 .Source: Onathan Cummins, Patrick Diskin, Samuel Lauand Robert Parlett, Steganography And DigitalWatermarking, School of Computer Science, TheUniversity of Birmingham, 2004.96The Indian Police Journal, October - December, 2012, Special Issue