A Tour of iJet with Alan Simpson

They are the envy of Intelligence Officers who have seen their product, and want their system. Visitors fortunate enough to view their operations center leaves in amazement. Who are they? The National Security Agency?

No they are iJet, the private travel intelligence operation in Annapolis, Maryland. It is not coincidental that they are the same people who built the top secret systems for NSA, and many of the staff came from that Agency, but there the connection ends. This operation is the product of innovative, private sector drive, and does not depend on contracts or directions from Uncle Sam. Throwing aside the burden of traditional Washington Beltway thinking has enabled the development team to create an amalgam of automated information gathering, and expert human oversight. Over 40 ex-intelligence analysts supervise areas of expertise, to filter out the planted information, misinformation, and redundant data.

But what is even more surprising is that this intelligence product is not bound in expensive, and confidential briefing folders, but is available through thousands of retail outlets, and is used by hundreds of thousands of executives, and travelers on a daily basis. It has benefits for anyone travelling, visiting, or living overseas.

You can only appreciate their operation if you have had the opportunity to see the military, and government intelligence operations, with their multi billion dollar budgets. IJet have achieved with banks of computers, and servers, what legions of information gathers, and analysts fail to achieve for their government masters. That is real-time analysis of global situations on a tactical level.

Touring the facility, the first stop was the busy Russian Desk, and on the multiple screens, pages of breaking news, reports and internet chat flashed by, as the software searched through the dictionary for keywords. Everything was in Russian of course. The Analyst proudly showed me the ongoing information stream, updated every few seconds, as new information came in. We looked at several pieces, and talked of breaking stories. Click, up came dozens of references of items I had seen on the newswires minutes before. They were already in the system. Want even more insight, a click later and the live Moscow Television News, appeared on the screen.

"I wonder what the traffic is like" was my droll comment, "Let’s see" was the response, and not waiting for the Newscaster to speak about the traffic, up came remote cameras around Moscow, live and immediately available to the Analysts. Here was an American in Annapolis, Maryland looking live at traffic leaving Red Square in Moscow. We clicked from camera to camera across Russia, comparing traffic flow, weather and driving habits.

Moving on to the South American Desk, the Analyst was worried about a comment a few minutes earlier on a local radio interview, that a Mine was being closed by the owners, in response to a strike by the miners. That was from a comment, in Spanish, on a radio call in talk show, thousands of miles away. The reason for the concern, the miners, joined by other trade unions were calling for a march, and demonstration in the local town. The Analyst had been warned, by the software that there were client travelers staying in that town, and because of existing road works, a demonstration would block their access to the airport. Real-time intelligence, watched from thousands of miles way. An alert went out in seconds to the emails, and cellphones of the subscribers.

But consider that none of this real time intelligence uses covert methods, it is all open source, available to all, and with the cooperation of all nations. There is no possibility of mistaking the Chinese Embassy, and bombing it into rubble. There is no possibility of landing on a beach with a Marine Force, having to use out of date Michelin maps. This is the future of intelligence gathering for the real world.

So open are they with the process that they sat me down, and Bruce McIndoe, Chief Operating Officer, and Rick Lurie, the VP of Intelligence Operations gave an hour long presentation of each stage of the process, the software, and hardware. Nothing was left out, and every question answered directly. In a field where "smoke and mirrors" is the normal, and "Consultants" live on the memory of their positions twenty five years earlier, it was refreshing to see an evolving process, that is improving with age and use.

This is a key factor, for literally hundreds of thousands of users of the information feedback their comments, and observations. Road works and diversions are a classic example. This information can make the difference between catching, or missing a plane. Chambers of Commerce pump out pictures of historical landmarks, or shining beaches, but omit to tell travelers that the main sewer broke, flooding the beaches and causing the main street to be dug up and traffic diverted.

But when you are presented with the full picture of the software, and hardware, and their capabilities, it becomes very apparent that this is much more than a package for tracking tired businessmen, and noisy families on their travels around the world. This is the future of a whole fledgling industry, of open source intelligence. Here is a team, who have developed a process, and assembled an expert team, that provides real intelligence, and in real time. Our own Washington Newsroom has sophisticated software to track breaking intelligence news, probably the best in the Media. But it pales by comparison to the suite of programs, developed in conjunction with Fujistu and used by iJet.

It does not take many minutes to reprogram this process to track, and report on anything from oil, minerals, and commodities, to tanks, arms sales, and satellites. IJet have their hands full following their business model based on corporate, and leisure travel, but there are many private, and government organizations who are surely considering what else can be done with this award winning process.

So impressed are we with this service, package, and process that we will be featuring it in one of our monthly "Spies Café" briefings in Washington, on the future of Open Source Intelligence, and benefits to the corporate world.