A new era of open-source intelligence

[ergophobe]

I was going to say open-source Intel, but realized that might be misinterpreted. It turns out that amateurs using civilian satellites and all sorts of Russian dashboard video uploaded to Tik Tok have been able to track Russian army movements.

As Stephen Wood of Maxar notes, this is partly because the satellites in the private sector have improved "dramatically". His firm's satellites can take photographs that are sharp enough to make out objects as small as 30cm.... But what has been especially powerful in this crisis is the combination of timely, accurate satellite pictures with the social-media posts that are pouring out of Russia.

Consider the case of the missing equipment at Rechitsa. The satellite imagery does not show where the weapons and vehicles have gone, only that they are missing. But there are other clues. Russian drivers are avid users of dashboard-mounted cameras. In recent weeks, these have captured reams of footage of tanks and other equipment on the move by road and rail. Much of that is uploaded to TikTok, a Chinese app on which users can post short video clips (images of tanks being sped past the Russian borderlands are often set to thumping music).

One such video, uploaded on February 13th, shows a convoy of armoured vehicles, including a Shilka anti-aircraft system, on a road that runs south-east from the town of Mazyr to Naroulia. Two days later an open-source analyst who tweets under the name @danspiun, noticed that an emblem on the Shilka, though indistinct, suggested the vehicles belonged to Russia's 5th Tank Brigade—one of the units previously seen arriving at Rechitsa.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/02/19/a-new-era-of-transparent-warfare-beckons

[Drastic]

Finally, something positive comes from SM usage.

This really beefs up the "nowhere to hide" situation.