Changes in Espionage by Americans: 1947-2007

Herbig, Katherine L.

doi:10.21236/ada479254

Cited by 28 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Critically, however, as the source had rather strong ties to the group planning the attack, he or she was not willing to reveal the information in full (Oleszkiewicz, ). This information management dilemma is backed up by research examining individuals on their way leaving violent extremist groups (Dalgaard‐Nielsen, ) and studies on insider spies (Herbig, ), showing that the incentive to be semicooperative with respect to sharing information is commonly linked to divided loyalties. Furthermore, evaluating human intelligence gathering techniques required developing novel measures of efficacy (Granhag, Oleszkiewicz, & Kleinman, ; Oleszkiewicz, ), capturing the objective outcomes of the interview (e.g., the amount of information that advances the interviewer's understanding of the case), as well as the source's subjective perceptions of the interaction (e.g., reading what information the interviewer was after).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliciting information from human sources: Training handlers in the Scharff technique

Oleszkiewicz

Granhag

Kleinman

2017

Legal Criminol Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose In previous laboratory‐based work, the Scharff technique has proved successful for gathering intelligence from human sources. However, little is known about whether the technique can be taught to practitioners, and whether Scharff‐trained practitioners will interview more effectively than colleagues using their conventional approaches and tactics. Method We examined professional handlers from the Norwegian Police (n = 64), all experienced in interacting with informants. Half received training in the Scharff technique, and their performance was compared against handlers receiving no Scharff training and free to use the approaches they saw fit. All handlers received the same case file describing a source holding information about a future terrorist attack and were given the same interview objectives. Police trainees (n = 64) took on the role of semicooperative sources and were given incomplete information about the attack. Results The trained handlers adhered to the Scharff training as they (1) aimed to establish the illusion of ‘knowing‐it‐all’, (2) posed claims to collect information, and (3) asked few (if any) explicit questions. In contrast, the untrained handlers tried to evoke the sources’ motivation to reveal information and asked a high number of explicit questions. Scharff‐trained handlers were perceived as less eager to gather information, but collected comparatively more new information. Conclusions The Scharff‐trained interviewers utilized more specific elicitation tactics (e.g., posing claims) and fewer general interview strategies (e.g., evoking motivation), and they collected comparatively more new information. This captures the essence of the Scharff technique: It is subtle, yet effective.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliciting information from human sources: Training handlers in the Scharff technique

Oleszkiewicz

Granhag

Kleinman

2017

Legal Criminol Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This information management paradigm has proven to work well in our past lab-based research , and in our field research (Oleszkiewicz, Granhag, & Kleinman, 2017). Importantly, the practical relevance of this paradigm is supported by research examining individuals on their way leaving violent extremist groups (Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2013) and studies on insider spies (Herbig, 2008), showing that the incentive to be semi-cooperative with respect to sharing information is commonly linked to divided loyalties. Furthermore, evaluating human intelligence gathering techniques require novel measures of efficacy (Oleszkiewicz, 2016).…”

Section: Past Research On the Scharff Techniquementioning

confidence: 92%

The Scharff technique: training military intelligence officers to elicit information from small cells of sources

Granhag

Oleszkiewicz

Sakrisvold

et al. 2019

Psychology, Crime & Law

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies have demonstrated the efficacy of the Scharff technique for gathering human intelligence, but little is known about how this efficacy might vary among different samples of practitioners. In this training study we examined a sample of military officers (n = 37). Half was trained in the Scharff technique and compared against officers receiving no Scharff training. All officers received the same case file describing two sources holding information about a terrorist attack. University students (n = 74) took the role of the semi-cooperative sources. Scharff-trained officers adhered to the training as they (1) aimed to establish the 'knowing-it-all' illusion, (2) posed claims as a means of eliciting information, and (3) asked fewer explicit questions. The 'untrained' officers asked many explicit questions, questioned the reliability of the provided information, pressured the source, and displayed disappointment with the source's contribution. Scharff-trained officers were perceived as less eager to gather information and left their sources with the impression of having provided comparatively less new information, but collected a similar amount of new information as their untrained colleagues. The present paper both replicates and advances previous work in the field, and marks the Scharff technique as a promising technique for gathering human intelligence.

show abstract

“…These models include physical behaviors that are indicators of adversarial intent (e.g. foreign travel, signs of wealth) [19], as well as variables related to motivation, personality, and emotion [20], [21], [22], [23]. While all these models are valuable, none incorporate all of the possible situational triggers, context variables and indicators.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proactive Insider Threat Detection through Graph Learning and Psychological Context

Brdiczka

Liu

Price

et al. 2012

2012 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-The annual incidence of insider attacks continues to grow, and there are indications this trend will continue. While there are a number of existing tools that can accurately identify known attacks, these are reactive (as opposed to proactive) in their enforcement, and may be eluded by previously unseen, adversarial behaviors. This paper proposes an approach that combines Structural Anomaly Detection (SA) from social and information networks and Psychological Profiling (PP) of individuals. SA uses technologies including graph analysis, dynamic tracking, and machine learning to detect structural anomalies in large-scale information network data, while PP constructs dynamic psychological profiles from behavioral patterns. Threats are finally identified through a fusion and ranking of outcomes from SA and PP.The proposed approach is illustrated by applying it to a large data set from a massively multi-player online game, World of Warcraft (WoW). The data set contains behavior traces from over 350,000 characters observed over a period of 6 months. SA is used to predict if and when characters quit their guild (a player association with similarities to a club or workgroup in nongaming contexts), possibly causing damage to these social groups. PP serves to estimate the five-factor personality model for all characters. Both threads show good results on the gaming data set and thus validate the proposed approach.

show abstract

Changes in Espionage by Americans: 1947-2007

Cited by 28 publications

References 9 publications

Eliciting information from human sources: Training handlers in the Scharff technique

Eliciting information from human sources: Training handlers in the Scharff technique

The Scharff technique: training military intelligence officers to elicit information from small cells of sources

Proactive Insider Threat Detection through Graph Learning and Psychological Context

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About