Adventures in Arabian OSGEOINT

In 2016, I found a couple of items of interest using open source GIS resources.

In July, while researching an article about the Dhofar Rebellion, I was reminded by a South African source about a 1972 cross-border raid into South Yemen. The incident is listed as having taken place in "Sinau". I had some difficulty finding any reference to Sinau, save for a 1985 article in The Spectator. I was beginning to believe that the incident might have been apocryphal, but ended up finding this site, which matches the description of the raid site and is spelled "سناو" (which apparently shares its name with a site in Oman - ironic!). This was definitely one of those times when knowing how to read Arabic text was of critical importance.

In August, I was reminiscing about my first full day in Oman back in 2012. After taking me to a couple of sites of interest, I asked my taxi driver to take me to see something interesting. He took me to this little village that's fed by one of Oman's famous aflaj, ancient canals. He told me about the hot water, and told me to try to keep my feet in it as long as I could while he went up to the village mosque to pray. I don't think I even made it a full minute, the water was so hot. I knew approximately where it was, but I'd lost track of it, so I went back and tried to find it. I ended up being successful - it's right here, the village of al Hamaam/الحمام. That made me wish that I'd had the forethought to take a few photos while I was there. As it turns out, someone uploaded their own travel photo to Panoramio. Very cool.

My goal of spending 2016 developing my GIS skills ended up being mostly a bust. I have a plan for late 2017 that may end up giving me a chance to play catch-up. Regardless, I'll probably spend plenty of time exploring satellite images in 2017, so stay tuned for more cool discoveries.

Orcadian OSGEOINT Exercises

In late 2011 and early 2012, I found myself stuck in a back office in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, bored out of my skull due to a dearth of assignments, but nonetheless required to put in long days at a desk. I ended up spending some of that time acquainting myself with websites pertaining to Orkney. Based on some of those discoveries, I decided to try to combine satellite imagery with available ground photography to identify the location of the Howar Farm on North Ronaldsay. I used one descriptive line...

"Walk along North Ronaldsay's prettiest beach, Nouster Bay, to Howar farm[.] From the Pier or the Bird Observatory it's 30 minutes brisk walk along the sandy bay. Longer if you dawdle to enjoy it."

... and two photos (the headers to this page and this page) as my guides. Below is a montage combining those two images with two aerial images.

The inset, zoomed out image shows the vantage points of the two ground images using white and grey chevrons, the grey chevron being replicated on the lower image. Aside from that, the colored arrows correlate the various elements of each photo for comparison. Here are a few things to note:

Note the two skylights in the barn denoted by the green arrows, and the difference in height between the differently colored roofs of that building.

Note the skylight/vent in both images denoted by the grey arrow.

Note the point at which the out building denoted by the beige arrows narrows.

Note the greenhouse, which appears transparent from above, denoted by the purple arrows.

I went through a similar process to identify The Ruah at the Green Farm on Eday, but they've since updated their website, so I can't take you through that process as well. All that said, it's been really great practice in open source imagery analysis.

Woo! Maps!

Hell yes!

Operation Irene

Seriously, I have an operational name for everything.

I own two laptops. Both of them are Dell Inspiron 1440s, purchased in close succession to one another in 2009 due to a mishap involving a bottle of Widmer Hefeweizen. I've spent most of the last three years using one of them while the other one sat idle. One of my goals during these interim weeks is to organize and backup my data. Since it's a lesser project, I'm starting with the laptop that I haven't used much in the last three years. Without any good reason, I'm calling it "Irene", and reconditioning it is "Operation Irene" (no relation to the Battle of Mogadishu - I swear!).

First and foremost, the thing requires some maintenance. I've already updated the virus definitions. The next step is to backup all of my files to a flash drive for future sorting, and then clear them off of the laptop. Next, I'll clear any and all extraneous programs off of the machine. Then, I'll run Scandisk and Defrag. Once all of that is complete, I'll start installing some new software.

My goal for "Irene" is to turn it into a dedicated open source GEOINT platform. That will involve the installation of a number of different programs:

Garmin MapSource and Basecamp

EasyGPS

Google Earth

FalconView

I've previously used my Garmin eTrex Vista H for such projects as honesty traces and geocaching, and both the Garmin programs and EasyGPS interface with that handset. I came up with my own methodology for making honesty traces, but the original instruction uses FalconView. A number of the position descriptions I've seen have also called for FalconView experience, so I'd like to get some exposure to it - if I can get it to work on my laptop. (Most of those position descriptions also call for ArcGIS experience, but it's licensed software, so I'll stick to the stuff that's free for the time being.) At any rate, I don't expect FalconView to be that tough to learn, particularly if I go through the trouble of practicing on a couple of honesty traces using the originally prescribed methodology to familiarize myself with the interface.

Of course, Operation Irene is just the first step. Once "Irene" is stripped down and squared away, I need to get all of my files organized and backed up, both for the sake of redundancy, and in preparation to decommission and scrap these two machines once it comes time to replace them.

* * *

Alright, so before I could publish that initial post about Operation Irene, I completed the setup. Here's a screenshot that shows the current desktop configuration and the Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M). Here's what I did:

I entered my current product key and updated my virus definitions for F-Secure Internet Security, then ran a scan to ensure that the system was clear of any malware.

I downloaded and installed a year and a half or more of system updates. That took awhile.

I moved all of my personal files to an external hard drive, and then purged them. This took a long time, particularly while trying to back files up to a flash drive. That external hard drive went a lot faster.

I deleted a couple of extraneous programs.

I ran Defrag.

I updated Flash Player and Adobe Reader, and installed Google Chrome.

At that point, it was time for the actual GIS software. I installed Mapsource and Basecamp from Garmin, and EasyGPS, and Google Earth. As I noted previously, I want to familiarize myself with the open source version of FalconView, but had to install Microsoft .NET Framework 4 in order for it to operate.

So, after a couple of days of work (or, more accurately, about an hour of work and a couple of days of off-and-on waiting), my OSGEOINT platform is ready to rock. As I sort all of my files - a giant knowledge management effort involving at least a decade and a half worth of accumulated data - I'll start doing some similar work with my primary platform. I've thought before that it if I started a security company, it would be smart to have several different machines and/or images for specific tasks, and Operation Irene has been the first step toward that goal. As I continue to use it to familiarize myself with current OSGEOINT/OSGIS utilities, I'll post as appropriate.

Two-Year-Old Fun with OSGEOINT

Note: I originally wrote this on 04 January 2012. I'm pretty sure it was originally an E-mail to my now-ex-girlfriend. I've edited it a bit to account for the fact that it's nearly two years old.

I'm actually writing this before the first post for the new blog has been published... And, actually, before I've nailed down web space for it, or named it, or anything of that sort. That said, I've spent the day working on a couple of things that are sort of good icebreaker topics, which is to say, things that tie into some of the interests that would help a person get to know me. So, I decided to write something up.

1) I harbor an unhealthy obsession with Orkney. Orkney is an archipelago that's about ten miles off the north coast of Scotland. I met and subsequently visited some Orkney residents when I was in college, and I fell in love with the place.

2) I've also been working on a couple of novels, set overseas, since late 2007. I've found myself endowed with an inordinate amount of free time at work lately, so I've decided to read through and make some adjustments. Significant events that have taken place since I started writing in 2007, which will require major or minor revisions to what I've written already, include:

the The 2008 South Ossetia War between Russia and the Republic of Georgia;

the The Arab Spring;

the death of Osama bin Laden;

the Libyan Civil War and the death of Moammar Qaddhafi; and

the end of the Iraq War.

So, I need to spend a some of my down time going through both novels and making some edits.

3) I love satellite imagery. There aren't really very many quizzes like DIGO's imagery analysis quizzes[*], but I can spend hours at a time on Wikimapia doing the same sort of thing that's outlined in that quiz.

Okay, that brings us to today.[**] I've had a few passages for my novels that I've been wanting to write for a while, and I started working on one today. It's set in Orkney, and I was trying to figure out where one of my characters could be staying. A few days ago, I'd looked at some websites about places to stay in Orkney, and I went to work trying to find it again. Eventually, I found it - I'd seen the website about The Ruah, a guest house on Eday, located here. My search led me to discover another guest accommodation on North Ronaldsay[***], the Howar Farm. Having found The Ruah without much trouble, I decided to go looking for the Howar Farm, using clues from the pictures on their website to find it on the satellite map. After at least half an hour of poring over the satellite maps of the entire island (fortunately, it's a small island), I finally found another website (the North Ronaldsay page on the official Orkney tourism website) that helped me to confirm the location.

Awesome.

* That link is totally broken. For like, two years now. It's really a bummer, it was a good quiz.

** Again, not actually today. Nearly two years ago.

*** The most interesting thing about North Ronaldsay is that it's the home of the North Ronaldsay sheep, which is uniquely able to subsist on seaweed. North Ronaldsay may also be the setting of part of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In Chapter 19, Shelley writes:

"Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion. With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from the mainland, which was about five miles distant."

Also awesome.