Geopolitics Magazine March - April 2015 ( 8th Edition ) | Page 101

Geopolitics & Daily News Magazine Rated information although are rare to find, you always have the possibility to run into them. This should bring two things in mind. First is that if this piece of information is indeed sensitive, then possessing it carries a risk. Authorities or those who might want to get such an information might use means and methods which could endanger the one that handles it. If you run into such data, my advice as intel expert, is to consult with lawyer and then with authorities of state. 3. Source of Information. Most of the times, we have witnessed viral spreading news and data over media of press and digital world which claim various things. From rumours on how a persona cheats her/his partner to how world will be crushed by an incoming comet. Most of them are exaggerations or media tricks build in such way to attract attention in order to gain popularity. In this pool of worthless data, it is usually where people often get lost and are not able to find real news. The only way to get over this is to use two things. One is crosschecking and the second one is examining the source. This is something that we usually witness on the web, where someone claims he knows "stuff" and over a blog he starts building rumours and theories which he claims to be genuine. The easiest method to find out if he is telling truth or not is to cross-examine his saying with other trustworthy sources (State, Official Media, etc. ) and while doing this , examine the author himself and his older "data & info" like previous articles and of course his bio. Usually there you can always find some details which might show that he is a simple blogger who needs some self-attention... or he is the real thing (there are some people with interesting pages and blogs out there). In general there is one rule “do not believe what you read until you verify it". This is a golden rule which will give you a head start and avoid confusing theories and news manipulation, since this is a rule also about TV, Radio and newspapers. Do not forget that news are creations of people and as such some of them are true, others half-true and some just nice items for your trashcan. 4. Age of information. Most of the information people get bombarded with are usually of hours or one day most old. That is happening because most of media and web portals try to keep updated with recent events and to give exclusive information in order to gain audience. However some are using old news to facribate new ones or are just never updated and republish news of maybe 2-3 years old, by a simple mistake. Information is valuable as long as its age is considered up to date with the relevant subject. For example, the details of what happened 30 years ago to a village may be interesting from a historians perceptive but it is not of the same high value for a simple person who just read it on the web or heard it over the news. It is not worthless but it could be valuable to the one who is looking for this. This small piece about information is neither an intelligence analysis manual nor a tutorial on how to filter out data which needs a complete course of study to even begin with. But it is a small intro on how to avoid overfilling everyday life with intelligence and information that is usually not needed by most people and confuses them more than keeping them updated in a right way. Ο Αλέξανδρος Νίκλαν είναι σύμβουλος θεμάτων ασφαλείας με πολυετή εμπειρία στον χώρο της ασφάλειας και ανάλυσης πληροφορίας. Έχει εξειδίκευση και πιστοποιήσεις στον χώρο ασφαλείας . Έχει εκπαίδευση στο θέμα της τρομοκρατίας μέσω προγραμμάτων του Maryland (START) University, USA και του Leiden University, Holland και του Πανεπιστημίου του Tokyo σε θέματα ανάλυσης συγκρούσεων και διεθνούς ασφαλείας. Έχει επίσης παρακολουθήσει ειδικά προγράμματα επιμόρφωσης και εκπαίδευσης για θέματα ιστορίας της Μέσης Ανατολής, μέσω του Πανεπιστημίου του Tel Aviv. Γνωρίζει Αγγλικά και εργάζεται στον ιδιωτικό τομέα επιχειρήσεων ως ιδιοκτήτης του IISCA security group. Έχει πλήθος δημοσιεύσεων σε θέματα εσωτερικής και διεθνούς ασφαλείας. Geopolitics.com.gr all rights reserved 2015 Page 99