In the first article in a new Armada series, we test and evaluate the forthcoming Theosight open-source intelligence tool produced by the Czech company Eos Applications.
Companies and organisations often tell your correspondent how easy their hardware or software is to use, even for absolute beginners. Regrettably, Armada is not always given the chance to corroborate such claims and must take them at face value. Engineers can be reticent to place their wares in the hands of the novice they often claim to design for. This is perhaps understandable. Fears may abound that the untrained hand may irreparably damage their precious creation.
Nonetheless, we have decided to launch a new series of articles as part of our ‘Absolute Beginners’ column. These missives will evaluate technology we get the chance to actually use to see how official claims stack up against the hapless behaviour of the uninitiated. Armada is delighted to put Eos Application’s Theosight Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) software through its paces in our maiden article. We would encourage any companies or organisations who have capabilities they would like us to evaluate to contact us at [email protected].
The capability
Eos Applications is a subsidiary of ERA Group which specialises in passive sensing. In 2027 the company will launch Theosight. This OSINT software arose from the desire of an ERA Group electronic warfare operational support expert to match detailed information on a Radio Frequency (RF) emitter with the signals intelligence collected by a system like ERA Group’s VERA-NG passive radar. An RF emitter could be a soldier with a radio, a platform, sensor or weapons system, or even a military facility.
Theosight uses artificial intelligence approaches to collect, collate and curate all publicly available online information regarding a specific military asset. Sources can include everything from academic peer-reviewed articles to social media posts, and present this to the user. The user can configure their search criteria to deliver as much, or as little, information as they need via a search process that can take seconds. In essence, all publicly available information on subjects as vast as the current complete, up-to-date, order-of-battle of the Indian Army, to OSINT concerning an obscure handheld tactical radio can be delivered in seconds as opposed to hours, or even days, of painstaking research.
Getting started
Eos Applications kindly granted Armada access to Theosight to evaluate the software which can be accessed via a cloud and subscriptions for users are made available to this end. Alternatively, Theosight can be embedded on individual tablets, laptops and personal computers and kept current via regular updates.
Having entered Theosight it was time to get to work. Frequent visitors to the Armada website will be familiar with our new Beating the System series. These articles analyse electronic warfare and communications systems used by NATO and allied near-peer rivals and adversaries. What better way to evaluate Theosight’s acumen than by tasking it to assist the research of one such article?
To search for information on a particular subject users must first visit Theosight’s Projects page and create a new project or, in this case, their first. The author’s first project was entitled ‘PRR 1M’ a reference to a relatively unknown tactical radio that was to have been the subject of the Beating the System article in the October edition of Armada’s Military Communications Newsletter. All the user needs to do is enter their search query, in this case ‘PRR 1M’ on their projects page, hit the ‘Start Analysis’ key and wait for the results to come in. The software retrieves as much information as it can concerning the search term following a plan-research-synthesis-persist cycle. At the planning stage, it tells the user what techniques and terms it will use to perform the search query. The research stage presents the user with all the subsequent online references Theosight finds based on the strategy suggested at the planning stage. The software then synthesises and summarises its research based on the resulting online references. The user has the option to continue researching specific aspects of the findings using the ‘persist’ function.
The resulting analysis which took just moments returned a comprehensive list of web sources which confirmed that, for all intents and purposes, no information exists on the online domain concerning the mysterious PRR 1M radio. The software returns a list of findings relating to the original search query. For example, Theosight tells the user it was commanded to “research the PRR 1M military communication system” but says surmises that “(t)he name ‘PRR 1M’ strongly suggests it is related to the Personal Role Radio (PRR) family, specifically the H4855 PRR used by British forces”. The software informs the user it has done “extensive searching and ‘PRR 1M’ as a specific designation does not appear in any search results”. The analysis page concludes with a very useful ‘Bottom Line’ section summarising the initial search findings, in this case that the “’PRR 1M’ is not a recognised designation for any variant of (PRR) or any other military communication system”.
For all intents and purposes, the trail of the elusive PRR 1M appeared to have gone cold. This is a system that has been detailed in the listing section of Armada’s famous annual Tactical Communications Supplement for years. Nonetheless, according to a powerful, detailed OSINT search tool, the system quite simply does not seem to exist. As a bid to confirm whether the PRR 1M is indeed a ‘phantom radio’ your correspondent decided to expand the search criteria. This time the company name associated with the transceiver, AT Electronic and Communication International, was included in the search term alongside the transceiver’s nomenclature.
Once again, the software spent a few moments working its magic. As before, prior to the software doing a deep dive regarding the information on the system in question, it summarises the course of action it has taken in its research, in this case “(b)uild a comprehensive dossier on the AT Electronic and Communication International PRR 1M personal role radio … its technical specifications (frequency band, range, power, waveform, battery life), role and intended users, manufacturer details, variants (including relation to the AT PRR 1), and any known military adoption or deployment”. Alas, no reference can be found to the company or the product. The Bottom Line notes that “(n)o open-source information was found for ‘AT Electronic and Communication International PRR 1M’. The research could not establish whether this is a company, a product model, a project designation, or a non-existent or misspelled reference”.
Curiously, the Beating the System article published in September examining the PR9560 very high frequency tactical radio determined that this system is produced by Hytera Communications in the People’s Republic of China. Armada’s Tactical Communications Supplement had previously attributed this product to AT Electronic and Communication International. An exhaustive morning of web research had determined that the company was simply a reseller of the PR9560 and not involved in its manufacture. Therefore, the last-ditch attempt to prove the PRR 1M’s existence was to perform a new search, this time using ‘Hytera Communications PRR 1M’ as the search criteria. As with the previous searches Theosight’s conclusion was the same, “Hytera Communications does not manufacture a product called ‘PRR 1M’ … no such product exists in Hytera’s current or historical product lineup”. It thus looks prudent to remove the PRR 1M from Armada’s list of tactical radios accompanying the supplement.
It is no exaggeration to say that the research concerning the PRR 1M, all of which was executed in under five minutes, would have taken your correspondent hours of web research to determine. Even then, there would always be a nagging doubt that a nugget of information had been missed somewhere which confirmed the PRR 1M’s existence. Theosight was superb in delivering not only reliable and easy to interpret search results, but also peace of mind that every avenue of online inquiry had been exhausted. Usefully, the software can also format its resulting product to accord with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Standardisation Agreement 6522 (STANAG 6522) criteria. NATO’s STANAG 6522 covers, among other things, formatting stipulations for OSINT outputs. Another welcome feature is the software’s imagery intelligence reverse search tool. Users can upload an image, such as a satellite picture of a military base or an unknown item of materiel, and Theosight gets to work providing as much information as it can regarding the picture.
To be fair, this test represented only a cursory exploration of Theosight. The software will in fact be employed to research another Beating the System article. This piece will examine Russia’s 14TS227 Tobol Global Navigation Satellite System Position, Navigation and Timing electronic attack system; apparatus perhaps as mysterious as the elusive PRR 1M. You can find out more about the Theosight software by visiting this website.
by Dr. Thomas Withington
