?I imagine a lot more will come out, and much will be nothing and perhaps some of it will be meaningful, and perhaps even devastating,? says Skinner, who now works for the Soufan Group, an intelligence consultancy. But he warns that raw intelligence?information which hasn?t been corroborated or confirmed?like this shouldn?t be released to the public, and is impossible to assess on its own. ?One of the reasons why the intelligence community doesn?t release raw or even finished intelligence,
to say nothing of a privately funded, untrained?source like in this case, is that people would freak out with the day-to-day drip that might not be anything once it?s placed in context and vetted with multiple sources.?
With its sources redacted and none of the ?confidence markings? intelligence agencies use to distinguish which claims are most credible, the document is tough to parse, Tait says.
?The key to usable HUMINT is distinguishing the real, highly placed sources from the bullshitting wannabes who pretend they?re highly placed sources by making shit up that fits the public facts,? says Tait. ?In this case, the doc gives no indication that the company has done work to rigorously separate the two?and consequently it?s really hard to tell whether any of the info is actually true, or just a very exciting and expensively produced fan-fiction novel.?
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/spy-ag...eport-caution/