The OSINT Newsletter - Issue #110
Using Generative AI for Sock Puppet Creation and Identification
👋 Welcome to the 110th issue of The OSINT Newsletter. This issue contains OSINT news, community posts, tactics, techniques, and tools to help you become a better investigator. My goal with this newsletter is to help promote the OSINT industry, develop better investigators, and raise awareness of ethical use cases for open source intelligence.
🚨 It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find OSINT News that isn’t completely AI generated. I’m okay with AI generated summaries or blurbs but entire articles written by AI are trash. I’m unsure if the OSINT News section will persist; it may be reduced to 2 topics instead of 3. Thank you to the writers who remain authentic and produce original content.
🪃 If you missed the last newsletter, here’s a link to catch up.
⚡ Why Boring is Better: OSINT on Public Records & Government Databases
Let’s get started. ⬇️
OSINT News
📰 OSINT Field Notes #9: Nothing Was Really Hidden
The newsletter shows how OSINT researchers use public data and metadata to uncover hidden information tied to conflict, propaganda, and surveillance.
🎩 H/T: Benjamin Strick
📰 Heading Off: New Technique Helps Track Grain Smuggling Expansion to Libya
The investigation uses OSINT, satellite imagery, and AIS data to track a suspected Russian ship moving stolen Ukrainian grain from Crimea to Libya, revealing sanctions evasion despite GPS spoofing.
🎩 H/T: Bellingcat Investigation Team
OSINT Tools
🔎 Threat Actor Username Search
This tool allows you to check if a username is associated with a threat actor. It’s not a username search, like you’re used to with Sherlock, it’s a true/false result. They also have an API. I love this idea.
🎩 H/T: CTI Updates
🔎 Venmo OSINT Tool
Venmo OSINT is a tool for searching public Venmo profiles and transactions, with lookup, search, and export features.
🎩 H/T: Dennis Keefe
🔎 User Scanner
A 2-in-1 OSINT tool for email and username intelligence that scans 240+ platforms to map digital footprints, check account registrations, extract profile data, and export results, with bulk scanning, proxy rotation, and breach intelligence integration.
🎩 H/T: kaifcodec
✅ That’s it for the free version of The OSINT Newsletter. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support this publication and independent research.
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⚡ Using Generative AI for Sock Puppet Creation and Identification
Generative AI has come a long way when it comes to making photo-realistic content. In this issue, I’ll show you some methods you can use to create sock puppet accounts that appear more legitimate, giving you more options in your investigations; alternatively, it’ll give you the tools to identify sock puppet accounts created using similar methods.
👀 All paid posts in the archive. Go back and see what you’ve missed!
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