The OSINT Newsletter - Issue #29
Learn how to search for Spaces/audio on Twitter/X by keyword and extract information about those audio sessions.
👋 Welcome to the 29th 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.
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OSINT News
📰 Why open-source intelligence can help and hinder understanding of what's happening in Gaza, Israel
CBC discusses the difficulties of an OSINT investigator to verify information found online about the Israel-Hamas War and the importance of verification. They then go through a case study of a hospital blast.
📰 Inside ICE’s Database for Finding ‘Derogatory’ Online Speech
404 Media investigates how ICE uses GOST, a surveillance-like tool by Giant Oak Search Technology. GOST analyzes the sentiment of online text to help investigators characterize the behavior of certain individuals.
📰 How OSINT gatherers come to conclusions
In another case study, Cosmos features Nathan Ruser, an OSINT analyst for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre, and discusses open source investigations in Ukraine and Gaza.
📰 Geolocating Hamas-Led Attacks on Israeli Civilians
Bellingcat analyzes videos found showing a Hamas militant shooting at someone in their home. Explore the various techniques Bellingcat employs to geolocate and chronolocate the footage.
OSINT Community
📺 OSINT at Home #20: Four Best Image Reverse Search Tools
Ben Strick is on his 20th video already! In this video, he explores the various reverse image search tools and which tools are best for satellite images and a GAN image of a person from social media.
📺 Social Links Interviews: Jörn Weber Talks OSINT
Social Links interviews Jörn Weber where they talk about the essentials of open source intelligence investigations and the investigative mindset.
📖 Sedition Hunters
Ryan Reilly writes about the massive open source investigation effort behind identifying the individuals involved in the January 6th Capitol Riots in the United States.
🐦 OSINT Tip: Find anybody’s baby wishlist registry in the world using Amazon
Saad writes about how you can use baby registries to collect publicly available information about any individual who has a publicly registered list. This is a classic grey area OSINT topic. Keep it in mind for OPSEC and general data privacy.
🐦 Use IP search engines to search for names
Cyber Detective writes about how you can use IP search engines to search for names or companies within FTP servers.
🐦 Corporate OSINT for Social Engineering: Physical Security
Christina writes about how you can use open source intelligence for physical security penetration tests in this detailed, in-depth guide.
OSINT Tools
🖥️ lolarchiver
League of Legends is one of the most popular games in history. With approximately 180 million monthly active users, it’s a watering hole for gamers. Using lolarchiver, you can search the historical usernames of a particular account. This can be an incredible way to pivot on a username, find related usernames, and expand your investigation.
💰 Requires Patreon subscription
🔎 Wayback Google Analytics
A unique Google Analytics ID is a great way to connect disparate websites to the same admin. Bellingcat created a tool that allows you to search for Google Analytics IDs using the Wayback Machine. So, even if a website changed its Google Analytics ID or no longer uses it, you can check the archives for new possible pivots.
🔎 Copy YouTube URL w/ Timestamp & Details
If you’ve never used Tamper Monkey, definitely give it a try. Think of it as a browser extension operating system where you can customize your browser experience granularly through several add-ons. One of those add-ons allows you to copy a YouTube video and have it automatically apply the exact timestamp you copied it from plus other details.
🔎 Blaster
If you’re doing phone number-based investigations, check out Blaster. Blaster aggregates phone number lookups from ThatsThem, WhatsApp, and Numverify. Even if you’re not going to use this script often, check out the WhatsApp method for your own learning.
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🥷 Learn how to search for Spaces/audio on Twitter/X by keyword and extract information about those audio sessions.
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