The OSINT Newsletter - Issue #37
Creating a face recognition reverse search engine based on a local dataset
👋 Welcome to the 37th issue of The OSINT Newsletter. This issue contains OSINT news, community posts, tactics, techniques, and tools to help you become a better investigator. There’s a little in here for everyone: social media, artificial intelligence, investigative journalism, regular expressions, and more.
🚨 The print version of The OSINT Newsletter is being finalized this week. Once everything passes the final tests I’ll order the first draft copy of the print to validate that the printing process goes well. Then, I’ll call for orders one last time before ordering the first patch. Expect another update in next week’s newsletter.
🪃 If you missed the last newsletter, here’s a link to catch up. This is the second part of a two-part series so make sure to go back and read last week’s issue.
Let’s get started. ⬇️
OSINT News
📰 North Korean hackers used polished LinkedIn profiles to target security researchers
North Korea-affiliated threat actors are using WhatsApp and LinkedIn profiles to phish people. They’re using sophisticated sock puppets to pull off the job.
🎩 H/T: AJ Vicens
📰 Facebook Group Members Scraper: Obtain group member info via TypeScript
Using this new tool, you can leverage TypeScript to download all members of a group on Facebook. In this read, a bookmarklet is provided to inject Javascript into your web page with a “Download members” button appearing on every group page.
🎩 H/T: CyberRaya
📰 How to Use Regular Expressions in CTRL F
When dealing with open source intelligence, we’re often looking for specific criteria in our search, not just keywords. Using regular expressions, we can isolate specific patterns to find more obscure information that can’t be defined by a single keyword. In this article, Kolade shows you how to add regex to your CTRL F workflow with a few examples of patterns you can use to get started.
🎩 H/T: Kolade Chris
OSINT Community
📺 What's inside this crater in Madagascar?
In this short documentary by Vox, explore the visual investigation of a mysterious village formed in a crater in Madagascar. Using open-source investigation techniques, Christophe helps uncover the mystery.
🎩 H/T: Christophe Haubursin
🐦 A Sea of Red: The New Reality of Maritime Shipping in an Era of Conflict
Rae discusses the Red Sea, its significance to international trade, and the sources of information you can monitor and analyze to gain insights into maritime operations in that region.
🎩 H/T: Rae Baker
🐦 Hudson Rock releases a free Telegram bot
This Telegram bot has an email search and domain search option. This is information specifically related to information stealers. Using this tool you can discover if an email address or domain is associated with an information stealer.
🎩 H/T: Alon Gal
🐦 Matt Edmondson creates a favicon hashing tool for Shodan, Censys, and ZoomEye
Favicons can be hashed and searched for on engines like Shodan, Censys, and ZoomEye. If found in these engines, you can bypass security measures like CloudFlare and potentially gather more information about a domain. Matt Edmondson wrote a tool, created a video demo, and wrote a blog post about it. Check it out!
🎩 H/T: Matt Edmondson
OSINT Tools
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🖥️ n8n
I’ve had this idea for a while to create a no-code automation platform for OSINT workflows. This would allow you to customize your workflow for specific use cases instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach. Fortunately, n8n already made this. Check it out.
🎩 H/T: John Hammond
🖥️ GeoSpy
I’m pretty sure this tool is just a series of ChatGPT 4 prompts used to geolocate an image; however, since GPT 4 requires payment to access, you can use this tool instead to help assist with geolocation. The results are surprisingly accurate.
🎩 H/T: Henk Van Ess, GrayLark
🖥️ Dark Visitors
As AI becomes more mainstream, there are going to be tons of AI bots crawling the internet. These bots can typically be identified with their user agents. Dark Visitors is a directory of AI bots and the associated information it has on each bot.
🎩 H/T: Gavin King
✅ That’s it for the free version of The OSINT Newsletter. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support this publication and independent research.
By upgrading to paid, you’ll get access to the following:
⚡ Creating a face recognition reverse search engine based on a local dataset
You’ll learn how to write an easy-to-use Python script that will query your SQL database searching for facial recognition matches
🗒️ This is for educational purposes only. These methods do not comply with GDPR and other data privacy regulations.
🚨 This is the second part of a 2 part series. If you haven’t read issue #36, go back and read that one first.
👀 You get access to all paid posts in the archive. Go back and see what you’ve missed!
🚀 If you don’t have a paid subscription already, don’t worry there’s a 7-day free trial. If you like what you’re reading, upgrade your subscription. If you can’t, I totally understand. Stay tuned for the geolocation challenge in next week’s issue to get a shot at free access.
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