The OSINT Newsletter - Issue #39
Extracting profile information, downloading user content, and parsing followers and followings at scale from BlueSky
👋 Welcome to the 39th issue of The OSINT Newsletter. This issue contains OSINT news, community posts, tactics, techniques, and tools to help you become a better investigator.
I’ve been doing a lot of discovery with advanced username searching lately. BlueSky hasn’t had a lot of attention from the OSINT community. I wanted to shed some light on the platform and link it back to the reason for its existence, Twitter (X).
🚨 I’ve ordered the first print version of The OSINT Newsletter to test production. The formatting looks very good already in the print preview but I wanted to confirm before buying hundreds of them.
🪃 If you missed the last newsletter, here’s a link to catch up.
Let’s get started. ⬇️
OSINT News
📰 Investigators cracked a $130 million money-laundering scheme by tracing the ringleader's air miles
Although air miles aren’t OSINT, this is a good case study on thinking outside of the box to solve a case. Sometimes the angle you need to move your case forward is not where you expect it.
🎩 H/T: Pete Syme
📰 The One Real Reason (+ Four More) Why This Private Investigator Won’t Do Bank Searches
On the note of thinking outside the box for investigations, here’s a case study on what you might not want to do. Brian talks about areas he won’t go to for ethical and legal reasons. He also discusses sources that appear to be available but shouldn’t be trusted.
🎩 H/T: Brian Willingham
📰 The Challenges of Conducting Open Source Research on China
Alison discusses the problems she’s faced when investigating sources of Chinese origin ranging from general access to the Chinese web and social media applications, and the difficulties of remaining anonymous while still being transparent.
🎩 H/T: Alison Killing
OSINT Community
📺 Visual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped 2,000-Pound Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza’s Civilians to Move for Safety
A visual investigation showing the location a 2,000-pound bomb was dropped in Gaza and discusses the nature of the evacuation orders given by Israel.
🎩 H/T: Robin Stein, Haley Willis, Ishaan Jhaveri, Danielle Miller, Aaron Byrd and Natalie Reneau
🐦 ChatGPT-generated product listings poison Amazon
Many reports show how GPT is being used to create thousands of product listings on Amazon. I first heard about this through Ian Coldwater’s tweet. Sparks of “The Dead Internet Theory” have returned as a result, with theorists suggesting more of the internet is bots and AI than real people.
🎩 H/T: Ian Coldwater
🐦 Reddit account using a realistic-looking fake image gets roasted online
Someone posted on Reddit a request to be roasted. This request is an ask to be made fun of publicly. In this case, though, the request was made for a very realistic-looking AI image.
🎩 H/T: Benjamin Strick
🐦 Converting JSON to CSV
Justin writes an informative thread on how to simply convert a JSON to a CSV, a common workflow for open source intelligence professionals.
🎩 H/T: Justin Seitz
OSINT Tools
🌟 Sponsor: Kineviz
Kineviz has just launched SightXR, a revolutionary tool that allows people to analyze documents by visualizing them as webs of facts, ideas, and associations. In a recent blog post, they demonstrated how SightXR can quickly extract insights from approximately 1,000 pages of Epstein court transcripts in less than an hour.
This tool combines generative AI with the visualization-first approach of their GraphXR platform to create knowledge maps from documents at scale. It's not just about finding specific terms but also understanding who said what about them. SightXR is designed for secure environments and can be deployed on-premises or in private cloud IT ecosystems, even in air-gapped setups. To learn more, join their event on January 23rd or contact Kineviz for a demo.
🔎 OSINT Buddy
OSINT Buddy is like an open source Maltego with a better UI. It’s a very ambitious project with a lot of promise. Test it out and give your feedback to help move this project along.
🎩 H/T: jerlendds
🖥️ XResolver
XResolver has a series of OSINT tools including resolvers for Playstation Network, Xbox Live, and more. This tool is like one of those GitHub OSINT multi-tools but it’s a web app.
🎩 H/T: Mr. Anonymous
🖥️ Toolscord
Toolscord is a web app that lets you search a Discord ID and return profile information, including the creation date. You’ll need the Discord ID though which can be obtained by enabling Developer Mode in Discord.
✅ 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:
⚡ Extracting profile information, downloading user content, and parsing followers and followings at scale from BlueSky
Extract the advanced profile information about a BlueSky user
Download all user content, controlling the number of posts that come in each request with the &limit= parameter
Download all user followers and followings, leveraging that same &limit= parameter
Pivoting from user content, followers, and followings to advanced network analysis by crawling all available ‘did’ (user IDs)
👀 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.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The OSINT Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.