The OSINT Newsletter - Issue #61
The latest and greatest in OSINT news, tools, tactics, and techniques
👋 Welcome to the 61st issue of The OSINT Newsletter. This issue is the first of the year. As a reminder, these will be published biweekly in 2025. I hope this year I can help you level up your OSINT capabilities. I’m looking forward to the interesting projects we’ll see this year. Thanks again for subscribing.
🚨 This issue will contain audio content. In preparation for the relaunch of the podcast, I’ll be experimenting with Substack’s audio feature, providing an analyst’s note on each topic in the issue. I hope this makes the content more engaging and puts things in context more easily.
🪃 If you missed the last newsletter, here’s a link to catch up.
⚡ Building a Face Recognition Tool that Works in Your Browser
Update: I was having trouble hosting the tool I built in this issue on Streamlit Community Cloud. I think it may be a heavy dependency issue. I’ve published the tool online if anyone is interested in using it. If you know basic command line tool skills, you should be able to get the tool running locally in your browser quickly.
Let’s get started. ⬇️
OSINT News
📰 Rainbolt uses Bellingcat’s Shadow Finder Tool
I love seeing niche OSINT tools go mainstream. I’m not sure if Rainbolt is mainstream but his view counts cannot be denied. In this video, Rainbolt uses Bellingcat’s Shadow Finder Tool to narrow down a screenshot from CCTV, providing an over the shoulder experience with the Junypter Notebook.
🎩 H/T: Rainbolt
📰 10 Very Simple Tips for OSINT Developers
When I started publishing OSINT content back in 2017, there were an abundance of open source tools and new methods shared regularly. These days, that well has dried up and things have consolidated. Give this guide a read and consider contributing to the OSINT community by making new tools.
🎩 H/T: Cyber Detective
📰 Janes Publishes a Podcast on Language and Linguistics in OSINT
Harry Kemsley and Claire Astrid Fuchs discuss the nuances of language when conducting OSINT investigations. They discuss the impact of AI in translation and transcription, highlighting the shortcomings of off the shelf tools.
🎩 H/T: Harry Kemsley, Claire Astrid Fuchs
OSINT Tools
🌟 Sponsor: Hudson Rock
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Search domains, usernames, and emails across 30,000,000 computers that were infected by Infostealers - Hudson Rock's free tools
🔎 Memory.lol
This tool sent me down a rabbit hole to better understand what’s possible in historical username search. I may cover it in a future issue. Memory.lol is a tool that uses a combination of several resources to identify historical usernames for a Twitter profile. This can help you expand your investigation to historical username searches across several profiles.
🎩 H/T: Travis Brown
🔎 Onion Engine
There aren’t many functional Onion search engines. When I find one that actually returns functional search results, I make sure to share it here. Give this one a try and add it to your list of tools. Even historical results that are no longer functional can be useful.
🔎 Find That Spot
I almost made this exact tool once upon a time. Find That Spot is a geolocation tool that gives you a simple search engine and Google Maps-like interface to run Overpass Turbo queries for you, highlighting results on the screen.
🎩 H/T: DW Innovation
✅ 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:
⚡ Bypassing Reddit API by using JSON (Sort of)
Turn a search query into a JSON object, turn that JSON object into readable search results, and create your own advanced search tool
👀 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. Be on the lookout for promotions throughout the year.
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