The OSINT Newsletter - Issue #74
Investigating Public Records for OSINT - Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS)
👋 Welcome to the 74th issue of The OSINT Newsletter. This issue contains OSINT news, community posts, tactics, techniques, and tools to help you become a better investigator. Here’s an overview of what’s in this issue:
LLMs and Geolocation
Investigating AI on YouTube
OPSEC and Salary Data
Viewing Twitter Logged Out
Cryptocurrency Investigation Tools
Dark Web Resources
🪃 If you missed the last newsletter, here’s a link to catch up.
⚡ Creating OSINT Apps in Google Drive (Docs, Sheets)
Let’s get started. ⬇️
OSINT News
📰 Have LLMs Finally Mastered Geolocation?
Large language models are getting surprisingly good at solving geolocation challenges—tasks once thought to require human intuition and experience. Bellingcat put them to the test with real-world imagery, and the results might surprise you.
"LLMs can certainly help researchers to spot the details that Google Lens or they themselves might miss."🎩 H/T: Foeke Postma
📰 Diddy AI slop is getting tens of millions of views on YouTube
A bizarre AI-generated video linking celebrities like Diddy, Justin Bieber, and Jamie Foxx is making waves on YouTube—and it's racking up millions of views. Indicator unpacks how this viral “AI slop” reveals deeper problems with content moderation and online misinformation.
“AI-generated thumbnails with false quotes attributed to celebrities… one video is titled ‘Jay-Z Breaks His Silence’… it doesn’t contain any new information from Jay-Z and the rapper never said the quote.”🎩 H/T: Craig Silverman
📰 Your Employer is Giving Your Salary Data to Equifax, and Equifax is Selling It
Equifax has been quietly collecting detailed salary data on millions of Americans through a little-known service called The Work Number. This guide breaks down how to freeze that data—and why you probably should.
“A centralized database contains precise information about your salary and compensation data for most companies you have worked for, and this information is being sold to third parties — often without your consent, and with no opt-out.”Read on Tate's Online Safety Substack…
🎩 H/T: Tate Jarrow
OSINT Tools
🔎 Sotwe
Sotwe lets you explore Twitter profiles and trends without logging in—and even lets you dig into old posts and location-based data. It’s a valuable tool whether you’re conducting OSINT research or tracking trends and activity across social platforms.
🔎 Impersonator
Impersonator.xyz lets you explore how any Ethereum wallet interacts with dapps—without needing access to the wallet itself. It’s a powerful tool for OSINT investigators and researchers looking to analyze blockchain behavior and trace wallet activity in real time.
🔎 Daunt
Daunt.link is a directory that organizes verified .onion links to help you explore the Tor network more easily. It uses a simple user system to share different mirror links, helping users stay connected even when some sites go down.
✅ 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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⚡ Investigating Public Records for OSINT - Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS)
This is an introduction to a series on public record searching for OSINT. We’ll look at US-centric datasets like USCIS, FBI UCR, EDGAR, FPDS, USITC, OSHA, FEC, and other data sources. Then we’ll continue into international data sources. Along the way you’ll learn useful tips and tricks for handling this data and how to collect and analyze it more efficiently.
👀 All paid posts in the archive. Go back and see what you’ve missed!
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