The OSINT Newsletter - August 2023 OSINT Review
The OSINT Newsletter - August 2023 OSINT Review
An overview of research in open source intelligence from August 2023
👋 Hey everyone, welcome back to The OSINT Newsletter. In this issue, I’ve curated the top news, community content, and tools plus several methods I’ve researched for open source intelligence.
This issue looks a bit different. I’ve decided to remove feature images to allow for more content and easier readability. I’ve reduced the length of the summaries for each resource so you can quickly scan and find what matters most to you.
In case you missed recent newsletters, here’s a quick reference.
Thanks for reading, let’s get started.
OSINT News
📰 Can AI Chatbots Be Used for Geolocation?
It turns out AI isn’t yet ready to replace humans on geolocation-related tasks. But it’s getting closer. Bellingcat takes a closer look at Bing and Bard and where the gaps are.
📰 EXPLAINED: Russian Commander Shot Dead After Posting Runs on Strava Running App
While it’s hard to confirm that the assassin used Strava as a source, it’s suspicious how close the assassination was to the known routes found on Strava for this Russian commander. Kyiv Post walks through this story step by step.
📰 Exploring the Dark Side: OSINT Tools and Techniques for Unmasking Dark Web Operations
Matt Edmondson, our fellow OSINT native, writes about how OSINT can be used for investigations on the dark web, even if the resources aren’t on Tor. Examples include finding software vulnerabilities in tech that runs dark web servers, tracing crypto wallets to reveal identities or networks, leveraging data leaks, and more.
📰 More than Mountaineering: Using PeakVisor for Geolocation
Bellingcat writes a detailed guide on how to use mountaineering apps like PeakVisor to identify mountaintops in images in addition to other geolocation tips.
📰 Satellite OSINT: Space-Based Intelligence in Aerospace Cybersecurity
Angelina Tsuboi writes about using publicly available satellite data for open-source intelligence use cases. She steps through the creation of SatIntel, an open-source tool for efficiently collecting information about space assets.
📰 The disinformation landscape in West Africa and beyond
The Atlantic Council created a whitepaper that details several disinformation campaigns found in West Africa, 16 of which are attributed to the Russian State. The velocity of these disinformation campaigns is increasing.
Read more on the Atlantic Council…
📰 Solving World War II Photo Mysteries With Open Source Techniques
Bellingcat details several creative techniques to geolocate vintage World War I and World War II photographs found on Facebook groups and eBay listings.
📰 The OSINT Analyst's Dilemma
OSINT Combine takes a realistic view of a day in the life of an OSINT analyst. Read this if you’re suffering from imposter syndrome or burnout.
OSINT Community
🔗 Kyla Castora shares Yandex dorks on LinkedIn, showing the mime, lang, and domain dorks to leverage the Russian search engine for helpful information.
🐦 OSINT Industries adds a new module for QQ allowing investigators to turn an email address or phone number into a QQ account, phone number (from email), location, and more.
Read about email addresses on Twitter (X)… | Email Address | Phone Number
🎤 Eliot Higgins sits down with Thought Economics to talk about OSINT, legal challenges, ethics, and more.
🐦 Hatless1nder shares a new feature on TruePeopleSearch that allows you to search their database by email address. Previously, you needed to access this using Google Dorks.
🐦 HackGit shares a GitHub tool called fake-sms that allows you to skip phone number-based SMS verification by using a temporary phone number that acts like a proxy.
🔗 Joel Aviad Ossi talks about a new tool that allows you to unmask the identity of a user on Telegram or Signal through a known leak in the protocols used on these messaging apps.
🐦 Epieos shares a new module for Chess.com, allowing you to turn an email address into a name, username, image, location, and more.
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