TWITTER OSINT
Twitter can provide an abundance of information. In Twitter you can search like nba (or) #nbadraft (or) “nba draft pick” and it will show all tweets related to nba (or) having the tag #nbadraft (or) having the word nba draft pick . Let a username be “niceguy” then, we can also search like fromniceguy and it will show you all the tweets from “niceguy” OR toniceguy and it shows tweets to “niceguy”.
We can view profiles and analyze the media posted by that account.
So if you are really investigating somebody then searching “from”, “to” and mentions really does help.
Also lets say the profile “niceguy” (joined on 22–02–2020) has 6k tweets, then it will take forever to scroll down and view all the tweets. Instead just search “fromniceguy since 2020–02–22 until 2021–01–22” . This doesn’t end here. You can search like “nba draft pic since 2020–02–22 until 2021–01–22” in-order to view all tweets related to it. We can search like “fromniceguy nba” to view if niceguy has posted anything related to nba.
Another good tool is geo-code or geo-location. Typing them in the search bar will show tweets from users from that area (or geo-code/location). The steps are:
- Search any location in google maps. Ex- Los Angeles. (Image 1)
- Select the geo-code. (Image 2)
- Copy it and paste in Twitter search bar. Ex. search — “geocode:34.0201613,-118.6919206,10km”.
- Thus it will show tweets from users living in a radius of 10km from that geocode.
FACEBOOK OSINT
Facebook OSINT is something which is difficult to keep up with. Facebook has continuously updated itself over the years. As of now Facebook and Fb profiles/accounts are super-restrictive (i.e. unless and until the user wants his/her account to be public in any case, only in that very case the account will be public and accessible by us).
Everyone tries their first hands-on on Mark Zuckerberg’s account, and not directly dive into real people account (Not that Mark Zuckerberg is not a real people but also he is highly popular).
So you can view media/pictures of Mark. But as Fb is quite restrictive, the alternate method in-order to view Mark’s photos search “photos of mark zuckerberg” and you will see the results — tagged pictures.
Right Click on anywhere in profile and select “View Page Source” , then press “ctrl+F”. By doing this a small search bar appears. Search “userID” . By getting the ID you can use it in Sowdust Github and/or IntelligenceX Facebook Search
INSTAGRAM OSINT
Instagram is mostly used to post pictures. So again we can use the skills of picture analysis as in Physical Location OSINT and Identifying Geographical Locations . But its a limited platform for searching to be done. You can search just as you did in Twitter and Fb.
Lets say there is user named “niceguy”. You can also search on google as “niceguy site: instagram” or “niceguy instagram” to view everyplace where the user has be mentioned or present.
SNAPCHAT OSINT
Snapchat does not have a lot of OSINT related stuff to discover. Nor there are a lot of effective and popular Snapchat based OSINT tools. Snapchat is also used for posting photos or videos which again requires the skills of picture/video analysis as in Physical Location OSINT and Identifying Geographical Locations. Only for that purpose we recommend/use Snapchat Maps.
Snapchat Maps at some point in time becomes a little to quite useful, but while using this platform you need to be careful.
REDDIT OSINT
We an find quite a lot of information via reddit searching or google searching. Reddit is one of the most information wealthy platform. Reddit is a place where you can find like-minded people discussing in large groups over almost every topic one can think of. Also Reddit keeps a user completely Anonymous by provides an extra privacy benefit to the users.
We can search specific usernames as well if we use any of the name-check tool (i.e. reddit.com/u/niceguy1 if your username is niceguy1) or search as niceguy1 alone. You can also change yours searches like searching as — “niceguy1” or “niceguyone” , etc.
Another thing you can do is, search on google as “niceguy1” site: reddit.com or niceguy1 site: reddit.com , niceguy1 site: reddit.com intext oscp (Here you are referring that find me something with “oscp” used in the text) , etc.
Also searching by sorting (i.e. through New, Hot, Relevant) posts and analyzing comments section, at times we get a start which we can follow.
LINKEDIN OSINT
LinkedIn is a social media platform for Business professionals and other professionals used for Hiring and Getting jobs, etc. So it can provide a wealth of information about many people which can be trusted to a very high/great extent (But not always. Remember Fake Profiles do exist here as well).
Lets say you want to view a profile. Search for it. Once you get it, right click on the image — Profile picture or Banner picture — (if any) and open in a new tab. From here you can easily conduct Reverse Image Search .
LinkedIn also has a place for Contacts of that person which mostly/generally include phone number, email Id, Social Media handles, Birthdays, Websites (Portfolios and others), etc. These can be of great help.
You can go to the posts, history, etc. of the user (whose information you want). You can also view the Education, Experience, People/Influencers (he/she follows). In all these you can click on the respective icons of Schools (in Education), Companies (in Experience) and get to know about schools and companies. These help alot in gathering information.
TIKTOK OSINT
TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) when initially came out, there were heavy information leaks from all around the globe all about people’s personal information. But then they did updates which now make it quite safer than earlier.
TikTok has a section for Likes which now are private (locked/not viewed publicly). Earlier this section was publicly accessible. Lets say you liked a video of a creator “XYZ” and then “XYZ” deleted it. Despite that you would access it as it would be stored on somebody else’s likes causing some issues of privacy and piracy.
Lets say you want to view a profile. Search for it. Once you get it, right click on the image Profile picture (if any) and open in a new tab. From here you can easily conduct Reverse Image Search .
LINKS for Tools
Twitter Advanced Search — https://twitter.com/search-advanced
Social Bearing — https://socialbearing.com/
Twitonomy — https://www.twitonomy.com/
Sleeping Time — http://sleepingtime.org/ (**NOT Secure, Though good website)
Mentionmapp — https://mentionmapp.com/
Tweetbeaver — https://tweetbeaver.com/
Spoonbill.io — http://spoonbill.io/ (**NOT Secure, Though a good site)
Tinfoleak — https://tinfoleak.com/
TweetDeck — https://tweetdeck.com/ (Quite Powerful)
Sowdust Github — https://sowdust.github.io/fb-search/ (For Fb)
IntelligenceX Facebook Search — https://intelx.io/tools?tab=facebook
Wopita — https://wopita.com/ (For Instagram)
Code of a Ninja — https://codeofaninja.com/tools/find-instagram-user-id/ (For Instagram)
InstaDP — https://www.instadp.com/ (For Instagram)
ImgInn — https://imginn.com/
Snapchat Maps — https://map.snapchat.com (For Snapchat)
**THE ABOVE SOCIAL MEDIA OSINT IS QUITE BASIC OVERVIEW. IT DOES NOT INCLUDE THE CONCEPT OF PAYLOADING AND HACKING SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.**
