Week in OSINT #2019–20
Some articles this week, accompanied by a website, a tool, a tip and something fun.
This week went incredibly fast for me! Some very exciting things for me this week, but I can’t tell a lot about that yet. But I did come to realise I really need to start programming again, because I need to write a tool to accompany some interesting discoveries I made the other day. But enough rambling, it is off to this weeks overview:
- Fighting Disinformation
- Dark Web Tools
- Images and Archives
- Surveillance Cams
- Fighting Fake News
- Assumptions and F*ups
- All the Places
Article: Fighting Disinformation
This is not the first time I share an article that deals with investigating disinformation campaigns that have become important in all kind of conflicts. One of the tags I usually have in my articles here on Medium is “verification”, because nowadays a lot of news is being spread by sources that are not to be trusted. Whether it is about a small local conflict, a civil war or politics, always keep in mind that a news source without any credibility, that is posting without citing solid evidence or sources, can easily have a hidden agenda. And eventually they end up in articles by @DFRLab, where they do value verification of truths.
Article: Dark Web Tools
It had been a bit silent around Jake Creps the last few months, but he is back with another article! This time he is going over some tools and sites that can be used when during an investigation you enter the Dark Web. There might be some known resources in there, but do have a look because there might always be that one extra link that you’ve been searching for all the time.
Link: https://jakecreps.com/2019/05/16/osint-tools-for-the-dark-web/
Tool: Images and Archives
Dutch OsintGuy sent out a tweet last week about a new browser add-on to help with reverse image searches. I had a little look on the GitHub page, but left it for this news letter. By going over the tool again, I didn’t even think for a split second, because I had to install it! Clean interface, easy to use, and tons of sites! By default only Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu and TInEye are activated, but open the options of the add-on or plugin and you’ll find some that you probably never even heard of!
Besides that, when you check out the GitHub repo of ‘Search by Image’ to find the link to the Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons or Opera Add-ons, make sure to check out the ‘View Page Archive’ tool! Another thing I installed right away and an absolute must for investigators! Well done!
Search by Image: https://github.com/dessant/search-by-image
View Page Archive: https://github.com/dessant/view-page-archive
Site: Surveillance Cams
This one is once again courtesy of the OSINT.team chat. If you aren’t a member yet, I do suggest you create an account and get over there. There are usually interesting chats, people asking or offering help, but it is also a great resource for new links and tools. This time ‘ex16x41' shared a tool that is mapping the location of security cameras and guards on OpenStreetmap.
Gonzo replied with a link to Open Street Cam, which is a website offering a similar service as Mapillary does. The only major difference is that Mapillary doesn’t blur the license plates as Open Street Cam does. But still a nice extra resource if you are looking for some recent imagery from a specific location.
Surveillance under Surveillance: https://kamba4.crux.uberspace.de/
Open Street Cam: https://openstreetcam.org/
Article: Fighting Fake News
And we have another bit about fighting fake news. It almost seems like it is becoming important to do that nowadays… Oh wait… Anyway, here just a little write up about how some people tried to convince others that weapons where seen, where there weren’t any. Get it? Just open the Twitter thread.
Link: https://twitter.com/ciaranoconnor/status/1129002868369960961
Article: Assumptions and F*ups
As most readers of this blog know, I am also part of the Twitter initiative Quiztime, with the purpose of letting people practice their verification and fact checking skills in geolocation but also other areas. Last week there was a very interesting challenge, that didn’t go too well for nixintel. But instead of brushing it off, he created a blog post to explain how important it is to read, to understand and to create a valid research question. Or just a really fun read on how he messed up (been there, done that), and with some really good tips.
Link: https://nixintel.info/osint/quiztime-10th-may-a-lego-journey-with-fiete-stegers/
Site: All the Places
And another link from the OSINT.team chat, that I added here. This is a website that is gathering data about every website that has a physical store location on their site, and it is indexing it all. It has a download on the website where you can find the latest data set with over 380,000 rows already, but also a link to their GitHub page if you want to create a spider or scraper to help out the project.
Bonus: FUNINT
Have a good week and have a good search!
