I wanted to share some tips that have helped me find important Facebook data that sometimes isn’t hidden… but you need to know where to look. These are places you could check for information to further leverage your open source research. Besides looking at the Facebook timeline, where else could you look? I have split up these pointers by these sections: Profiles, Pages, Groups and Saving. There is also a ten-minute tip video that goes with this blog post embedded below.

Profiles:

1. Find the user’s profile ID by right clicking, view page source and searching for either “profile_ID” or “entity_ID”.
2. Check the “about” tab for important information such as listed birthday, family members, usernames, etc. 
3. Check the “more” tab looking for “check-ins”.
4. Use the friends list search bar to filter for the target’s surname to identify family members or to find additional accounts of the target. Further, use control+find to search for keywords such as a particular school or workplace. 
5. Identify mutual friends. If your target has an open friends list you can find out who your target has mutual friends. URL: facebook.com/browse/mutual_friends/?uid=ID1HERE&node=ID2HERE

You can find this on Kirby’s (@kirbstr) website: https://plessas.net/facebookmatrix

6. Use Facebook marketplace to search for your target to find `out when their profile was created. URL: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace

Alternatively, Josh Huff (@baywolf88) using only Facebook IDs, Josh conducted research into Facebook account creation where he was able to narrow the date an account was created. Read more here: 

https://learnallthethings.net/blog/2017/3/1/facebook-origins

Pages:

1. Find the page ID by right clicking, view page source and searching for “page_ID”.
2. Check the tabs on the left side of the page such as about, events, photos, videos, etc. 
3. Check the “page transparency” section on the right side to find out when a page was created and if the name changed.
4. Use the tab “pages” to view the “likers” of specific pages. 

Groups:

1. Find the group ID by right clicking, view page source and searching for “group_ID”.
2. Check the tabs on the left side of the group such as about, discussion, members, events, etc.  
3. Check the description on the right side to see how they identify themselves.
4. Check the “history” on the right side to see when the group was created and to identify any changes to the group name.

Saving:

1. Save photos by clicking on “options” and selecting “download”. Alternatively, use software like SnagIt or other screen capturing tools to capture the photos.
2. Save videos directly by opening a video in a new tab, in the URL replacing “www” with “mbasic” and clicking “enter”. Play the video, right click and select “save video as”. Use Google Chrome for this technique.
3. Save friends lists by scrolling to the bottom of the friends list and highlighting all the friends to the top where it says “friends”. Right click, select print and “save as PDF”.

This blog was made by: Ritu Gill @OSINTtechniques