Companion Post to the 2021 SANS Live Stream “Tips for Conducting OSINT Investigations in the EU with GDPR”

The links below are a companion to the live stream Nico Dekens (dutch_osintguy) and Micah Hoffman (webbreacher) conducted in July 2021. Links Official GDPR documents https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/2016-05-04 GDPR and OSINT related blogs https://keyfindings.blog/2019/06/11/how-gdpr-effects-osint/ https://osintcurio.us/2019/01/08/after-the-gdpr-researching-domain-name-registrations/ https://www.domaintools.com/resources/blog/post-gdpr-security-investigations-part-1 https://www.domaintools.com/resources/blog/post-gdpr-security-investigations-part-2 https://www.domaintools.com/resources/blog/post-gdpr-security-investigations-part-3 Research paper – The protection of privacy in civilian criminal investigations using OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) https://amsterdamlawforum.org/articles/abstract/10.37974/ALF.353/ Article 8 European Convention on Human Rights https://fra.europa.eu/en/eu-charter/article/8-protection-personal-data Legal framework Law Enforcement https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2016/680/oj Continue reading Companion Post to the 2021 SANS Live Stream “Tips for Conducting OSINT Investigations in the EU with GDPR”

Discord OSINT

Investigating Discord: A Primer

Guest blog by BOsintBlanc. Discord for the uninitiated is a group chat service in the vein of Telegram, Whatsapp, or IRC (if you’re that old ;-P). Channels are set up as ‘servers’ usually based around a shared topic of interest. As of 2020 Discord had over 300 million registered users (source) and that number does not appear to be dwindling any time soon. What does … Continue reading Investigating Discord: A Primer

Maritime Live Stream Notes 4/1/21

After an exciting week where the whole world was tracking the EVER GIVEN, the large container ship stuck in the Suez Canal, we put together a live stream to discuss Maritime OSINT! In this stream, we talked about various ways to track the movements of vessels large and small. We also talked about ways to use social media, job boards, real-estate, and shipspotting sites to … Continue reading Maritime Live Stream Notes 4/1/21

Ten Minute Tip: Image Geolocation – Part 1

This Ten Minute Tip is the first in a series looking at how we can geolocate images as part of OSINT work. Being able to examine a picture and work out when and where it was taken is an increasingly important skill to have. You could be a journalist trying to document human rights abuses, or helping law enforcement trace victims of child abuse. Whatever … Continue reading Ten Minute Tip: Image Geolocation – Part 1

What to do when a Facebook profile is private?

This blogpost is made after a 10minute video I made for the virtual conference OSMOSIS 2020 and was inspired @hatless1der blogpost. Probably every OSINT investigator has encountered this problem; you’ve found your targets Facebook profile but it is completely private. So what can you do? Clicking the buttons One of the ways to start is by ‘clicking the buttons’. On a Facebook-profile there are quite … Continue reading What to do when a Facebook profile is private?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Zillow + State/County Property Assessor Data

Guest blog by Sarah Womer Have you ever looked at a residential property in the USA and wondered who owns it versus who lives there? Zillow provides a helpful user interface to find that out. In addition, the tool can sometimes provide information on whether the property is up to date on its property taxes, what the owner’s current mailing address is, where they may … Continue reading Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Zillow + State/County Property Assessor Data

Vicarious trauma and OSINT – a practical guide

To be clear, online OSINT investigations can cause trauma, severe trauma. This is something that people rarely talk about and it’s highly underestimated by many.  Let’s face it a lot of OSINT analysts, online investigators, and investigative journalists expose themselves a lot to all the horrors this world has to offer. War, child abuse, and terrorism are just a few subjects. Each of these subjects … Continue reading Vicarious trauma and OSINT – a practical guide