Week in OSINT #2021-07

22nd Feb 2021

Welcome to another weekly dose of OSINT goodness that I've prepared for you! This week I'll have something interesting for everyone.

From social media to sock accounts, and from information to imagery, anything can be found in my weekly newsletter. And this week is no different. Because I've got you covered whether you have the need for up-to-date imagery for environmental research, or want to know more about how law enforcement evaluates information. Let's have a look at this week's overview:

Yandex Dorks
ID’s in Social Media
Generate a Sock Puppet Photo
Evaluating Information
SANS OSINT Summit
Crimeboards
Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2

Tips: Yandex Dorks

Yandex provides a whole bunch of search operators, just the way that Bing and Google offer them. And Twitter user Zarcolio notified me about a lengthy article on these operators and in it they compare those to other search engines. I recommend reading it, especially if you want or need to use Yandex for some of your investigations.

Link: https://seosly.com/yandex-search-operators/#10_Advanced_Yandex_Search_Operators

Article: ID's in Social Media

This article is a bit older already, from early January, but I somehow missed it. Aware Online is sharing some basics on unique identifiers, why they are important in an investigation, and where you can find them. One little tip I can add to this great article is the following. If you have a Twitter account that doesn't have a profile image, and you are not logged in, open the 'inspector' tab as shown in the article. Simply search for the word '-follow' (mind the minus sign in front of it) and you'll find the ID. Another way to retrieve it, is by using a site like Twitter ID (https://tweeterid.com/)

Diving into display names, account names and ID's

Link: https://www.aware-online.com/en/importance-of-user-ids-in-social-media-investigations/

Tip: Generate a Sock Puppet Photo

Jake Creps tweeted a little thread on how to generate a photo for a sock or research account, that won't be detected as fake. He goes over some good tips and hints, shows how to use backgrounds, swap faces and so on. Nice little read, and some good tips in here!

#OSINT Workflow Wednesday

Another week, another workflow. This week we’re going to look at how to make images for your sock puppet accounts that can beat deep fake and face swap checks as well as some bonus tips.

Let’s go!

(1/9) pic.twitter.com/7dZKkH46TB
— Jake Creps (@jakecreps) February 17, 2021

Link to thread: https://twitter.com/jakecreps/status/1362171841520013316

Article: Evaluating Information

Ludo Block has been investigating methods of evaluating information. Whether you work in law enforcement, in the field of journalism or similar areas, the source and credibility of information is important. In several blog posts Ludo talks about the Admiralty System, European systems and a Russian system. Well worth the read if your work has the need to evaluate your information before using it.

Grading information according to Europol

Part 1: https://www.blockint.nl/methods/the-origin-of-information-grading-systems/

Part 2: https://www.blockint.nl/methods/law-enforcement-use-of-information-grading-systems/

Part 3: https://www.blockint.nl/uncategorized/other-information-evaluation-systems/

Links: SANS OSINT Summit

Earlier this month there was the SANS OSINT Summit and in those two days loads of resources were shared by the presenters and the public. Within the Slack environment, that was set up for this, hundreds of links were shared during the talks. When the public asked for help or a resource, it usually took mere seconds before someone posted a link to an article, tool or website. And before the Slack environment was scrapped, all this information was gathered, categorised and presented in this SANS blog post by John TerBush and Micah Hoffman.

A huge list of resources from the OSINT Summit

Link: https://www.sans.org/blog/list-of-resource-links-from-open-source-intelligence-summit-2021/

Links: Crimeboards

Gonzo is at it again, sharing a somewhat older but still useful GitHub repository. It's a collection of private and public 'blackhat boards'. If you're looking for some kind of forum, shop or a blog on a particular dark market topic, this list is a good start. They cover a bunch of surface web and Tor sites from all over the world and in different languages. As said, the list is somewhat older, but I found some new names that I'll surely dive into for some research!

Link: https://github.com/misterch0c/CrimeBoards

Imagery: Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2

NASA's Worldview has a new set of 30m resolution imagery that is updated every 2 to 3 days. By combining data from Landsat 8 and the Multi-Spectral Instruments aboard the Sentinel 2A and 2B satellites, they've been able to create a higher resolution data set. This new and free data set will be extremely useful for projects that don't need high resolution imagery, like environmental research.

Slider might not work on mobile phones

Link: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/articles/a-harmonious-new-dataset

WorldView: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/

FUNINT: OSINT Quizzes (part 2)

Guess what? There are even more quizzes out there, and White Hat Inspector has collected then again!

[#DailyOSINT - Day#28] Since you liked it so much last time, here is an additional list of free #OSINT challenges-games:
1.https://t.co/CW6n0Zm2H8
2.https://t.co/XnZTHPEOyt
3.https://t.co/iyxVAZIjRw
4.https://t.co/kt0EmOB8zC
5.https://t.co/o6uzaqszYJ
6.https://t.co/5Ot2a4oMlx
1/2
— White Hat Inspector (@WHInspector) February 17, 2021