Week in OSINT #2021-28

Week in OSINT #2021-28

satellite imagery threat intelligence datasets cryptocurrency tor book
A short update from last week's OSINT news, ranging from remote sensing to threat intel information and book to read.

It was a challenge finishing this newsletter, since I actually only had time this morning to write it. I chose to go out and enjoy the lovely weather over here, instead of spending time on what is basically my work during the weekend. But still I have some nice topics for today:

  • OpenAltimetry
  • Ransomwhere
  • Interview with DrChaos
  • Pythonhunt
  • Basics of Remote Sensing
  • ICCT Book Recommendations

Article: OpenAltimetry

An article on The Drive's The War Zone showed how remote sensing uncovered a huge building in the north east of China. According to the article it's probably a hangar for an airship, but that's not where the cool stuff stops. Because Nathan Ruser has used a public dataset of 'OpenAltimetry' by NASA's ICESat and ICESat2 missions, that used a laser to measure altitudes. Awesome resource to measure something as huge as this!

Visualization of photons in the open dataset of OpenAltimetry
Visualization of photons in the open dataset of OpenAltimetry

Link: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41462/gigantic-hangar-near-secretive-chinese-test-facilities-points-to-exotic-airship-development

Site: Ransomwhere

Twitter user 'osintme' shared a link to the new platform called 'Ransomwhere'. It has payment information from ransomware victims and campaigns. By sharing the data, and by providing a tracker on the website, the platform aims to share the information with everyone who's involved, and to give insights into the money trails. An awesome project that I fully support.

Total amount of money paid, as known to Ransomwhere
Total amount of money paid, as known to Ransomwhere

Link: https://ransomwhe.re/

Article: Interview with Doctor Chaos

Another link by 'osintme', this time about an interview with the awesome Doctor Chaos. He's known for his free service at osint.party, that has featured in my newsletter before. And in this interview he talks about his background, the history of his project, its features and a lot more. Really great to hear more about the person behind this awesome project.

Link: https://www.osintme.com/index.php/2021/07/17/scraping-the-darkwebs-onions-interview-with-doctor-chaos/

Tool: Pythonhunt

I discovered this tool a few days ago, and it automates some simple checks one can do when dealing with domains or IP addresses. It queries Shodan, Virustotal, AlienVault OTX and a bunch of other sites. It neatly shows all the information about the address on the command prompt, easy to read and to process. Simple tool, but very helpful and effective. Thanks for this Pavornoc!

Querying IP 139.60.160.164, that's scanning Fortinet VPN services
Querying IP 139.60.160.164, that's scanning Fortinet VPN services

Link: https://github.com/Pavornoc/PythonHunt

Media: Basics of Remote Sensing

Wired's YouTube channel has short videos where experts explain how certain things are being done in their line of work. And an interesting video popped up last week, because Keith Masback explains the basics of remote sensing, or investigating satellite imagery. Don't expect in-depth information, but it does give some good tips for people that are just starting browsing around our earth's surface.

Link: https://youtu.be/X02g3AWIWPw

Media: ICCT Book Recomendations

The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism has created a reading list for the holidays. This list contains fiction and non-fiction books, with a wide variety of topics. From cybercrime to Vincent van Gogh's letters, and from sociology to geopolitics. Thanks for the tip Loránd!

The ICCT's Summer Reading List
The ICCT's Summer Reading List

Link: https://icct.nl/latest/icct-summer-reading-list-2021/

Have good week and have a good search!

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