Week in OSINT #2023-02
After some weeks off, it's finally time again to share the last news from the world of OSINT in this first episode of 2023!
The last few weeks I took some time off from everything, but it's time again to share with you some interesting tips and tools from the last few weeks. There were enough tips and tricks shared on social media, or over at the OSINT Curious Discord . But today it's time again to share the weekly news, like you are used to.
- Google Vision in Maltego
- Phone Number to Gmail
- Google Search Operators
- Carrot2
Tool: Google Vision in Maltego
Maltego has a new transform that enables researchers to, and I quote: "extract text, detect faces, and identify objects and landmarks from images". This means that from a simple image, you are able to easily pivot to other pieces of information. I haven't tested this one yet myself, since you need to do some preperations, like setting up a project in Google Cloud and connect a credit card, before you can get the mandatory API key. But K2OSINT has tried it out, and it looks promising!
Link: https://www.maltego.com/transform-hub/image-analyzer
Tutorial: Phone Number to Gmail
Over on the website of Aware Online, there is a nice tutorial on how to pivot from a phone number to a Gmail address. It's an alternative though somewhat more difficult option, to the blog post of Bob Engelen, that I shared in episode 2022-35. Via the login screen it is possible to retrieve the GAIA ID, by starting a login with a phone number. After this, a manual check of possible connected mail addresses can be checked to find the same GAIA ID.
Link: https://www.aware-online.com/en/how-can-i-find-a-google-account-by-phone-number
Media: Google Search Operators
A few days ago I saw the tweet of OSINT Research, where he shared a video by Seth Goldin. He goes over how Google works, how to ask questions and how to build specific queries. He also goes over very specific searches, like how to quickly find social media profiles, find movies or the weather forecast in a specific place. Furthermore, the video is filled with fun Easter eggs and some interesting insights and general knowledge.
!
Link: https://youtu.be/BRiNw490Eq0
Site: Carrot2
It's been a few years since I used Carrot2 to find things. But the internet isn't sitting still, and things have evolved, and so has Carrot2. The search engine is a so called 'search result clustering engine', that enables you to search within multiple sources, but also use different clustering algorithms to present the information. It also has the option to present a pie-chart or a tree map of the most common terms found during its search. It's a fast, and easy to use search tool, that can shed more light into what is being investigated. Thanks for sharing Osint for All!
https://twitter.com/AllForOsint/status/1612041692840067073
FUNINT
Multiple people, and more than 150 days to find it... But finally, the answer is here!
Tweet and replies: https://twitter.com/georainbolt/status/1613692024770727936
Have a good week and have a good search!
