Week in OSINT #2023-09
The latest OSINT news of week 9, 2023 is here! With topics ranging from careers in OSINT, to checking the existence of Snapchat accounts!
Another week flew by, with lots of interesting topics that I found online, that I will be sharing here with you. But of course I am also sharing the very last webcast that we made under the OSINT Curious flag. It has been an awesome 4 years, but it is time for others to step in. Spread the hashtag #osintcurious, and keep on sharing your knowledge with the world!
- Careers in OSINT
- Cryptography & OSINT
- Russia on Messaging Apps
- Bitmoji Tip
- OSINT Podcasts
- The OSINT Curious Project
Media: Careers in OSINT
Micah Hoffman and Griffin Glynn have been interviewing people about their careers or profession. These people all have in common, that they use open source intelligence in some capacity within their line of work. They talk about what they do, how they develop their skills, and give examples of how OSINT was used within their profession. Make sure to watch all videos in this series
Link: YouTube Playlist of Careers in OSINT
Article: Cryptography & OSINT
Nico Dekens and The Real STEM Sadie wrote a second article on cryptography, this time they dive into the world of emojis. They are not only used to give emotional context to messages, as they were intended back in the nineties. Nowadays, there are thousands of emojis in Unicode Version 14, and all major brands support a majority of the set. But how these emojis can be used, to hide message from other people, can be read in this awesome article. So if you find yourself in the darker corners of Telegram, or fine cryptic forum posts when diving into drugs, do check out this second post on "Cryptography & OSINT"!
Link: https://www.dutchosintguy.com/...
News: Russia on Messaging Apps
On March 1, 2023, laws banning the use of foreign private messaging apps within the Russian government or state agencies, came into force. There is a list of apps that are forbidden now:
- Discord
- Microsoft Teams
- Skype for Business
- Snapchat
- Snapchat
- Threema
- Viber
It will be interesting to see how things might evolve over the upcoming months. The Russian government has been known to communicate on platforms like Telegram, where they would share their narrative regarding ongoing conflicts. Outside government organizations, not a lot will change though, since citizens will still be able to use the mentioned platforms. But it might only be a matter of time before Russia is tightening their internet censorship.
Link: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/...
Tip: Bitmoji Tip
Jake Creps shared a nifty little tip about the Bitmoji API, to see whether a certain email address is connected to, for instance, a Snapchat account or not. I can tell you that it is part of the API that Bitmoji offers, and it can also be found at: https://api.bitmoji.com/user/find. Other platforms can also be found, like Bitmoji itself. What other platforms might be returned, and what other endpoints there still might be, I'll leave that up to you to discover. But I can already spoil, there is more out there
https://twitter.com/jakecreps/status/1631421918619287553/photo/1
Media: OSINT Podcasts
Fancy a nice listen during your commute? Or are you like me, and addicted to good podcasts about a range of topics? Then the Slovenian company IntelTrace have got you covered! Because they shared a nice list of OSINT related podcasts on their Twitter account. I mentioned most of them in 'Week in OSINT' before, but here's a full list, with links to pod.link, my favourite way to share podcast links since it offers a way to open your favourite app with the click of a button:
- Breadcrumbs by TraceLabs
- The Privacy, Security, & OSINT Show by Michael Bazzell
- Layer8 Podcast by Layer8
- The OSINT Jobs Podcast by OSINT Jobs
- Exposing the Invisible by Tactical Tech
- The Intelligence Brief by HENSHOLDT
- The OSINT Curious Project
Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/IntelTrace/status/...
Media: The OSINT Curious Project
After four years The OSINT Curious Project stops, and last weekend we had our last webcast to say goodbye to our audience. When we started there were some blogs, and some social media accounts sharing information, but we felt something was missing. For years, we have shared our knowledge, had awesome guest authors on our website, and interviewed many interesting people. But now the time has come to say goodbye, and enjoy everything we have accomplished since early 2019. Thank you, and no worries! This website will stay online, just like all the videos on YouTube, just like my 'Week in OSINT'
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkQFd9PkSNA
Have a good week and have a good search!
