The Atypical OSINT Guide — 2023
The most unusual OSINT guide you’ve ever seen. This article is intended for bored professionals only!
Check out:
Today I would like to talk about how to become a good OSINT investigator, but to continue the conversation I would like to make a small disclaimer — I will tell you only some aspects because the topic is very vast and I can not describe everything in a single guide, however, I will try to show you the way and how to pass this path.
This essay is intended to be instructional! Consider your actions carefully or you will be prosecuted or worse! Always keep in mind Ethics & related Laws — like GDPR, etc… You should not romanticize OSINT and on-chain investigations in the same manner that individuals often romanticize hacking and warfare, I highly encourage you!
It is also crucial to note that OSINT is merely another means to learn about the world around you and is not a way to “get paid instantly.” Always take a break to recharge! Your health & mind are important! Read:
- How to know when to stop
- How to Become a 1000 Year Old Vampire
- How To Learn Fast
- How to Use Mind Maps to Unleash Your Brain’s Creativity and Potential
This information does not make you better or worse. Humanity as a species has a proclivity to adapt to its surroundings, which, as we all know, begins with knowledge, observations, and methodology. Take care of yourself, consider the consequences of your actions, and respect the privacy of others. Do not cross red lines!
- Here we discuss how one can investigate crypto hacks and security incidents, and collect all the possible tools and manuals!
- Can everybody do OSINT?
- Vicarious trauma
Always think twice before acting, follow the law, and follow the OpSec rules. If you want to help or conduct social investigations but lack experience, please reach out to more experienced people so that you do not harm the victims or those attempting to save them.
In my articles, on the other hand, I reveal a different application of OSINT, inspired by due diligence and civil financial intelligence, with a focus on civilian applications. That is my vision, which I hope you will embrace…
- Intelligence Studies: Types of Intelligence Collection
- Understanding the Different Types of Intelligence Collection Disciplines
May the Force be with you!
Introduction: Civil OSINT
To begin with, I want to say that I will consider OSINT as a set of skills or a mindset, because it can be directly related to doxing, military GEO-INT performed by a security company employee or just media OSINT performed by a VC fund employee in order to find new projects for investment, taking the theory of handshakes as a basis…
…Or even a crypto-forensics specialist investigating a major Web3.0 hack case. In other words, it can be used in all spheres of life because it is only a method of working with, assessing and ranking information — do not ever forget that we are all living in the Information Era.
- Meet the Blockchain Detectives Who Track Crypto’s Hackers and Scammers
- Special «Blockchain Investigations» Compilation
- How I investigate crypto hacks and security incidents: A-Z
- On-Chain Investigations Handbook
All of what I said above you can develop in yourself, but the essence of all directions is the same — the ability to notice valuable information, anomalies, see the differences, carefully analyze the facts and build a logical chain — while being in the flow of information.
Start up from checking out your own info and your own data: make an OSINT research against yourself. Collect all data, visualize it, then, erase — with using SERM/ORM techniques.
- SERM
- ORM
- Examples of opsec and privacy fails when doing OSINT
- More OpSec Studies
- Basic OPSEC Tips & Tricks for OSINT researchers
- The Osint Me ultimate guide to Telegram OSINT and privacy
I would like to give you the first lesson, all resources which I will advise you — I studied by myself earlier:
Mind-Mapping
First, let’s break down such a concept as mind-mapping. It is very important to teach how to sort information according to different criteria, I believe you can practice sorting absolutely any information you’d like!
- Mind-map
- What do you need to become an intermediate OSINTer? How can Shodan contribute to OSINT investigations?
- First Steps to Getting Started in Open Source Research
- Everything about Open Source Intelligence and OSINT Investigations
Didn’t everyone make cheat sheets at school? It’s time to do it again, because in the future it should evolve into a Maltego skill!
- Top OSINT & Infosec Resources for You and Your Team (2022 Edition): 100+ Blogs, Podcasts, YouTube, Books, and more!
- A Beginner’s Guide to OSINT Investigation with Maltego
- Maltego — Cyber Weapons Lab — Research like an OSINT Analyst
- Free Digital Badges for learning / developing OSINT Skills
- Tips To Encourage Your Child To Participate In Extracurricular Activities
- What skills do you need to be good at chess + how to improve it.
A tiny tip — perform power-searching with using different IPs, over different time ranges and via different search engines.
Immersive & Gamified Learning: Tricks (a)
I can also recommend that you turn to an interesting subculture that is suitable for introverts! I am sure that everyone is interested in various strange phenomena in one way or another. Immerse yourself in a net-stalking environment!
Sometimes ordinary people were able to solve crimes which the police could not solve for years with OSINT and GEOINT alone (I could put in here links to subreddits, movies and news but since you and I are now doing OSINT I advise you to find it on your own).
- What is Netstalking?
- GEOGUESSR
- SunCalc Calculator
- Mind Hacks — Psychological profiling, and mental health in OSINT investigations
Also check out:
- Alternate Reality Game
- reddit.com/r/ARG
- Net.art
- Applied Anthropology Research Methods
- Reflections on Becoming an Applied Anthropologist
- Applied Anthopology (really, study it!)
The main thing to remember is your health, it is above all, do not let your principles be shaken by what you see. You are an observer! Here well helps to understand the psychology of SCP researchers (when nothing is clear, but the scientific method helps to put everything in its place).
- Netstalking: In-Depth
- How I found early Solana ecosystem Developers using OSINT tactics
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Online Anonymity
- OpSec researches and data terminals — contributions are welcome.
Keep in mind that in this part of the Global Internet (I mean OSINT in general, not only the Net-stalking), the percentage of people who are actively looking for problems or need to express their emotions is no different from other places!
Science + OSINT:
- Peering into the Mind: Psychological Profiling Through AI and Large Language Models..
- Occam’s razor
- How Occam’s Razor Works
- Occam’s Razor as a Scientific Principle
- CASE STUDY: Personality Profiling and the Power of OSINT
So, follow OpSec rules and don’t make too many mistakes. Conduct your activities from a separate, isolated device. Study:
- Intuition Is More Than Just A Hunch, Says New Research
- Intuition as Emergence: Bridging Psychology, Philosophy and Organizational Science
- Intelligence Analysis: Structured Methods or Intuition?
- The Potential of Integrating Intelligence and Intuition
- Social Engineering and the Protection of High-Value Targets
Also:
- The Power of Shutting Down Your Senses: How to Boost Your Creativity and Have a Clear Mind
- Training Yourself to be an Analytical Thinker
- Using the OSINT Mind-State for Better Online Investigations
- Latest Trends in SOCMINT, OSINT & Cyber-Psychology
- 5 Cognitive Biases That Could Affect Your OSINT Investigations
- Citizen OSINT Analysts: Motivations of Open-Source Intelligence Volunteers
Once you can distinguish the information, sort it out then the next thing you can do is start practicing. As you know, good practice requires good motivation!
- Beginners Field Guide: Where & How to Learn OSINT
- Traps used by cyber detectives…
- MAC Address Investigation
Also check out:
- Criminals Language from a Psycholinguistics point of view
- USING LANGUAGE ANALYSIS FOR IDENTIFYING AND ASSESSING OFFENDERS
- Forensic Psycholinguistics Using Language Analysis for Identifying and Assessing
- The Ultimate Guide to Human Intelligence (HUMINT)
- Undermining social engineering using open source intelligence gathering
- Signal OSINT — SIGINT
- E-Discovery, Forensics, and Open Source Intelligence in Legal Research
- From Dissent to OSINT? Understanding, Influencing, and Protecting Roles, Reputation, and Revenue
- The Basics: What is e-Discovery?
- A system for organizing, collecting, and presenting open-source intelligence
Training & Practicing
Good training materials:
- Googledorking
- Searchlightosint
- Shodan
- Geolocatingimages
- Somesint
- osintframework.com
- OSINT At Home YouTube Playlist
Here is a very good brain-stretching game will help to train associative thinking — a very important skill for anyone in OSINT:
When I was young we played «5 steps till Ragnarok» — the goal was to find the page about this myth in 5 steps (5 clicks) from any random Wikipedia page! 🙂
Follow top OSINT specialists:
- twitter.com/UKOSINT — news, tools, jokes
- twitter.com/dutch_osintguy — famous specialist, speaker
- twitter.com/jakecreps — posts awesome tools every Thursday
- twitter.com/OSINTtechniques — follow the Digital Bread Crumbs
- twitter.com/OSINTHK — volunteers using OSINT
- A global OSINT Community — OSINT Community from France
- twitter.com/OSINT_Research — tools and awesome data
- twitter.com/OSINTtechniques — tools and awesome data
- twitter.com/OsintJobs — jobs in OSINT
- www.reddit.com/r/OSINT — the biggest thematic subReddit
- Channels about OSINT, Hacking, Security and so on
Also:
More Resources:
- Awesome OSINT + Crypto
- GOSI: GIAC Open Source Intelligence
- SEC487: Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Gathering and Analysis
- Inteltechniques.net
- Open Source Intelligence Techniques
- The Internet Intelligence & Investigation Handbook
- NATO OSINT HandBook
Tools:
Choosing a Pathway to Follow…
Some will enjoy analyzing images, satellite images, calculating time and place from the angle of shadows from a photo, or measuring mountain peak size in order to perform private detective investigations.
Or, let’s say, doing OSINT in crypto, for example, in which case your motivation will be money and self-fulfillment…
Read my channel if you like this topic… Or someone can even get into AD-INT which is growing day-by-day right now. For GEOINT skills training I suggest checking geoguessr.com & whereami.io.
Just take a look at this awesome Mind-Map:
Explore data terminals:
- A collection of several hundred online tools for OSINT
- This page is for anyone who loves open source investigating
- Start.me + OSINT
- Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) in 5 Hours — Full Course — Learn OSINT!
- Follow!
- Comparing OSINT Typosquatting Tools like DNSTwist, DNSRazzle against Bolster’s Typosquatting monitoring
- * What’s that font?
You may even want to de-anonymize telegram users (read this channel) or, conversely, join counter-OSINT bros. But in doing so, I urge you not to forget the key skills of information retrieval, information analytics, and information application…
I’ll highlight some basic advice for you — evaluate information according to different criteria, always know your “base settings” — it’s good for the mental health, the things you find shouldn’t ruin your foundations! Practice it, do it in your daily life, apply OSINT where it seems un-obvious like mentioned below:
Immersive & Gamified Learning: Games (b)
Join communities, of course and chat, chat! Above I’ve only mentioned English-speaking communities but there are also local ones, do some research on your own.
I’m 100% sure in you! You will succeed! Do you like to hang out with friends? If so, then try playing Dozor or Encounter (or any NightGame based on codebreaking or geolocation or Escapology or Lock-Picking) together!
Check out:
OSINT-Games:
- Sourcing.games
- osint.games
- spyingchallenge.com
- 10 Beginner OSINT CTF Solutions
- More OSINT CTFs
- OSINT Challenges List — Reddit
- 2 great OSINT Training Tools
- OSINT-Related Games — Reddit
- The 10 best location-based games
- 7 Geolocation Games to Get You Exploring the Outdoors
- Location-based game
- What is a Fox Hunt in Ham Radio?
- 9 Virtual Games to Play When You Can’t Be Together
Carefully study these resources and come back to them as you journey through the world of the hornets, don’t forget the roots. This article does not answer questions, but rather raises some rhetorical questions to encourage you to think about something!
- Comprehensive Counter OSINT
- Counter OSINT
- Open Source Intelligence Investigation: From Strategy to Implementation
- Intelligence in the internet age: The emergence and evolution of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)
- Intelligent evidence: Using open source intelligence (OSINT) in criminal proceedings
- The Intelligence Cycle: Generating OSINT from OSINF
Since this is an atypical guide, I think it’s worthwhile to offer you a list of TV shows and movies that I think involve OSINT in one way or another:
- SEARCHING
- The Most Hated Man on the Internet
- Why Did You Kill Me?
- Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet
- Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer
- Reddit Ruined Their Lives: The Innocent Victims Of Internet Justice
- Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror
- Who Am I — Kein System ist sicher
- The History of Analog Horror
- Dark Web: Cicada 3301
- Movie 43 (LOL)
- Mr. Robot
- Open Windows
- Män som hatar kvinnor
References:
- Any cool movies related to OSINT?
- OSINT Movies List
- OSINT Movie Time for the Holidays
- The best films about OSINT
- Intelligence Television and Movies About Spies, Spying, Intelligence and Espionage
- DOD film list — spreadsheet version
- Week in OSINT 2020–12
- ARG SubReddit
- OSINT SubReddit
OSINT Bookshelf:
- My recently read OSINT & security books — recommendations
- The Open Source Intelligence Analysis Bookshelf
- 7 OSINT Books Every Analyst Should Read
- Books by Michael Bazzell
- What to read to understand intelligence and espionage
- The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception — H. Keith Melton, Robert Wallace (2009) & Link & Link2
- Spycraft & Link
- Ultimate Spy
- Bestselling Books by Kevin Mitnick
Work: A-Z
I would see it as learning a foreign language. Okay, you have learned it and come to a country where it is spoken to live. But everyone there knows this language… So it’s important to know something else in addition.
Usually know how to write articles, work with an audience, or be a lawyer. Different approaches require different skills and mind-sets!
- “There’s No Such Thing As Open Source Intelligence”
- How to Become an Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Investigator
Work:
External Data
More tools (random) to use in work:
- mullvad.net/en/browser
- TinyCheck
- lampyre.io
- osintui
- Detect.Expert
- Venatorbrowser
- dnstwist
- Automated Website Takedown
Specific (to be updated):
- Bonus OSINT Twitter Crypto toolset
- Awesome OSINT Web3
- tgscanrobot
- maigret_osint_bot
- telesint_bot
- Twitter to TG bot
- osint-Brazil
- spiderfoot
- Awesome TG channel
- Maltego Transforms List
- OSINT open-source tools catalogue
- Template for new OSINT command-line tools
Awesome articles (external):
- Uncovering Hidden Connections: Using Maltego Holehe to Map Out a Person’s Digital Footprint
- Password OSINT
- Using AI to Develop Realistic Sock Puppet Accounts
- ARCHIVING & OSINT
- Awesome OSINT
- Awesome Telegram OSINT
- Open Source Intelligence: The Beginners’ Guide to OSINT
- DarkNet OSINT Guide
- Beginners Field Guide: Where & How to Learn OSINT
- OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE TOOLS AND RESOURCES HANDBOOK 2020
- Information Operations Recognition: from Nonlinear Analysis to Decision-making
- OSINT Analysis of the TOR Foundation
- Top 10 OSINT Tools for Nickname Investigation
Some outstanding tools:
- datashare.icij.org
- Pinpoint
- dtsearch.com
- Venator
- Start.me
- dorksearch.com
- Advangle
- obsidian.md
- dorkgenius.com
- canarytokens.org
- iplogger.org
- Universal Search
In-Depth (external):
- OSINT: How to find information on anyone
- OSINT — Beginner’s Guide (Part 1)
- OSINT: FOUNDATIONS
- How to Use OSINT to Detect Data Leaks and Breaches
- Introduction to OSINT
- How to Improve Cyber Attack Detection Using Social Media?
- Are you leaking information on the web? Use these tools to find out
- OSINT: Data Leaks and Data Breaches
- OSINT with gOSINT
- List of OSINT Web Resources
- An OSINT/SOCMINT Mind-map
- How to find — Robot
- How to Use OSINT in Cybersecurity
- OSINT (OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE) — become hard to hack!
- GitHub OSINT Topic
- SOCMINT — or rather OSINT of social media
More specific resources (external):
- OSINT Tools — Airtable
- OSINT — HUMINT
- Ultimate OSINT
- OSINT List
- Curated OSINT List
- OSINT Inception
- Yet another awesome OSINT list
- Cryptocurrency OSINT
- Awesome On-Chain Investigations HandBook
- Investigator tools
- A collection of several hundred online tools for OSINT
- Rawsec’s CyberSecurity Inventory
- OSINT-TOOLS-CLI
- Officer_CIA X MaxWayld: Content Overview
- Channels about OSINT, Hacking, Security and so on
- Exploring the Dark Side: OSINT Tools and Techniques for Unmasking Dark Web Operations
Telegram + Discord: Security, OSINT, SOCMINT:
- osint-mindset.gitbook.io | Tip: Use deepl.com!
- Discord OSINT Toolset
- DiscordOSINT
- OSINT Discord resources
- Discord & Telegram OSINT references
- Awesome Discord
- Awesome Telegram OSINT
- Darvester
- Telegram & Discord OpSec
- Discord OpSec for servers
- If you have been scammed…
Check out my articles:
- Navigation (my articles)
- Original Article
- OpSec Going Smart
- OpSec Going Smarter
- OpSec Going Smarter: Secure Smartphones
- Choosing a Reliable VPN Provider for Life & Work
- Innovative Trio in Smart Contract Security: Monitoring, Prevention, Defense
- The Only Safe Way to Store Crypto
- How Cross-Chain Bridges are Hacked?
- What you should do if you think someone has stolen your crypto-assets
- What to do when your Web3 project Discord server is hacked & how security audit may prevent it from happening
- Violent Attack Vectors in Web3: A Detailed Review
- What is ARP spoofing and how to protect against it?
- An ultimate list of rules any on-chain survivor should follow to stay safe!
- QR Code: An Underestimated Danger
- The most significant milestones in the development of communications
- Someone overheard me! Why it’s important to think about all attack vectors, even if they seem unlikely to happen?
- Laplace’s Demon Speaks: Is there a life in blockchain?
- MacOS + IOS + Crypto + OpSec = ?
- How to win the war, trick the KGB and protect your crypto-assets from theft by Steganography
- Master of OpSec Masters: A View Through the Prism of Time
- OpSec in Crypto: Thoughts
- Attacks via a Representative Sample : Myths and Reality
- How can you become a one-man-army OSINT specialist?
- Key principles of storing cryptocurrency securely
- On Operational Security in Web3
- Taming a Wildhorse CEX App
- Telegram & Discord Security Best Practices
Please open PRs!
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If you want to support my work, please consider donating me to the address:
- 0xB25C5E8fA1E53eEb9bE3421C59F6A66B786ED77A — ERC20 & ETH officercia.eth
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