Introduction Occasionally you may come across a photo that you need to geolocate but there are no distinct landmarks or features that can guide you. You might think that there is nothing to be done. Sometimes, even in those cases, geolocation is still possible, you just need to take a slightly longer route. This blog... Continue Reading →
How to geolocate remote villages in Afghanistan using reference maps
Introduction Occasionally you will come across videos that will tell you exactly where they were filmed. You'll get excited thinking that geolocating it will be extremely fast and easy. You jump to Google Maps, write the name of the village and nothing. Google has no idea what you mean. You try another similar word. Maybe... Continue Reading →
How to monitor oppressive regimes on Twitter using TweetDeck
Introduction Open source data is all around us and there are endless ways to take advantage of it. Whilst there are many people working in OSINT who track down individuals, organisations, and/or locations, I do a wider version of that. My job involves monitoring, analysing and investigating conflict between countries, organised groups and/or civilians. For... Continue Reading →
Geolocation of a torture chamber in Balakliya, Ukraine
(Click here to watch and listen to the video version of this blog entry) Warning: Please be aware that, as the title indicate, this blog entry will cover the topic of torture. The focus will be on the geolocation of the building but I felt a warning was necessary. I will share a photo of... Continue Reading →
Geolocating school girls in Paktia, Afghanistan
(Click here to watch and listen to the video version of this blog entry) Introduction So far I have been focused on writing about geolocations in Ukraine, which tend to not be too hard. I wanted to show how different things can be when there is no recent satellite imagery, google streetview, or local business... Continue Reading →
Geolocation of hidden footage of a Russian filtration camp
(Click here to watch and listen to the video version of this blog entry) One of my OSINT reports entitled "Deported Civilians: How civilians are illegally deported to Russia" was published at the Centre for Information Resilience website amongst many other brilliant pieces of work from my colleagues. I spent weeks (months!) collecting and analysing... Continue Reading →
How to do a small OSINT investigation
(Click here to watch and listen to the video version of this blog entry) Introduction With an overall increase in people's interest in OSINT either as a tool to fight disinformation, part of the reconnaissance phase of ethical hacking, or as an aid in the investigation of possible war crimes, we have come to witness... Continue Reading →
How to find geotagged tweets on Twitter
(Click here to watch and listen to the video version of this blog entry) Introduction The ability to find localised information is extremely important when carrying out live investigations. Often in my workday as an OSINT analyst I am tasked with finding data on ongoing events to help gather more evidence about what happened. This... Continue Reading →
How to find geotagged videos on YouTube
(Click here to watch and listen to the video version of this blog entry) Introduction Part of any OSINT investigation is finding reliable data that can be analysed and verified in order to end up on a report that, later on, can be disseminated into the wider public. As a member of a big team... Continue Reading →