Thread by @THB_STX

Ok guys! #OSINT and #GEOINT story time! On a random Facebook group, someone posted a picture of a beautiful house without any information. I decided to do a little training. Goal: find the exact address.

1/?

At first, I started to search for "Black Victorian House California" in Google Image. Problem was: MANY results. (California seems to be one of the pillar of Victorian Houses).
So after some time, I decided to first confirm the State.

2/?

I focused on specific sections of the picture. Tried to find the type of plants in the front & such... Without luck. The last try was: identify the sign present behind the planks. I do not live in the US so at first, I was thinking about a garden/plant company ads.

3/?

Tried to reverse image the sign but the quality was too low for Yandex, Bing or Google. Dead end. Then I analysed the content. "RFI" or "RFl" (lowercase L) and some marks around the letters, looking like sparks or something. I tried to search:' "RFI" home alarm '... And...

4/?

Hello "RFI", San Jose, CA.
Perfect. I confirmed the house is located in California and near San Jose. Or at least the company they paid to wire their house with an alarm. Now I have to find the town. I tried to search "Victorian House San Jose" but... Nope.

5/?

Now the real game begins. After searching for "black painted victorian house California" I found another picture of the our target. It could give us more clues about the town/location. The Pinterest account was "californiahomedesign[.]com"

6/?

Let's search for "californiahomedesign victorian house". Bingo we have some eeeeh... 404 for our picture featured on their "article". But wait! Don't give up! We have information here. "Black Painted Ladies". It's the name given to this type of house.

7/?

And even cooler, we have the waybackmachine. What? San Francisco you said? Perfect. We can continue our investigation with the name of the city. Let's rock for "Black Painted Ladies houses San Francisco". And...

8/?

Hello "sfheritage[.]org". I recon this huge window and very specific roof for the "tower". It is our target. The palm tree in the top right corner of the thumbnail confirm it is the "Painted Lady" we are looking for.

Let's look at the article aaaand... Bingo! "Delmar Street, Ashbury Heights, San Francisco, CA".

Time to confirm the location in StreetView. The road is inclined to the left when facing the house. That'll help getting the exact location if the street is long.

9/?

Let's start down the street and follow the angle and... Oh! Palm tree in sight! We're on the right city, street and side of the road!

10/?

Getting up the road and...
Euréka!
I'll let you find the exact number but you got the idea. #OSINT & #GEOINT is an awesome exercise to do.

Cheers!