Over the past year, Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team has begun creating its own open source research tools.
Now, the tech team is opening up to contributions from, and collaborations with, developers and open source investigators: bellingcat.com/resources/2021…
Open source investigations rely on the skills of human researchers. However, tools can help make the process significantly easier
Among the tools created by Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team so far are :
- A tool for finding Instagram "locations"
- An automatic video archiver for Google Sheets
- A Google Earth Engine application for finding small cloud-free subregions in cloudy satellite imagery.
We hope that with the help of open source developers and investigators, we will be able to improve these tools and to add more over time.
If you’re interested, here’s how you can begin to help…
1. Have a look at the tools on our Bellingcat Github and help us make them better github.com/bellingcat/
2. Read through our list of open-questions and start working on some of the more complex technical challenges that are relevant for open source investigators github.com/bellingcat/ope…
3. If, for example, you lead a computer science department at a university or work at a tech-focused research institute and have a concrete idea for a tool development collaboration (the software must be open source), please feel free to get in touch bellingcat.com/contact-the-be…
4. The same applies to every open source investigator who is in need of a specific tool for their work. You can submit your ideas and if we think the development of the tool may be feasible, we will add it to our list of tech challenges bellingcat.com/contact-the-be…
We are also publishing a handful of “open questions”. These are somewhat difficult, long-term technical challenges that could be of value to open source investigators. Feel free to take on the challenge and let us know how you get on github.com/bellingcat/ope…
You can read more about how you can help and collaborate with the Bellingcat Investigative Tech Team here: bellingcat.com/resources/2021…
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In a matter of weeks, the term “White Boy Summer” has gone from a seemingly innocent, mainstream internet fad to a viral meme among neo-Nazis and white supremacists with potentially dangerous consequences
@IwriteOK@hungrybowtie The phrase ‘White Boy Summer’ originates from a viral Instagram video posted by the actor and rapper, Chet Hanks in March. There appears to be nothing racist or political about Hanks’ use of the phrase.
But the term has been adopted by the extreme far-right in the months since
@IwriteOK@hungrybowtie Versions of the far-right’s dark subversion of the WBS meme have traveled from 4chan and encrypted messaging service Telegram, to more popular social media apps like TikTok where Bellingcat found one video featuring Nazi iconography that had been viewed more than 10k times.
Last week, new footage emerged of the Mahbere Dego massacre in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, on which we previously reported.
We have confirmed this new footage corresponds to the same event by matching features and people across the different videos bellingcat.com/news/2021/06/2…
The new footage contains the same features as the videos that we previously geolocated to two sites just south of Mahbere Dego.
These features include rock formations and a cliff edge.
The new footage also includes images of one of the captives seen in the original videos.
In the original videos, this man is seen in the custody of soldiers wearing army uniforms. In the new footage, the man is seen being executed by the soldiers and thrown off a cliff.
Hugo Schultz, the former mayor of Chínipas, Mexico, was sentenced to eight years in prison last week over his involvement in the 2017 murder of the journalist, Miroslava Breach. bellingcat.com/news/americas/…
In 2019, we helped a group of Mexican journalists called the Colectivo 23 de Marzo, @FbdnStories and @CLIP_AmericaLat follow the threads in Breach's work to uncover corruption and links between Schultz and drug traffickers.
@FbdnStories@CLIP_AmericaLat Last year, Juan Carlos Moreno Ochoa, a.k.a. "El Larry", a lieutenant with a drug trafficking organisation, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for ordering Breach's killing.
The trial court heard that Schultz threatened Breach over her investigations at the behest of El Larry.
Today @ForensicArchi, in collaboration with @ECCHRBerlin, @yemeniarchive, @GLAN_LAW and @bellingcat have released a time-map of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen, demonstrating the complicity of European arms manufacturers in the air campaign.
Combining information from multiple different organisations, this map is a collaborative visual representation of the results of an air campaign which has devastated Yemen, targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, hospitals, cultural objects and water infrastructure.
Based primarily on open source information, the platform demonstrates how a digital ripple is created during extreme events like conflict; a kind of online memory that, just like human memory, will gradually fade and disappear unless it is preserved.
With this week's investigation into the poisoning of Dmitry Bykov, Bellingcat has now published about 6 individuals followed by the FSB's assassination squad, 3 of which whom fell into comas while being followed, and 3 whom died under mysterious circumstances while being followed
The first investigation looked at the August 2020 poisoning of Alexey @Navalny, who was followed dozens of times by the FSB assassination squad before he fell into a coma in August 2020 bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
This investigation included @Navalny calling up one of the team identified by Bellingcat, and posing as an assistant to one of the team member's superiors, extracting detailed information on how the operation was executed from the hapless agent bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
New — Popular Russian poet, Dmitry Bykov was tracked by the same squad of FSB operatives that tailed Alexey Navalny prior to his poisoning, including shortly before he fell seriously ill from a sudden mysterious illness. bellingcat.com/news/2021/06/0…
Bykov fell ill on a flight in 2019 with symptoms similar to those experienced by Navalny. On that trip, and multiple previous trips, Bykov was followed by FSB operatives involved with the poisoning of @Navalny.
Dmitry Bykov is a well-known Russian writer, poet and journalist. Renowned as a literary critic, educator and a satirist, he often churns out satirical poems that provide acerbic social commentary on current events and on the political regime.