Hey #OSINT, do you have any plan for weekend? If you don't, we have a curated list of great books on espionage πππ΅οΈ
A thread π§΅
1. The Unending Game by Vikram Sood
Former chief of India's external intelligence agency deconstructs the shadowy world of spies, from the Cold War era to the age of global jihad, from surveillance states to psy-war, from gathering info to turning it into credible intelligence.
2. True Believer by Kati Marton
Noel Field, an American who betrayed his country. Field spied for Stalin during the 1930s and '40s. Then, a pawn in Stalinβs sinister master strategy, he was kidnapped and tortured by KGB and forced to testify against his own Communist comrades.
3. Inside the Company: CIA Diary by Philip Agee
Former CIA case officer Philip Agee, was the Edward Snowden of his generation. Revealing the names of more than 250 fellow spymasters, this is a raw, blistering account of the lengths to which the US went during the cold war.
4. Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
In 2013, Edward Snowden shocked the world when he revealed that the US government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance.
5. Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner
Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize national security.
6. Mitrokhin Archive II
This book discloses the KGB's secret contacts with a series of world leaders as well as with terrorist hijackers and communist parties around the globe.
7. Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman
This book demonstrates the central β and constant β presence of targeted assassination in Israeli policy since the beginning of the twentieth century, before even the foundation of the state of Israel.
8. MI6 Spy Skills for Civilians by Red Riley
MI6 Spy Skills for Civilians shows you how to master the skills of a British agent in order to protect yourself and others, be sneakier and handle any situation - even if it involves escaping from a hostile foreign country.
9. The Spy Who Couldn't Spell by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Before Snowdenβs infamous data breach, the largest theft of government secrets was committed by an ingenious traitor whose intricate espionage scheme and complex system of coded messages were made by his dyslexia.
10. The Indian Spy by Mihir Bose.
Bhagat Ram Talwar was the only quintuple spy of World War II, spying for Britain, Italy, Germany, Japan and the USSR. His exploits and the people he worked with were truly remarkable.
Honorable mention: The Spy Who Changed History by Svetlana Lokhova
Hey #OSINT, today in this thread we will summarize the evolution of OSINT in the past 200 years. Follow the thread π§΅
1. The advent of print media leads to the establishment of intelligence systems allowing the systemic and systematic collection from open sources.
2. The structured intelligence networks start to influence and control the print media and the intelligence services need to categorize the information collected from the press based on criteria related to publication, author and context
Hey #OSINT, apart from OSINT did you know that there are many other types of intelligence gathering. Here's a list of intelligence gathering disciplines (including OSINT).
A thread π§΅
1. Human intelligence (HUMINT)
NATO defines it as "a category of intelligence derived from information collected and provided by human sources." It's mostly done by people rather than any technical means, and is commonly provided by covert agents and spies.
2. Geospatial intelligence (GEOINT)
is exploitation and analysis of imagery, signals, or signatures with geospatial info. Data can be collected by electro-optical, SAR, sensor programs (active & passive), non-technical means (acquired by personnel in the field).
Today the Internet Archive has a collection of nearly 625 billion web pages, 38 million books and texts, 14 million audio recordings, 7 million videos (including 2 million Television News programs), 4 million images, 790,000 software programs and more.
With all due respect, we donβt need all the data thatβs been recorded by the Internet Archive. Usually people save pages on the Wayback Machine that are relevant to them.
So let's use 'Archive Box' @ArchiveBoxApp to make our own archive.
Hey #OSINT, did you enjoy Christmas? π€Ά Here's a list of signal intelligence agencies around the world (which send Santa the naughty list) π΅οΈ
1. UK π¬π§ - Government Communications Headquarters
Formed: 1 November 1919; 103 years ago (as Government Code and Cypher School)
commonly known as GCHQ
Headquarters: The Doughnut, Hubble Road, Cheltenham, England, United Kingdom
official site: gchq.gov.uk
2. Netherlands π³π± - Inlichtingen-en Algemene Veiligheidsdienst
Formed: 30 May 2002; 20 years ago
The AIVD focuses mostly on domestic non-military threats to Dutch national security
Headquarters: Europaweg 4, Zoetermeer, Netherlands
official site: english.aivd.nl
Hey #OSINT#geolocation#verification π΅οΈββοΈπ΅οΈββοΈ, let's solve a geolocation challenge. Blast from the past. π€
Finding Luther β An OSINT Geo location Challenge. π§΅
Step 1: This time I wanted to approach this zero knowledge target differently. So the first thing that I did was to reverse search the image. I got few results on Google & Yandex. Even they pointed out the season and episode number of Luther. #OSINT#geolocation#verification
Step 2: Hereβs a tip (if you didnβt know already), IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Fandom Wiki pages could be super useful when you are investigating movies or TV shows. #OSINT#geolocation#verification π
Hey #OSINT π΅οΈββοΈ Just saw some post within the community talking about the difference between 'Open Source Information' and 'Open Source Intelligence' π€ which I believe could be flawed and subjective. Here's why? π
First question - All of a sudden, what is this #OSINF
Open Source Intelligence is utilizing publicly available data for various purposes. And what should be considered as 'Intelligence' is dependent on the organization or interests. If one's a journalist or LE or spy, everyone's definition/priorities of 'Intelligence' differs.#OSINT
Usage of JARGON
Gap analysis, Pattern analysis, Strategic analysis (& N number of analysis)
Well, all these are NOT specifically related to OSINT, because there is no standard definition of OSINT. Perhaps, some international orgs have defined it based on their interests.#OSINT