Finding Luther — An OSINT Geo location Challenge. 🧵
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: Here’s a tip (if you didn’t know already), IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Fandom Wiki pages could be super useful when you are investigating movies or TV shows. #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌐
Step 3: So it would have been easy, right? Hmm, no. These locations are the major ones (trivia), they could be different cities, counties, divisions, tourist etc. And they don’t dwell into the details of the coordinates. Even in this case, the image was shot in a random spot.
Step 4: Time for the real hunt! All buildings looked similar, the majority of them were brownish (maroon) in color. So now I tried to look for the objects (buildings). #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌐
Step 5: From the arsenal, I used the “just Google it” trick once again. And I got quite few results, & eventually they proved to be false positives. #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌐
Step 6: False Positives & The Bone Of Contention When you are looking at the structures, especially curves & quadrilaterals, probably you can’t know how they look at different angles. These were some false assumptions that I made. #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌎
Step 7: These buildings looked similar in some angles, but they were misleading. Frustrated, but I started looking at the reverse searched images and some miracle happened. I got an image from a meme/troll forum. (Trolls are good when used right).
Step 8: The image doesn’t look special, ain’t? But for me, it told me something. That is, the unique building (The Shard) is kinda neat to the contoured bull nosed building (pardon for the jargon). #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌎
Step 10: From The Shard, I moved in a slightly slanted way to find this unique building. And finally I got the Moor House. #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌎
Step 11: And now came the blindness! Remember, I mentioned earlier that every building in London looked the same? Well, now I just tried to imagine the angle from the Moor and started looking for the building corners & edges. #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌎
Step 13: To note down few observations, Luther was standing in a bit elevated building, the props around serves as a supporting evidence. #OSINT#geolocation#verification 🌎
Hey #OSINT 🕵️♀️ Just saw some post within the community talking about the difference between 'Open Source Information' and 'Open Source Intelligence' 🤠 which I believe could be flawed and subjective. Here's why? 👇
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
Hey #OSINT, what is your plan for the weekend? or do you want something interesting to watch? We have a list of documentaries on the most mysterious cases in history which remain unsolved until now. 🕵️♀️
1. The Zodiac Killer
is pseudonym of unidentified serial killer who operated in North California in late 60s. It has been described as the most famous unsolved murder case. It became a fixture of pop culture and inspired amateur detectives to solve it.
2. Dyatlov Pass incident
The Dyatlov Pass incident was an event in which 9 Soviet trekkers died in the northern Ural Mountains between February 1 and 2, 1959, in uncertain circumstances.
Terrorist groups are increasingly adapting to technology to recruit, to disseminate illegal content and to promote violence. #OSINT can help identifying these networks and understanding the way they operate online. Here's a list of tools for researching terrorism:
#OSINT is increasingly accepted as evidence in court. Where police once held the monopoly on investigating, internet has opened up this possibility to many other interested parties.
A thread 🧵
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Civilians have the internet to use their voice and skills, enabling them to access data about crimes once only available to the police.
Here's a list of research papers on OSINT for crime investigation and what could be the impacts:
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1. ‘Uppity civilians’ and ‘cyber-vigilantes’: The role of the general public in policing cyber-crime - doi.org/10.1177/174889…
This research argue that civilian policing of the internet is both relevant and prevalent in today’s society.
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Anything you can obtain via online as well as by traditional media research can be used for #OSINT. Here's a list of curated resources that you might find useful.