Hey #OSINT, today in this thread we will summarize the evolution of OSINT in the past 200 years. Follow the thread 🧵
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
3. The intelligence services become government institutions and the segregation between domestic and foreign occurs, the open-source information being collected now from homeland sources and from abroad target territories by different structures
4. Public radio and tv networks are developed, if until that time, intelligence were focused on indexing, storing, accessing written info, they start now to be concerned with converting voice to text. The need to capture, index, store and access video info becomes also apparent.
5. In addition to SIGINT, IMINT or MASINT, the efficiency of OSINT starts to highly depend on the efficiency of computing equipment and technologies used
6. The massive use of the Internet causes an exponential growth in the volume of data available on the Internet
7. The moving from analogic to digital allows for the segmentation of data and data series, facilitating the collection, processing, and analysis.
8. The social media and the emergence of mobile data access (www) devices provide new categories of data and meta-data which allows for the micro-profiling and profiling of an entity or a group at any level.
9. Using the new technologies, the OSINT structures transform into actionable intelligence big volumes of data, which are most often unorganized, derived from multiple sources, available in different forms and collected through several categories of channels.
10. As the volumes of available data are huge, the purpose is no longer to collect all information that could be of interest, and the collection base needs to be continuously adapted to the intelligence needs.
Reference:
Ungureanu, G. T. (2021). OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE (OSINT). THE WAY AHEAD. Journal of Defense Resources Management (JoDRM), 12(1), 177-200.
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 🧵
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 don’t need all the data that’s 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? 🤶 Here's a list of signal intelligence agencies around the world (which send Santa the naughty list) 🕵️
1. UK 🇬🇧 - 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 🇳🇱 - 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
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 🌐
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.