With Telegram growing ever more popular, vast amounts of data are being generated which we can use to map trends and fuel investigations. While most topics I discuss tend to focus on smaller granular cases, I want to cover an important topic. The data backbone is a much-neglected area in…

As citizen-driven open source intelligence (OSINT) grows in popularity, so does the risk of techniques being used by bad actors. I outline why digital investigators must promote a firmly ethical, but positive culture around our skillset. — For the past few years, the community of open source investigators comprising journalists, human rights advocates, and digital sleuths has expanded significantly. Notable outlets such as Bellingcat have brought tales of groundbreaking OSINT and OSI (open source investigation) to mainstream headlines and features.

This article explains how the Tibet Research Project was able to verify footage and imagery of a prison in Tibet and clarify a mixture of information online. This location is an interesting one because it is relatively well-documented, however, the information was spread across many sources and some claims were…

The internet is a journalist’s greatest tool, but also it can be a minefield of false leads and traps that can destroy your reputation. Whether you are under pressure to have perfectly clean copy, or you need to employ powerful digital verification techniques, Google Chrome’s extensions are your best friend. …

One of the best ways to hone your skills and have fun at the same time is GeoGuessr. This online game drops you in street view and allows you to move and look around with the purpose of dropping a pin on the world map where you think you are. …

When conducting a large open source research project, you want a way to store your data and share it with collaborators. My tool of choice for this is Google Sheets because it has real-time collaboration and allows for easy tracking of changes. Google Sheets operates much like Microsoft’s Excel, if…

If you are working on a project in Google Earth, you will want to have a number of tools to help allocate researchers to the right places. Adding a grid to Google Earth is a great way to divide up the research. There is no easy way to add grids…

UPDATED STORY: This article has been updated with new information regarding the tower. Since this was written it has obtained some interest from a number of sources. Most notably, The Drive was able to offer significantly more contemporary imagery at higher resolution. One source which lays doubt on the claim that this complex of buildings is of military origin is a scientific paper that describes the tower as a “meteorological tower” alongside details of atmospheric measurements. This may lend itself to the theory that the hangar is indeed for a stratospheric airship designed for meteorological measurements. With that said, there are still a number of indicators that this may also be a military installation (perhaps hand-in-hand with research) that warrant further analysis and investigation.

The internet is full of data which can be used to make your life easier. Today’s tutorial will look at taking such data and turning it into a useful format for journalists and open-source intelligence analysts. First, a bit about what we will cover. This tutorial will be based on…