Future OSINT plans

The future of our OSINT range of training programmes looks ever more promising. The OSINT Pathfinder range of training programmes will continue to be offered about four times a year. On top of that, we plan the following:

Online training

We will offer in the near future a full OSINT training programme online.

The idea is to schedule the training in modules of no more than 3 hours. Each module will be offered twice, one in a CEST timezone, the other in ET (USA) timezone. Documentation as usual will be extensive, and in print. Participants will indeed get a postal package with all the stuff they need to complete the OSINT training.

OSINT Master training

We are working to organise an OSINT Master training near the end of this year.

The Master is the follow-up of the Pathfinder and is a scenario exercise where groups of former Pathfinders are challenged to solve a complex scenarion exercise following the OSINT Methodology studies during a Pathfinder.

There is obviously also a short refresher of Pathfinder and some extra things such as a lesson on how to compile an OSINT report, the art of writing for intelligence, fact checking and geolocating.

Intelligence Analysis training

We will work on a new course, where we combine OSINT with intelligence analysis techniques.

We are looking at a 4 day training here, with an expert intel analysis trainer (I have two candidates already) taking two days and the OSINT training doing the first two days. The overall idea is this:

• OS – we retrieved open source information that is reliable, timely, relevant, validated etc,
• INT – now what are we going to do with it?

Giving a set of open source information that meets certain quality criteria, what intelligence analysis techniques would be useful to try and analyse the information. How does one then use these techniques to produce an intelligence report.

Refreshers

We like the concept of offering a yearly refresher to former participants of the Pathfinder training.

The only thing is that we wonder if a four hour refresher is too long. Is it a better idea to offer a refresher per theme and then maximum 90 minutes or so. In that case we would like to offer about 4 refreshers per year. Participants will obviously get updated documentation.

Let us know your thoughts on this one. 

 

 

…and how it all gets together

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is a collaborative, integrated research/production METHODOLOGY to CREATE an actionable intelligence product (called OSINT report) resulting from analysis of a representative selection of open source information (OSINF) in order to meet some intelligence requirement that is used to take decisions and start some change.

Open Source Information (OSINF) is information that can be COLLECTED from the public domain by anyone in a legal and ethically acceptable way, and that meets quality requirements such as authenticity, reliability, accuracy, time etc, regardless source, format or time, whether for free or commercial, and is being used to be analysed, probably in conjunctions with other sources, to become OSINT.

Information is any piece or document that serves the purpose of deriving information from, or is assigned that purpose. Thus, anything can be OSINF as long as the object is used to derive information from, like digital info, books, newspapers, audio/video, oral history, taxi drivers, porters, phone logs or archeological findings are all considered information that can be collected, indexed, catalogued, described, categorized and used for analyse, again after applying quality criteria.

Intelligence is analysed information that interprets, explains, predicts, clarifies, connects, judges, opinionates, categorizes, qualifies OSINF in order to support decision makers in making decisions and implementing change. Intelligence is by definition never collected, but created. An intelligence report produced by service P and send to Q is for the sender P intelligence, but for the recipient Q it is information, not intelligence, until Q has analysed the report, then it becomes intelligence again.

Legal and ethical restrictions mean, in short, that OSINF is only OSINF if the information was obtained in a legal way and that the information was intentionally published in the public domain. Hacking, cracking, password sniffing, stealing, data leaks etc. are therefor not considered OSINF and thus not eligable for OSINT. Wikileaks is thus not OSINF since that information was never intended to be in the public domain.

Conclusion. OSINT is thus very much more than just the world wide web (WWW) or social media. OSINT also deals with the other 98% of open source information that is NOT on the WWW or social media or even on the Internet. The W3 is only a fraction (less then 2%) of the surface web.

There is a wide variety of OSINT definitions. Mainly because there is many different requirements or backgrounds. Obvciously, an OSINT definition for a stratetic intel service is different then that of a law enforcement agency. In addition, there is different levels of OSINT, typically there are five classes with varying complexity.

One never collects or gathers OSINT. One CREATES OSINT. Also, there is no such thing as OSINT tools. All ‘tools’ are by assumption open source. OSINT is a methodology, a process, not an object. Almost all tools available today in the digital world, whether free or fee-based, can be used to collect OSINF in one way or the other. Using the phrase OSINT as an adjective does not mean something specific and does not make the tool more special or something.

Want to read more about OSINT or how to design your OSINT production capability? See the OSINT Bibliography I compiled over the years at htttp://bib.opensourceintelligence.biz

Want to learn more about OSINT training? Try http://www.opensourceintelligence.biz

#OSINT #OSINTtraining

I am very happy with all OSINT enthousiasts out there, but sometimes enthousiasm may be a little bit misleading.

Below is an interesting survey that suggests that open source information is limited to just the Internet, and within that framework just social media, and within that framework just 4 of the most popular once’s (there are hundreds of social networks).

Nothing can be further from the truth.

The global world of open source information (not ‘osint content’) is millions of times larger than this suggestion. Information in social media is but a fraction. OSINT professionals, information professionals, librarians and all those with a degree in information/library sciences know this. Example? Try Factiva, the British Library, Lexis-Nexis, Silobreaker to name a few big onces. The OSINT lesson here: know your sources!

#OSINT #OSINTtraining. OSINT training programmes.

The latest version includes a Safety Check tool that now runs in the background to warn you of compromised passwords or suspicious extensions – and so much more.

Written by Lance Whitney, ContributorDec. 22, 2023 at 10:10 a.m. PT

Google Chrome users looking for the latest in safety and performance will want to update the desktop browser to its newest version. In a blog post published Thursday, Google highlighted a couple of new features designed to notify you of malicious activity and help free up the browser’s memory use.

[source]

By Zoe Kleinman & Imran Rahman-Jones

BBC News

Government minister Penny Mordaunt is the latest witness in the government’s Covid inquiry to have an issue with missing WhatsApp messages.

The leader of the House of Commons said that two years of WhatsApp chats with Boris Johnson had disappeared.

Mr Johnson previously told the inquiry that he had lost about 5,000 messages.

His spokesperson told the BBC that he has “sent all relevant messages in his possession to the inquiry and has complied exactly with their requests”.

Many politicians have lost WhatsApp messages sent during the pandemic, including the prime minister Rishi Sunak, who was chancellor of the exchequer at the time, and former Stormont ministers.

Ms Mordaunt, who was paymaster general at the time, wrote in her witness statement: “I could find no WhatsApp messages between me and the PM between 20 March 2018 and 22 March 2020.”

She asked 14 times for a meeting with Boris Johnson’s chief of staff regarding the missing messages, “but had no response from his team”

[read more]