OSINT Sources

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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.

Update your Google Chrome browser ASAP to get these important new security features

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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.

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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]

Penny Mordaunt says Boris Johnson’s Covid WhatsApp messages went missing

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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]

Microsoft CEO says unfair practices by Google led to its dominance as a search engine

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By SUMAN NAISHADHAM Updated 11:01 PM CET, October 2, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Monday that unfair tactics used by Google led to its dominance as a search engine, tactics that in turn have thwarted his company’s rival program, Bing.

Nadella testified in a packed Washington, D.C., courtroom as part of the government’s landmark antitrust trial against Google’s parent company, Alphabet. The Justice Department alleges Google has abused the dominance of its ubiquitous search engine to throttle competition and innovation at the expense of consumers, allegations that echo a similar case brought against Microsoft in the late 1990s.

Nadella said Google’s dominance was due to agreements that made it the default browser on smartphones and computers. He downplayed the idea that artificial intelligence or more niche search engines like Amazon or social media sites have meaningfully changed the market in which Microsoft competes with Google.

[read more…]

OSINT Training and briefings

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Agenda

We are humbled and proud to be invited to do an evening programme of several hours on OSINT in Utrecht early January. The audience will be from a information security, cyber security background, about 150 in total.

We will also have serious plans to support NATO with providing training programmes in Baghdad Iraq, for about two full weeks. The dates are set for something like February March 2024.

Other travel and training will be deliverd in Amman Jordan (again) and Tunesia somewhere early 2024.

Current training programmes

Here is the plan for the most popular OSINT training programme in our portfolio for 2024.

We have four OSINT Pathfinders planned for a total of 60 participants, 15 per programme. Each programme is three full days of hard work with full documentation provided, the spectacular IceBreaker Sessions on the evening of the first day, and lots of background material for each participant.

Read the training page with explanations and registration form if you are interested.

OSINT Pathfinder XVLIII
12-14 March 2024The HagueThe Netherlands
OSINT Pathfinder XLIX
11-13 June 2024The HagueThe Netherlands
OSINT Pathfinder L
17-19 September 2024The HagueThe Netherlands
OSINT Pathfinder LI
10-12 December 2024The HagueThe Netherlands

Future programmes

For 2024, we are working on offering online workshops and refreshers. The workshops will be devoted to current issues for practitioner OSINTians such as anonymous searching, identifying fake news, fact checking procedures etc.

The refreshers are aimed at OSINT Pathfinder abiturients who are in need of an update on certain aspects of the OSINT intelligence cycle.