Information does not need to be secret to be valued. The information that we access every day is somehow valuable to us in different manners. It’s up to us that how we make the most of it. The blogs we browse, the broadcasts we watch, business websites, videos, social networks, forums or the specialized journals and newspapers we read; there is an endless supply of information that contributes to our understanding of the world. The information can be classified or maybe some time publicly available to us anytime, anywhere.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is an art of converting information into intelligence that refers to any unclassified information and includes anything freely available on the web. The information is available to all comers, but it is not always easily found. Much of it is available on the Deep Web or Online Underground Market or commonly known Hidden Internet. Open Source Intelligence comprises of gathering useful information from the publicly available platform like the internet. The minor details are very useful in different aspects, we only need to identify those useful minor information.

There is information publicly available online right now that you are missing by searching with Google, or not searching for at all because you aren’t even aware that it exists. For Open Source Intelligence, different browsers and websites on deep web are accessed because many websites are unreachable from Google crawlers.

What can be done through Open Source Intelligence?

As OSINT is driven from freely available material, there are endless possibilities to use such information for intelligence purpose. There are various tasks that can be achieved by open source intelligence that includes:

Conduct advanced search queries on dozens of search engines.

Identify users of private cellular telephone numbers.

Access restricted information through cached results.

Monitor live content and communication on all social networks.

Access content believed to be private on social networks.

Locate a target's long forgotten Facebook activity.

Search Geo Location data within Twitter, Flickr, and Instagram streams.

Reverse search photographs for additional copies and details.

Search historical deleted versions of websites.

Locate documents related to target subject.

Search online forums for communication.

View multiple satellite imagery and street views of any location.

Identify cropped and manipulated photographs.

Retrieve Caller ID information from any landline or cellular telephone number.

Identify all social networks in use by target username.

Identify the location from the image.

How to get started?

Find a mentor and take help to get started in the OSINT field; you can take an online training course that teaches the OSINT process. There’s been a growing community of online open source investigators on different social media websites, particularly on Twitter. A good way to start as an open source investigator by finding some of the people discussing open source material, and follow those discussions to get a real feel.

Once you get the basic understanding of the open source intelligence, you can get started with your own ideas and opinions. This will help you to build your own reputation in the existing communities.

Be aware of Agenda and Facts

There are many investigators who instead talking about facts, try to initiate propagandas. So you must propose your findings along concrete evidences and logic to claim. Try to remain on the positive side of the community to build good reputation in the field.

A recent stumble upon ISIS supporter from open source intelligence proves its endless possibilities. A great example of where positive discussions can go is the ISIS social media campaign which, thanks to Twitter’s open source intelligence community, ended up to the chase of that activist. A simple photograph with the social media hash tags on a piece of paper lead Open Source Investigators from Twitter to track down the exact location where each photograph was taken.





There are many similar examples in all sorts of investigations, and you’ll often see people on social media sharing their attempts. The core expertise to start with an open source investigation is Geo-location. Geo-location is using clues in photographs or videos to find the precise location it was captured, so from this an investigator can verify and identify one’s location.

How to make your findings successful?

Apart from following different communities on social media, you can also check out the growing number of websites and blogs that are publishing their own open source investigations. There are a number of conflicts around the world like the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine have produced a number of these sites. For people who are trying to write something about their open source investigations can first take a look to such website.













The thing that makes your writing successful includes each step of the process you used to come to your conclusion. It will help anyone reading your work to be able to follow those steps and arrive at the same conclusion without any leap of logic.

Instead of working on new information, you can also recreate an investigation to find some hidden facts that the original author has failed to notice. It will help you a lot as some work has been done previously.

Learn how lucky you are

When online Open Source Intelligence first became popular there were no online guides or case studies for anyone who wanted to learn how to do it themselves. Since Bellingcat and others have produced an ever increasing number of guides, case studies and how to guides on various aspects of verification and online open source investigation. There are also many online courses available to get hands on practical experience from experienced professionals; for example, 7 weeks open source intelligence training challenge.

You can start your own investigation from freely available information and convert it into useful intelligence that can somehow help others to resolve issues or progress in any other aspect.