8 ms·

Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

233 points by droidrat 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwup238 2y ago
SWIM's recommendation for anyone wanting to learn is to sign up for Breachforum and read up on all of the contents in their OSINT subforum [1] where you can ask questions too. If you're willing to boogey on into the grey area, you can even download leaked datasets from BreachForum, Leakbase.io, etc. to make your job a lot easier if it involves identifying people online - for example a few databases like AT&T customers and the NationalPublicData database were leaked recently which is kind of like having a private LexisNexis Accurint at your fingertips. [1] https://breachforums.st/Forum-OSINT https://breachforums.st/Forum-OSINT
- graemep 2y ago
  A site with a "grey area", which does not work without running a third party Javascript, and hosted in in Russia makes me a bit twitchy.
  - khafra 2y ago
    This is definitely a topic area where people overly familiar might omit standard safety precautions within their instructions: Do use a burner VM, don't do any of your normal computing on that VM, etc.
  - trallnag 2y ago
    In the current environment it is tough to host things like that on the clearnet and not rely on "shady" hosting in Russia and similar nations
  - sulandor 2y ago
    you'll get over it
  - aaron695 2y ago
    [dead]
  - hoseja 2y ago
    It really creates a weird cognitive dissonance in me to observe how a lot of useful stuff is hosted in russia.
- zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
  Someone who is me
  - arresin 2y ago
    Legally airtight. A genius stratagem basically.
- kid64 2y ago
  Isn't that site now under FBI control? https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-arrest-founder-one-world-s-largest-hacker-forums-and-disruption https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
- cgcan 2y ago
  [flagged]
alabhyajindal 2y ago
I never liked this term. Why is the term "Open Source" used to refer to publicly available information? Something like "PAT" would have been a better acronym: Public Available Information. Do we refer to street dogs as open source dogs?
- abhaynayar 2y ago
  Or PINT: Public INT.
  - elib-at 2y ago
    ... I called it Public Intelligence (PubInt)
    - arresin 2y ago
      PINTO - the last o is online.
      - cgcan 2y ago
        [dead]
- randomdata 2y ago
  > Why is the term "Open Source" used to refer to publicly available information? Well, why not? "Source" has long referred to available information. In fact, you probably won't have to read HN long before you encounter a "source plz"-type meme, intended to mean something akin to: "Please point me to the available information that supports your claim." "Open" has long referred to available information that is accessible to users. "Open source[code]" uses "open" in the same way. PAT works too but I'm not sure it communicates anything meaningfully different. As far as I can tell, they are trying to communicate the very same thing. Is your reaction, perhaps, because you are accustomed to "open source" being used in the software sense? > Do we refer to street dogs as open source dogs? Dogs haven't typically been seen as information, so, for all practical purposes, probably not. But if we want to change that, sure, why not? Language doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care.
robertclaus 2y ago
I couldn't get those Google searches to find my resume. I wonder if I was doing something wrong...
- dosinga 2y ago
  You called it Work Experience is that why maybe?
rbanffy 2y ago
When it’s impossible to prevent bad actors from gaining access to weapons, the best thing to do is to level the field by giving the same weapons to everyone. It’s kind of mad.
Duckyroad 2y ago
From my impression, the way you get good at OSINT is knowing which types of information tend to be related, and where to go with what you have. All OSINT guides include a surprising amount of paid tools. OSINT tools are dime a dozen, you have to know how to use them. Finding tools is easy, there are endless collections of them: - https://osintframework.com/ https://osintframework.com/ - https://github.com/jivoi/awesome-osint https://github.com/jivoi/awesome-osint - https://cylect.io/ https://cylect.io/ The hard part is deciding when, where, how, and with what information to use them. I am surprised how little information about OSINT is on hackernews (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=OSINT https://hn.algolia.com/?query=OSINT barely has results) If you are not some journalist, you won't need serious OSINT. (Investigating someone for fun?) You can play geoguesser for fun. That's "technically" OSINT and you will know geography. Here is a Geoguesser (Rainbolt) player finding places from images: https://www.youtube.com/@georainbolt/videos https://www.youtube.com/@georainbolt/videos Here are some OSINT challenges if you want: https://gralhix.com/list-of-osint-exercises/ https://gralhix.com/list-of-osint-exercises/ A skill I recommend much more than OSINT is being good at normal searching and collecting some basic metadata, and getting the gist of new topics quickly. - You want to buy something, how do you figure out the price, quality, and whether it is a good deal. How to quickly figure out what matters and what doesn't? Which features are common, which false advertised, which are aesthetic bloat. - You are traveling or moving to a new city, how do you quickly figure out all the tricks locals know and not fall for tourist cash grabs. - You find a shady website, app, or chrome extension. Pocke around with the source code and domain names to round up the entire operation and report it. - Some new person you got to know works/likes something you know little about. How do you quickly figure out some deeper questions to ask. - Find what an error in your computer. It boils down to knowing the underlying structure of whatever you are digging. Insiders tend to know ecosystem so well it seems obvious, despite it being hard to integrate into for an outsider.
- cgcan 2y ago
  [flagged]
Flatcircle 2y ago
It’s shockingly easy to find information about almost anyone within the first couple pages of google
- xyst 2y ago
  and even if there’s no information on the first and last name. There will likely be at least somebody in your web of relationships that leaked something.
runald 2y ago
Some funny anecdote, my fullname is relatively unique, two or three people have it AFAIK. On my upwork profile, they put the military veteran status because a completely unrelated military guy with the same name shows up in the google/linkedin search. I can't remove the status, I don't even look like the other guy.
- blantonl 2y ago
  Forced valor
- 8organicbits 2y ago
  In some countries, falsely claiming military status is a crime. I'd be very careful about accepting any jobs using that profile as you may be committing fraud. (Not a lawyer)
  - runald 2y ago
    Thanks for the heads-up. Not aware of any law like that from where I live, but I should file a ticket to remove the veteran status just in case.
kcaseg 2y ago
"Gather the Data: Use various tools and methods to collect information." "By following a structured approach and leveraging specialized tools, you can effectively gather, analyze, and verify information from publicly available sources." Am I paranoid or was this partly written by an LLM? Or is it just naturally so vague and generic. I mean most of the tips are kinda legit, but after the title I expected a little more than this.
- klez 2y ago
  Frankly I got that impression too, but more because of the structure of the post than anything else.
  - cgcan 2y ago
    [flagged]
- orangesun 2y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- r721 2y ago
  I checked who else submitted osintteam.blog domain, and it's user https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=haydenbannz https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=haydenbannz , and it looks like they used HN mostly for self-promotion: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=haydenbannz https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=haydenbannz (some posts are [dead]).
blantonl 2y ago
There was a command line tool available where you could enter a few attributes (such as a username) and the tool would plow through just about every online service to find and report data. Anyone remember what it was?
- webdevver 2y ago
  perhaps 'sherlock'? https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock
  - blantonl 2y ago
    yup, this was it. Thanks!
- binarysneaker 2y ago
  https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

233 points by droidrat 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

SWIM's recommendation for anyone wanting to learn is to sign up for Breachforum and read up on all of the contents in their OSINT subforum [1] where you can ask questions too. If you're willing to boogey on into the grey area, you can even download leaked datasets from BreachForum, Leakbase.io, etc. to make your job a lot easier if it involves identifying people online - for example a few databases like AT&T customers and the NationalPublicData database were leaked recently which is kind of like having a private LexisNexis Accurint at your fingertips. [1] https://breachforums.st/Forum-OSINT https://breachforums.st/Forum-OSINT

graemep 2y ago
A site with a "grey area", which does not work without running a third party Javascript, and hosted in in Russia makes me a bit twitchy.
- khafra 2y ago
  This is definitely a topic area where people overly familiar might omit standard safety precautions within their instructions: Do use a burner VM, don't do any of your normal computing on that VM, etc.
- trallnag 2y ago
  In the current environment it is tough to host things like that on the clearnet and not rely on "shady" hosting in Russia and similar nations
- sulandor 2y ago
  you'll get over it
- aaron695 2y ago
  [dead]
- hoseja 2y ago
  It really creates a weird cognitive dissonance in me to observe how a lot of useful stuff is hosted in russia.
zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
Someone who is me
- arresin 2y ago
  Legally airtight. A genius stratagem basically.
kid64 2y ago
Isn't that site now under FBI control? https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-arrest-founder-one-world-s-largest-hacker-forums-and-disruption https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
cgcan 2y ago
[flagged]

alabhyajindal 2y ago

I never liked this term. Why is the term "Open Source" used to refer to publicly available information? Something like "PAT" would have been a better acronym: Public Available Information. Do we refer to street dogs as open source dogs?

abhaynayar 2y ago
Or PINT: Public INT.
- elib-at 2y ago
  ... I called it Public Intelligence (PubInt)
  - arresin 2y ago
    PINTO - the last o is online.
    - cgcan 2y ago
      [dead]
randomdata 2y ago
> Why is the term "Open Source" used to refer to publicly available information? Well, why not? "Source" has long referred to available information. In fact, you probably won't have to read HN long before you encounter a "source plz"-type meme, intended to mean something akin to: "Please point me to the available information that supports your claim." "Open" has long referred to available information that is accessible to users. "Open source[code]" uses "open" in the same way. PAT works too but I'm not sure it communicates anything meaningfully different. As far as I can tell, they are trying to communicate the very same thing. Is your reaction, perhaps, because you are accustomed to "open source" being used in the software sense? > Do we refer to street dogs as open source dogs? Dogs haven't typically been seen as information, so, for all practical purposes, probably not. But if we want to change that, sure, why not? Language doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care.

robertclaus 2y ago

I couldn't get those Google searches to find my resume. I wonder if I was doing something wrong...

dosinga 2y ago
You called it Work Experience is that why maybe?

rbanffy 2y ago

When it’s impossible to prevent bad actors from gaining access to weapons, the best thing to do is to level the field by giving the same weapons to everyone. It’s kind of mad.

Duckyroad 2y ago

From my impression, the way you get good at OSINT is knowing which types of information tend to be related, and where to go with what you have. All OSINT guides include a surprising amount of paid tools. OSINT tools are dime a dozen, you have to know how to use them. Finding tools is easy, there are endless collections of them: - https://osintframework.com/ https://osintframework.com/ - https://github.com/jivoi/awesome-osint https://github.com/jivoi/awesome-osint - https://cylect.io/ https://cylect.io/ The hard part is deciding when, where, how, and with what information to use them. I am surprised how little information about OSINT is on hackernews (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=OSINT https://hn.algolia.com/?query=OSINT barely has results) If you are not some journalist, you won't need serious OSINT. (Investigating someone for fun?) You can play geoguesser for fun. That's "technically" OSINT and you will know geography. Here is a Geoguesser (Rainbolt) player finding places from images: https://www.youtube.com/@georainbolt/videos https://www.youtube.com/@georainbolt/videos Here are some OSINT challenges if you want: https://gralhix.com/list-of-osint-exercises/ https://gralhix.com/list-of-osint-exercises/ A skill I recommend much more than OSINT is being good at normal searching and collecting some basic metadata, and getting the gist of new topics quickly. - You want to buy something, how do you figure out the price, quality, and whether it is a good deal. How to quickly figure out what matters and what doesn't? Which features are common, which false advertised, which are aesthetic bloat. - You are traveling or moving to a new city, how do you quickly figure out all the tricks locals know and not fall for tourist cash grabs. - You find a shady website, app, or chrome extension. Pocke around with the source code and domain names to round up the entire operation and report it. - Some new person you got to know works/likes something you know little about. How do you quickly figure out some deeper questions to ask. - Find what an error in your computer. It boils down to knowing the underlying structure of whatever you are digging. Insiders tend to know ecosystem so well it seems obvious, despite it being hard to integrate into for an outsider.

cgcan 2y ago
[flagged]

Flatcircle 2y ago

It’s shockingly easy to find information about almost anyone within the first couple pages of google

xyst 2y ago
and even if there’s no information on the first and last name. There will likely be at least somebody in your web of relationships that leaked something.

runald 2y ago

Some funny anecdote, my fullname is relatively unique, two or three people have it AFAIK. On my upwork profile, they put the military veteran status because a completely unrelated military guy with the same name shows up in the google/linkedin search. I can't remove the status, I don't even look like the other guy.

blantonl 2y ago
Forced valor
8organicbits 2y ago
In some countries, falsely claiming military status is a crime. I'd be very careful about accepting any jobs using that profile as you may be committing fraud. (Not a lawyer)
- runald 2y ago
  Thanks for the heads-up. Not aware of any law like that from where I live, but I should file a ticket to remove the veteran status just in case.

kcaseg 2y ago

"Gather the Data: Use various tools and methods to collect information." "By following a structured approach and leveraging specialized tools, you can effectively gather, analyze, and verify information from publicly available sources." Am I paranoid or was this partly written by an LLM? Or is it just naturally so vague and generic. I mean most of the tips are kinda legit, but after the title I expected a little more than this.

klez 2y ago
Frankly I got that impression too, but more because of the structure of the post than anything else.
- cgcan 2y ago
  [flagged]
orangesun 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
r721 2y ago
I checked who else submitted osintteam.blog domain, and it's user https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=haydenbannz https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=haydenbannz , and it looks like they used HN mostly for self-promotion: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=haydenbannz https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=haydenbannz (some posts are [dead]).

blantonl 2y ago

There was a command line tool available where you could enter a few attributes (such as a username) and the tool would plow through just about every online service to find and report data. Anyone remember what it was?

webdevver 2y ago
perhaps 'sherlock'? https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock
- blantonl 2y ago
  yup, this was it. Thanks!
binarysneaker 2y ago
https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock https://github.com/sherlock-project/sherlock

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]