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Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

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Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#11

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?

> "PAT" would have been a better acronym: Public Available Information. informaTion? > Do we refer to street dogs as open source dogs? No, but we don't call them Public Available Dogs either.

My bad - messed up the acronym!

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#12

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?

> 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 accessib…

I agree that individually those terms convey the exact thing as publicly available information.

> Is your reaction, perhaps, because you are accustomed to "open source" being used in the software sense?

Yes exactly. I feel like a different term should be used here, because open source is already a widely established term in software.

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#13

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?

Or PINT: Public INT.

... I called it Public Intelligence (PubInt)

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "PAT" would have been a better acronym: Public Available Information. informaTion? > Do we refer to street dogs as open source dogs? No, but we don't call them Public Available Dogs either.

My bad - messed up the acronym!

PAI might be a bit close to PII.. although I guess there would be overlap :)

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#15

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?

...this takes me down a rabbit hole to 2010. We once tried to establish "Public Intelligence" [PubInt] as it was a term we used since 2003 in 2010 but it only caught on with some businesses. The then definition was - to differenciate it from OSINT - bound to the use of the information in a "civic" context - here you got them for fun and giggles:

2003: Public intelligence refers to sources of information freely available to the individual to be the basis for it's role as a responsible and critical citizen as part of a group or state.

Public Intelligence is associated with the application of Open source intelligence (OSInt) to empower the public in its dealings with all forms of organization, and most especially government. It is an applied variant of Collective intelligence.

It was inspired by the 1978 Colby book:

"Intelligence must accept the end of its special status in the American government, and take on the task of informing the public of its nature and its activities as any other department or agency. . . . By far the most effective manner of accomplishing the task . . . is by letting the public benefit directly from the products of intelligence, its information and assessments. " --former DCI William Colby, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA, Simon & Schuster, 1978, pp. 459-60.

I put it together for your viewing pleasure: https://elib.at/index.php?title=Public_Intelligence_-_Glossa... enjoy

edit:typos

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#16

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 customer…

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.

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#17
post #16

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 customer…

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.

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.

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 accessib…

I agree that individually those terms convey the exact thing as publicly available information. > Is your reaction, perhaps, because you are accustomed to "open source" being used in the software sense? Yes exactly. I feel like a different term should be used here, because open source is already a widely established term in software.

The thing is, there's a whole world outside software development and as unpleasant as it might sound, they don't care that much what words we use among us.

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 accessib…

I agree that individually those terms convey the exact thing as publicly available information. > Is your reaction, perhaps, because you are accustomed to "open source" being used in the software sense? Yes exactly. I feel like a different term should be used here, because open source is already a widely established term in software.

The term "open source" as referring to sofware was suggested in 1997 but I could find references to OSINT from at least 1991-1995[0], so I'd say "Open Source Intelligence" should get precedence.

[0] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADB194025.pdf

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#20

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?

Please no more acronyms
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