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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

#21

Post by lakrhN »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #4

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?

PAI would sound like anyone had the right to the information, whereas OS sounds like it happens to be public (unfortunately), but of course only we the agencies should access it.

OS is a bureaucratic power term, which is of course quite old:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_intelligence#Histo...

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#22

Post by lucideer »

elib-at wrote: post #15
alabhyajindal wrote: post #4

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 availa…

The problem with this is that OSINT has been established as a term at a government level (likely before Open Source Software came about?), so any push to change it will be a greater feat than the inverse.

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#23

Post by trallnag »

graemep wrote: post #16
throwup238 wrote: post #3

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.

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

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#24

Post by sulandor »

graemep wrote: post #16
throwup238 wrote: post #3

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.

you'll get over it

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#26

Post by aaron695 »

graemep wrote: post #16
throwup238 wrote: post #3

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.

[dead]

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#27

Post by fmbb »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #4

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?

The term invariably seems to apply to two phenomenons:

1. Stalkers stalking people

2. Actors spreading misinformation on X about wartime atrocities

I can see why they want to brand their stuff “Open Source” which sounds like a good thing.

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#28

Post by Y_Y »

phito wrote: post #20
alabhyajindal wrote: post #4

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

PNMA

Re: Mastering Osint: How to Find Information on Anyone

#30

Post by hoseja »

graemep wrote: post #16
throwup238 wrote: post #3

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.

It really creates a weird cognitive dissonance in me to observe how a lot of useful stuff is hosted in russia.
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