OSINT

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OSINT is a abbreviation for Open Source Intelligence, and in its broadest meaning simply means information obtained by examining public sources. This ranges from just reading newspapers to looking things up in public databases or government publications.

With the advent of the internet and in particular smartphones that allow for practically real time creation of records about events, the scope of what is possible with OSINT expanded considerably. It is now very common that anything exciting happening in the industrialised world will lead to the creation of very many recordings, photos and public text messages describing the events from numerous points of view on the vicinity of the event.

These recent technological and social developments have lead to the word OSINT taking on the more narrow definition in some circles, frequently meaning something like "a random person looking at images posted on social media and elsewhere to determine what really happened at some remote part of the Earth", and with the person doing it seeing the task somewhere between a fun sport and serious journalism.

OSNIT Guides

OSINT case studies