Our weekly hack for those in the field doing the work & digging up critical intel.
The ability to uncover information on the internet is the primary skill of an online investigator. There are hundreds of thousands of surface, deep, and dark websites, but which are most pertinent to your unique case? Do you know how to utilize Google to its full potential? With new social media platforms coming online at a rapid pace, capturing leads and evidence in social media networks is more complex than ever. Do you know the latest tools of the trade?
Hg’s OSINT Tips of the week provides you with the latest intel how to be most effective in our tradecraft. We are always looking for new tools, so don’t hesitate to let us know if you have one you’d like reviewed in a future post!
Enjoy!
LEGAL: LOC.org
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the largest library in the world. Its collections of books, manuscripts, newspapers, and other works are added to their Website for the public’s use. Specifically, the Law Library of Congress contains online sources of information on government and law by region, country, or U.S. state. This compiled list contains copies of constitutions, legal guides, and general sources vital for people conducting international investigations. If you are need full texts of laws, regulations, and court decisions, along with commentary from lawyers, the LOC website is your go-to-resource.
LITERATURE SEARCHES: jstor.org
Jstor.org offers over 12 million scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and other primary sources in 75 disciplines. This go-to non-profit resource and research hub has United States-published content dating back to 1920 and as far back as 1870 for content published in other parts of the world. In a recent search for “public records,”2,341,121 entries appeared. You can narrow and refine your focus, based on your investigative needs, and is full-text searchable. It offers search term highlighting, including images, and is interlinked by multiple citations and references. While much of the content is freely searchable, you need to subscribe and take special care to cite the source, if you include it in your report.
HEALTHCARE: proquest.com
Content provider ProQuest Dialog offers a medical synonym feature which allows users to include related medical terms in their searches and alerts. For example, if the user is searching for information on headaches, ProQuest Dialog will also include such synonyms as cephalalgia, encephalalgia, and encephalodynia in the search. This feature, available in all ProQuest Dialog databases, is handy for intellectual property searchers and helps investigators locate content that can be buried in medical or legal language. For this feature and other health-related ProQuest Dialog features, check out their services page.
Have an OSINT tip for us? Contact us, and we will consider reviewing it in future posts!
TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES
Are you an analyst or investigator looking for advanced OSINT & SOCMINT training? If so, check out Hg’s webinar series on social media investigative training, where you can attend live sessions and receive CEUs or watch previously recorded sessions to beef up your investigative skills.
