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!
PUBLIC RECORDS: dol.gov/olms
Wondering where to obtain information regarding a union? The US Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has an online database for finding specific labor organizations and their annual reports. To search, visit their Online Public Disclosure Room page. Then select Union Search to search a union name by abbreviation, organization name, or file number. Once located, you can view their annual financial reports and simplified Labor Organization Annual Reports dating back to 2000. Unions representing solely state, county, or municipal employees would not be included. You can also search by an officer or employee.
GOVERNMENT: openpaymentsdata.cms.gov
The Open Payments website collects—and makes public— information about the financial relationships between medical providers and the health care industry. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) offers Open Payments to help the healthcare consumer make informed decisions. The public can access the information in this transparency program for free. The financial relationships encompass research activities, meal payments, gifts, travel payments, and speaking fees. The user can search for a teaching hospital, a doctor, or a company that has made payments. The site offers an overview of the data, as well as a data dictionary that provides more details.
CYBER: archive.org
Internet Archive has archived over 10 billion web pages. This makes it a great resource for finding historical legal material. Typing a URL (say a state’s website) into IA’s “Wayback Machine” takes you to a page that shows all the times that site was archived. Choose the one for your timeframe, and you’ll be taken to the site as it appeared that day.
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.
