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!
MARKETPLACE: fatfingers.com
Fatfingers.com locates items listed on eBay with spelling mistakes in the ad copy. Stolen goods are often sold on auction sites with the description key words intentionally misspelled. Search options on Fatfingers can include a search on correct spelling and include misspellings in description but not in title, and the opposite, correct spellings in the description but not in the title. In searching for a stolen printer, using the misspelling of printer, the following results were located: Canon printer BJC 4200 Color Bubble Jet Prinyer, USED, Canon PIXMA PRO-100 Professional Inkjet Photo Printer + LU101 Pro Luster Paper, and HP PHOTOSMART 2710 All-in One Printer Excellent+ Working Condition. To search various countries, click the country’s flag icon at the top of the search screen.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: trademarkia.com
Trademarkia.com/trademark-logo-design hails to be the largest online visual trademark search engine, providing free access to over 7 million trademarked slogans, names, logos. In addition to providing access for search purposes, Trademarkia.com has assisted in registering trademarked content in 88 countries since 2009. Of note, its search algorithm accommodates wild card search. You can look up a logo by entering the name of the company or by the item name (such as “tree”). You can also search to determine whether a logo is dead (inactive) or live (active). Trademarkia is regularly updated to provide accurate information on trademark registrations.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: WIPO.int
The mothership of all intellectual property searches is the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) Located in Switzerland, with global offices in Brazil, China, Moscow, Japan, Singapore, and New York, IPO manages the world of international patents, trademark, and copyright. It’s a good site for finding out who owns what. Services such as Patentscope can often create leads in multinational property ownership. Searching on cyber-genius and friend, WILLIAM ROBERTS CHESWICK offered up 40 patents associated with his name in the United States. To set up an alert on an IP item, WIPO offers an RSS alert from your searches.
Have an OSINT tip for us? Contact us, and we will consider reviewing it in future posts!
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.
