Collecting Evidence from Online Social Media: Building a Cyber-OSINT Toolbox

There is a rapid evolution in the technologies people use to communicate and share material with each other, in the companies providing the sharing platforms, and in how people choose to communicate with each other. People are increasingly choosing to communicate using text, images, and videos rather than traditional electronic voice communications. And they increasingly choose to use platforms that make this communication openly available for others to view. This means that evidence associated with not just metadata but also content of communications can often be collected through open sources long after the communication is completed. While evidence of criminality and victimization can be recovered through open source investigative techniques, many of the commercial tools marketed to criminal investigators and analysts are expensive. This sometimes places them outside the reach of police departments, and social media companies are increasingly blocking API connections for commercial tools that allow the tools to be used for "surveillance." Therefore, it is increasingly important for criminal investigators and analysts to build an inexpensive cyber-OSINT toolbox. This webinar will discuss the rapidly evolving ecosystem of online social media and how people are changing how they choose to communicate. It will then detail and demonstrate free and inexpensive cyber-OSINT tools that criminal investigators and analysts can use to start building a cyber-OSINT toolbox.