Unmasking Secrets: The Rise of Open-Source Intelligence

May 14, 2024·34 min·2 clips

An unemployed refugee worker uses Google Earth to track Libyan frontlines, sparking a new era of citizen investigation.

The starting point is almost bare. Higgins is sitting in an empty UK office in 2011 after the company he works for loses a government contract, while Libya's civil war pours onto the web in shaky footage. He starts watching closely. A mosque, a dome, a minaret, a wide road, and the width of the cars are enough for a rough geolocation test. It sounds small because it is small. That is part of the point. The episode shows open-source intelligence as slow, checkable work: public fragments lined up until a claim can survive being tested. Libya is the first case here. The Arab Spring pulls hobbyists into a loose OSINT community, where arguments over videos start to look less like forum drama and more like public evidence work. Then Ukraine raises the stakes. Online communities such as Project Owl grow quickly after Russia's invasion, and February 2022 becomes the pressure test. While various sources argue over whether Russia will invade, social-media videos from Russia show troop movements that can be geolocated. Camps no longer look like training exercises. The guest describes units leaving supposed training positions and moving closer to the border before the invasion. Bucha is the hard turn. After Russia says Ukrainian forces staged the massacre, OSINT investigators use satellite imagery to show bodies in the streets before Ukraine reclaimed the town. Some also use facial recognition apps and Russian social-media posts to connect soldiers to the killings. The episode keeps the frame careful. OSINT is not magic, but it is not random internet sleuthing either. It works when people keep context close and verify what Russia denies.

As heard by us

A clear OSINT primer on how maps, videos, and satellite imagery can challenge official narratives in wartime.

Malicious Life gives open-source intelligence a grounded origin story, beginning with Elliot Higgins in a quiet UK office during the 2011 Libyan civil war, matching YouTube footage against roads, a mosque, utility poles, and Google Earth.

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Why you'd press play

Turns out you can map a battlefield from a mosque dome and some utility poles.

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