The OSINT Curious Project

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OSINT news, tools and tricks, traded live among colleagues.

The gist

The OSINT Curious Project is open source intelligence talked through live by a group of members, with Micah Hoffman and Christina Lecati pairing up for a series titled 'Monthly OSINT News & Tools'. The value is in the specifics: utility poles as geolocation clues, the strain of moderating Mastodon, and what a company's recruiting video gives away.

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About The OSINT Curious Project

The OSINT Curious Project is an open source intelligence show recorded as live streams, which the group also posts to YouTube and as podcast episodes. It has the feel of colleagues comparing notes. On the bigger episodes, members introduce themselves one at a time and hand the mic to the next person, a small ritual that sets the tone. Micah Hoffman and Christina Lecati team up on a series titled 'Monthly OSINT News & Tools', mixing recent industry news with tools worth trying. Those editions wander in useful directions. In 'Monthly OSINT News & Tools - September 2022', the conversation walks through geohints.com, a database that sorts street details into categories such as driving side, house number plates, license plates, road lines, sidewalks and utility poles. The pair link it to their own GeoGuessr games, where the look of a utility pole can suggest one part of the world over another. The December 2022 edition takes up Mastodon and the fediverse: how one person can run accounts across many servers, and why a single moderator who probably has a day job cannot keep up with a busy instance. The October 2022 edition brings in Robin, the Discord moderator for the OSINT Curious channel, while Micah joins by voice only. Part of that conversation makes the case for small, hand-picked study groups, where it is easier to admit you do not understand JSON and ask for help. Guests bring in other angles. In 'Interview With Chris Kirsch', Christina Lecati and Micah Hoffman talk with Chris Kirsch about what companies give away in their own recruiting and training videos. An office tour can show an HID reader on the wall, a badge clear enough to clone visually, a Dell machine that hints at Windows, and a shelf of books that points to the technologies in use. It is a vivid lesson in how much a careful eye can collect from public material. Larger episodes bring more members in, including Technisette, Ritu, Sektor, Laurent, Matthias and Gumshoe. One of them is 'Episode 45: Q&A with the audience, lifting fingerprints from fotos, CONINT, understanding time stamps on social media, Google IDs and more', a title that lists everything from fingerprints in photos to Google IDs. Community runs through all of it, with repeated nudges toward the OSINT Curious Discord. The December edition signs off with 'stay OSINT Curious'. 'Our Last OSINT Curious Episode' is introduced as the group's final live stream, with Micah Hoffman, Christina Lecati, Technisette and Ginsberg saying goodbye. They point listeners to the website, its about page and a goodbye post that gathers memories from members who left over the years, then close together on 'been a wild ride'.

Made for: Suits a listener who is curious about open source intelligence and learns best from worked examples, like reading utility poles for geolocation or spotting a badge reader in a company video. It also fits someone who would rather hear a friendly group talk things through than sit through a scripted lecture.

What sets it apart: Rather than one expert voice, it is a collective: members pass the mic, guests and a Discord moderator join in, and the talk keeps returning to learning together, from small study groups to an audience Q&A. The payoff is concrete technique shared in a relaxed, colleague-to-colleague register.

In their own words

The OSINT Curious Project is a source of quality, actionable, Open Source Intelligence news, original blogs, instructional videos, and a bi-weekly webcast/podcast. Most of all, we want to inspire people to look outside of their OSINT-comfort zones and pursue their OSINT passions. We try to keep people curious about exploring web applications for bits of information or trying out new techniques to access important OSINT data.We are an OSINT-learning catalyst.

Why you'd press play

The office tour is smiling; you're pausing on the badge reader.

Press play if you want

  • to spot the security clues a company reveals in its recruiting video
  • to treat utility poles as clues when a GeoGuessr location has you stumped
Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
OSINT news and tool roundupsGeolocation clues and GeoGuessrMastodon and fediverse moderationReconnaissance from company videosLearning in small study groupsAudience Q&AOSINT Curious Discord communitySocial media timestamps

Talks about

Best episodes of The OSINT Curious Project

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

Our Last OSINT Curious EpisodeMar 4, 2023

A final live webcast turns goodbye into a warm pointer back to the OSINT Curious community.

OSINT Curious ends its live webcast with a goodbye built around continuity. The hosts introduce themselves, admit the sadness of stopping, and ask listeners to add questions, memories, or lessons in the chat.

Monthly OSINT News & Tools - December 2022Dec 6, 2022

A grounded OSINT conversation about Mastodon, moderation, and who gets to police the feed.

This year-end OSINT news episode turns toward the fediverse through Mastodon, asking who carries responsibility for what shows up in a user's feed.

Interview With Chris KirschNov 18, 2022

A sharp, practical look at how ordinary company videos can surface useful OSINT leads.

OSINT Curious treats ordinary company video as something worth reading closely. A recruiting tour or training screen share stops being background footage once Chris Kears, co-founder and CEO of RunZero, starts walking through it frame by frame.

Monthly OSINT News & Tools - October 2022Oct 24, 2022

A thoughtful live OSINT discussion on how smaller trusted groups can make technical learning easier to share.

OSINT Curious treats investigation as something people learn together, not just a set of techniques to master alone. The episode looks at what changes when a large Discord community gives way to smaller, more trusted groups, where asking for help can feel less exposed.

Monthly OSINT News & Tools - September 2022Sep 26, 2022

A live OSINT catch-up turns street-level clues into a usable geolocation toolkit.

This Ozone Curious Project live stream lands as a practical field kit in the shape of a casual community catch-up. Michael Hoffman and Christina begin with the basics around the website, social channels, Discord, subscriptions across platforms, and the monthly schedule, then…

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Episodes

  1. 1

    Our Last OSINT Curious Episode

    Hidden gem

    Micah Hoffman opens the final OSINT Curious live stream by saying the project is shutting down after four years of blogs, YouTube videos, live streams, and webcasts.

    Mar 4, 2023·43m·2 clips
  2. 2

    Monthly OSINT News & Tools - December 2022

    Hidden gem

    Micah Hoffman and Christina use the December 2022 OSINT News Broadcast to walk through tools, platform changes, and workflow cautions, starting with a Smart Start.me aggregator that indexes more than 85,000 individual OSINT URLs.

    Dec 6, 2022·52m·3 clips
  3. 3

    Interview With Chris Kirsch

    Hidden gem

    Chris Kirsch, co-founder and CEO of RunZero, explains how cyber asset management and external-perimeter scanning work, using routers, IP addresses, ports, and honeypots as concrete examples.

    Nov 18, 2022·53m·3 clips
  4. 4

    Monthly OSINT News & Tools - October 2022

    Hidden gem

    The OSINT Curious live stream centers on October 2022 resources for people entering OSINT, including a five-tip blog post, six OSINT Jobs interviews, and a new digital business card search engine from Nikko.

    Oct 24, 2022·49m·3 clips
  5. 5

    Monthly OSINT News & Tools - September 2022

    Hidden gem

    The OSINT Curious Project’s September 2022 monthly roundup covers four main practical tools: a framework for handling distressing investigation material, Google programmable search engines, urlscan.io’s cached search results, and geohints.com for visual geolocation.

    Sep 26, 2022·41m·2 clips
  6. 6

    Interview with Alex Slotnick (@BOsintBlanc)

    Alex Slotnick traces his move from desktop support and SOC work to threat intelligence after a social media investigation sparked his interest in OSINT.

    Aug 16, 2022·53m·2 clips
  7. 7

    Monthly OSINT News & Tools - August 2022

    Michael Hoffman and Christina Lacati introduce a monthly OSINT news and tools format featuring four conferences, including GoSyntcon and Layer8.

    Aug 10, 2022·57m·2 clips
  8. 8

    Interview with Jessica Smith (@scarlettsleuth)

    Jessica Smith says social media conversations can reveal the missing link in an investigation.

    Jul 19, 2022·54m·2 clips
  9. 9

    Interview With Loránd Bodó - OSINT Jobs

    Mar 18, 2022·51m
  10. 10

    OSINT Live Stream : OSINT News & Tools - January & February 2022

    Feb 20, 2022·50m
  11. 11

    Interview with Sarah Womer (@UnleashedOSINT)

    Oct 17, 2021·48m
  12. 12

    Interview with Jessica Davis (@JessMarinDavis)

    Sep 26, 2021·46m
  13. 13

    Interview with Freddy M.

    Aug 22, 2021·1h 8m
  14. 14

    Livestream with Nicole Beckwith

    Jul 19, 2021·1h
  15. 15

    Interview with Janna (@JannaJoceli)

    Jul 11, 2021·51m
  16. 16

    Interview with Lana (@IntelLana)

    Jun 27, 2021·42m
  17. 17

    Interview with Kevin Metcalf (@Volk_NCPTF)

    May 30, 2021·43m
  18. 18

    Interview with Tokyo (@Tokyo_v2)

    May 16, 2021·41m
  19. 19

    Interview with DJNemec (@djnemec)

    May 3, 2021·45m
  20. 20

    Interview with John Marquee (@john_marquee)

    Apr 18, 2021·42m
  21. 21

    Interview with Robert Baptiste (@fs0c131y a.k.a Elliot Alderson)

    Apr 4, 2021·45m
  22. 22

    Interview with Rui Barros

    Mar 20, 2021·41m
  23. 23

    Episode 52: OSINT Goodness with Micah, Ritu, Christina, Steven and John

    Mar 7, 2021·1h 5m
  24. 24

    Interview with Christina Lekati

    Mar 7, 2021·39m
  25. 25

    Interview with Justin Seitz

    Mar 7, 2021·47m
  26. 26

    Episode 53: OSINT Tips, Tricks and Techniques with Ines, Technisette, Micah and Steven

    Mar 7, 2021·1h 10m
  27. 27

    Interview with Griffin (@hatless1der)

    Mar 7, 2021·35m
  28. 28

    Episode 51: What do you need to become an intermediate OSINTer? How can Shodan contribute to OSINT investigations?

    Feb 1, 2021·58m
  29. 29

    Episode 50: New stream format, OSINT on the US Capitol Event, crowd-sourced OSINT and law enforcement

    Jan 10, 2021·32m
  30. 30

    Episode 49: It's a wrap! Discussion on tools vs. training, creating intelligence products, sharing OSINT techniques and more

    Dec 14, 2020·1h
  31. 31

    Episode 48: Keyword search on Instagram, Scraping Fleets, OSINTDojo, AI-generated photos, Parler searching

    Dec 5, 2020·53m
  32. 32

    Episode 47: Samuel Lolagar (OSINTGeek), FireEye VM, Dark Web, Parler, ETags, a bit of SIGINT and collecting info from Youtube videos

    Dec 5, 2020·1h 4m
  33. 33

    Episode 46: Guest Amine Ghoulidi, resources on mis- and disinformation, investigating international phone numbers, Geolocation 10-minute tip and much more!

    Nov 8, 2020·1h 3m
  34. 34

    Episode 45: Q&A with the audience, lifting fingerprints from fotos, CONINT, understanding time stamps on social media, Google IDs and more

    The OSINT Curious podcast hosts introduce themselves and welcome listeners to an AMA session about open source intelligence.

    Oct 23, 2020·1h 6m
  35. 35

    Episode 43: Guest Emmanuelle Welch, Maltego for Telegram, Google Account Finder, WIPO Database, Twitter Analysis Framework

    Oct 5, 2020·56m
  36. 36

    Episode 44: Guest Julia Bayer, Geolocating without Street View and Google Maps, SOCMINT on foreign social media, FOCA for OSINT, DNS research

    The episode is a live webcast introducing panelists and a guest investigative journalist, discussing OSINT topics.

    Oct 5, 2020·58m
  37. 37

    Episode 42: New Facebook design, creating sock puppets, Redditor, OSINT on Telegram, WhatsMyName Update

    Sep 7, 2020·57m
  38. 38

    Episode 41: Special Guest Ines Narciso, video search tool Peteyvid, estimating crowd sizes, and more on facial recognition (even for dogs)

    Jul 28, 2020·1h
  39. 39

    Episode 40: Geolocating IPs and mobile phones, PimEye, 3D reconstruction of facial images and more...

    Jul 13, 2020·1h 5m
  40. 40

    Episode 39: Ibexmind with Peter King, Twitter history, aircraft and drone monitoring, TraceLabs OSINT Virtual Machine and more...

    The episode introduces a webcast on OSINT with panelists and a guest expert who pioneered systematic research on online geodests for the British government.

    Jun 30, 2020·55m
  41. 41

    Ep 35: (Originally aired May 3) Guest Aliaume Leroy, a new Verification Handbook released, using birds to help geolocate and more....!

    May 26, 2020·56m
  42. 42

    Ep 34: (Originally aired 19 April) Interview with the famous Arno Reuser, using UntappdScraper for checkin location data, and more

    A panel of OSINT experts introduce themselves and welcome a special guest, setting up a discussion on open source intelligence topics.

    May 26, 2020·56m
  43. 43

    Ep. 36: Interview with Jane Lytvynenko on disinfo, the "OSINT State of Mind", cropping images and facial recognition reverse searching and more!

    The hosts introduce themselves and their guest, Jane Litvinenko from BuzzFeed News, for a discussion on OSINT.

    May 26, 2020·1h 9m
  44. 44

    Episode 33: We speak with guest Jan Tegze from sourcing.games, analytic thinking, beyond EXIF in photos, and more...

    The host introduces a panel of guests who discuss their backgrounds and interest in OSINT, setting up a roundtable discussion.

    Apr 19, 2020·55m
  45. 45

    Episode 32: Chris Poulter from OSINTCombine talks tools and debuts one during the webcast! Also: disinfo during the COVID-19 crisis and more...

    Apr 4, 2020·1h 3m
  46. 46

    Episode 31: Jeff Lomas of BleuBloodHound, MWOsint demos the MSFT video indexer and more...

    Mar 9, 2020·1h 8m
  47. 47

    Episode 30, A brief chat about WhatsApp, a new OSINT-dedicated Linux build and more..

    Mar 9, 2020·23m
  48. 48

    Episode 29: Interview with OSINTTechniques, Google dorking SSIDs, a look at the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash using OSINT and more

    The hosts interview a special guest about her background and work in open source intelligence.

    Feb 20, 2020·1h 1m
  49. 49

    Episode 28: Bitcoin with Bellingcat's Brenna Smith, Finding who is running Wordpress even behind Cloudflare, and more

    The hosts interview Brenna Smith about her background in human rights and how she got into open source intelligence.

    Jan 29, 2020·1h 9m
  50. 50

    Episode 27 - OSINT Curious is a year old! And we have Vortimo's Roelof Temmingh!

    Jan 17, 2020·1h 2m