This week we walk through the techniques we use to find public WhatsApp and Telegram groups in the open, for narrative intelligence work, extremist monitoring, and any investigation where the analyst has to be inside the room before any content is visible.

Plus, the latest tradecraft tips and industry news from last week.

Missed last week?

Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Everything you need to know from the past seven days.

• GIJN’s latest guide walks you through QGIS, from the basics to advanced data analysis, with practical applications drawn from investigative work on crime hot spots, environmental destruction, demographic patterns, and war crimes | read here

• Matthieu F. has developed a French-language tool to document and compare influence operations analysed from open sources, consisting of two standalone HTML tools usable offline: a structured input form based on the Diamond Model, DISARM Framework, and DIMA, and a viewer to visualise multiple operations simultaneously on an interactive timeline | read LinkedIn post | access GitHub

• New updates released for the free browser-based tool Osintracker | explore here | test here

• Google Labs has introduced three new exploratory tools for AI-powered scientific discovery:

  • Literature Insights (built with NotebookLM) for literature search and artifact generation

  • Hypothesis Generation (built with Co-Scientist) for multi-agent research ideation

  • Computational Discovery (built with AlphaEvolve and ERA) for generating and scoring code variations against optimisation metrics | explore here

• TechCrunch reports that Google has unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search at its I/O conference, with a reimagined search box that drops users into interactive AI experiences, deploys “information agents” to gather data on their behalf, and lets users build personalised mini apps directly in Search. TechCrunch has since clarified that links are not entirely gone, following misinterpretations spreading online | read here

• Geoff Khan argues for the Cipher Brief that the intelligence cycle cannot keep pace with the current environment, and that tradecraft, not technology, is now the limiting factor | read here

• Theresia Tanzil breaks down what makes web scraping in Asia distinct, from super-app login walls and behavioural CAPTCHAs to sophisticated bot mitigation and a country-by-country legal patchwork, and what it takes to operate there at scale | read here

• Mirko Lorenz argues for DW Innovation that the AI-mediated content economy is breaking the chain of provenance, attribution, and trust that holds professional content together | explore here

• A new three-year research project, PADSE, brings together Fraunhofer IDMT, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, and Deutsche Welle to develop a detection system for manipulated and partially synthetic audio content | read more

• Tara Calishain shares three free, ad-free search tools she built as alternatives to Google’s AI-driven search: MiniGladys, Wikipedia Seismograph, and Wiki-Guided Google Search (I & II), each using Wikipedia to support link-based discovery and topical exploration. | view here

Finding public chat groups that do not want to be found

Chat platforms are difficult to monitor. Unlike X, where posts sit in the open and can be searched and visualised at scale, WhatsApp and Telegram groups require an analyst to be inside the room before any content is visible.

For groups that are genuinely private, the kind extremists set up among trusted contacts and circulate by word of mouth, there is rarely a way in from open sources. Those rooms are not the subject of this week’s post.

What we are looking at are groups that are meant to be public. Communities, movements, and networks that want members, and therefore have to share their invite links somewhere a stranger can find them. The link has to surface. The question is where, and how to find it. We use these techniques regularly for narrative intelligence work, for monitoring extremist ecosystems, and for any investigation that requires us to be inside a WhatsApp or Telegram room before we can see what is being said. The methodology transfers across use cases. The tools change. The logic of where a public invite link ends up does not.

Read more

This is Part 3 of our narrative intelligence series. In this issue, we introduce another new technique for extracting narratives from television programs, demonstrated through a real case study.

Industry news and the latest tradecraft tips are further in the newsletter.

Parts 1 and 2 of the series are linked below

Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Everything you need to know from the past seven days.

• Earth Genome launches Earth Index, a new AI-powered satellite imagery mapping tool, now open to anyone. Users have already exposed narcotrafficking airstrips in the Peruvian Amazon, mapped illegal palm oil expansion in Brazil, uncovered hazardous quarries in the Balkans, and tracked wetland loss from rose farming in Uganda | access the tool | for more info

• Researcher tmctmt finds that Mullvad VPN assigns exit IPs using a seed-based RNG algorithm tied to users’ WireGuard keys, limiting exit IP combinations to 284 and enabling cross-server identity correlation with over 99% accuracy | read here

• Meta gave up on end-to-end encryption on Instagram | read here

• In this Twitter thread, the author details a six-hour process using Claude to remove 47 data broker listings, delete 12 inactive accounts, and suppress three search results | learn here

• LinkedIn user Christoph S. warns that using inappropriate data sources in pre-employment checks frequently causes legal violations and negative consequences for both companies and applicants | originally posted in German, read here

• Google researchers identified the first known case of a threat actor using AI to help discover and weaponize a zero-day exploit against a popular open-source web admin tool | read here

• LLMs enable compliance teams to filter false positives, speed up KYC, and enrich entity matching by analyzing both structured and unstructured data | explore here

• We came across this website developed by Rise Up Labs, which uses storytelling techniques to show users exactly what data their browser exposes the moment they visit a page. No login, no form, no permission required. | test here

Television programs are a primary vehicle for narrative introduction. In particular, state-run broadcasters use them to seed narratives with mass audiences before those narratives migrate to online platforms, where organic discourse amplifies and entrenches them. Tracking television at the source gives analysts an earlier signal than social media monitoring alone.

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we introduced narrative intelligence as a discipline and walked through two techniques.

Part 3 introduces a new technique we developed for television content.

How to Track Narratives Across Global TV

Read more

In our last issue, we looked at narrative intelligence as a discipline. What it is and why it is so important. This issue moves from theory to method, where we cover two specific techniques for identifying and monitoring narratives in the wild.

As always, you will find the latest tools, tips, and job listings further in the newsletter.

Missed last week?

Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Everything you need to know from the past seven days.

• The Social Media Data Toolkit (SMDT) standardizes, anonymizes, and enriches social media datasets using a common schema and analysis tools. | read here

• Google is indexing web content more selectively, allowing website owners greater control and causing a wider gap between what exists online and what appears in search results. | read here

• MAX messenger in Russia displays viewing and user statistics anomalies across major channels, including more views than subscribers and slower than expected view accumulation for a chronological feed. | view here

• ImageWhisperer 2.0 launched with faster speed, improved detectors, custom investigation plans, fact-checking against 7,000+ verified claims, and multi-platform search from one interface. | read here

• Tristan Lee built and published a facial recognition pipeline and website for identifying people in the Epstein files. | view here

• Clément Molin lists several open-source tools with which you can follow the war in Ukraine. | read here

• Anthropic launched Claude for Financial Services, a Financial Analysis Solution that unifies market and enterprise data from providers like FactSet, Snowflake, and S&P Global into one interface powered by Claude 4. | check out here

Two Techniques for Identifying and Monitoring Narratives

Part 2: How to Spot the Signs and Track Them

Read more

This week we open a new multi-part series on narrative intelligence, a discipline that sits at the intersection of open source intelligence, threat analysis, and information operations. It is one of the fastest-moving areas in the field right now, and one that every practitioner should understand.

As always, you will find the latest tools, tips, and job listings further in the newsletter.

Missed last week?

Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Everything you need to know from the past seven days.

• Timelines are an investigative reporter’s most powerful organisational tool — here is how to build one. Mark Lee Hunter walks through the step-by-step process of constructing and maintaining investigation timelines for GIJN | read here

• Forbes reports that Google has launched a new opt-in "Personal Intelligence" feature that connects Google Photos to Gemini, allowing the AI to scan users' entire photo libraries to generate personalised images featuring real people from their lives | read here

• Stephen Abbott Pugh introduces OpenCheck, an open-source customer due diligence tool that queries open datasets including Companies House, OpenSanctions and Wikidata, surfacing sanctions, PEP status and complex ownership structures in a single attributed intelligence report | view here

• A new research paper by Paul Roettger et al. suggests AI writing assistance distorts how readers perceive writers, making them appear more extreme, confident, and privileged | read here

• The Institute for the Study of War published an interactive map titled "Russia's Cognitive Warfare Infrastructure" and a research report titled "The Kremlin's Expanding Media Conglomerate 2026 | view here

• Aleksandra B shared on LinkedIn that investigators can access hidden Google search result tabs by modifying the "udm" parameter in a trimmed search URL, with different numerical values unlocking different result modes beyond the default tabs | read here

• Claude-osint is a GitHub repository published by ElementalSoul containing a pair of SKILL.md files that equip Claude with structured external reconnaissance methodology and tactical tooling for authorised red-team and bug-bounty engagements. We have not tested it, but Claude users may find it worth exploring | check out here

A Practitioner’s Introduction to Narrative Intelligence

Part 1: What It Is and Why It Matters Now

Read more

AI detection tools dominate the conversation about verifying synthetic content. This week we argue that detection is the wrong starting point, and that the questions analysts should ask are older, harder, and more productive.

We use the Akhbar Enfejari case from the 2026 Iran conflict to show what provenance-first analysis actually looks like in practice.

Tips and news as usual below.

Missed last week?

Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Everything you need to know from the past seven days.

• An excellent list of tools that allow users to access social media content without creating an account or logging in, curated by Aleksandra B. | see here

• Damien Leloup explains how journalists can investigate online scams in a #GIJNAcademy masterclass video | watch here

• Micah Hoffman reported that Instant Data Scraper quietly changed ownership to Flavr Technology LP with little transparency, prompting concerns and a recommendation to uninstall the extension | check out here

• Book recommendation: We came across The SAR Analyst's Handbook by Kyle McCloud. We have not read it, and this is not a paid promotion, but it looks like a practitioner-written, practitioner-focused guide to SAR analysis worth knowing about | explore here

• Grok created a fake French citizen complete with ID and notes that video verification is becoming ineffective, according to Pedro J. | view here

• Citizen Lab's new research exposes two sophisticated surveillance actors exploiting global telecom infrastructure, marking the first time researchers have directly linked combined 3G and 4G network attacks to mobile operator infrastructure | read here

• A Pew Research Center report found that 26% of web pages published between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible, but a new Internet Archive study shows that the Wayback Machine has restored 16% of lost pages and preserved 56% before they disappeared | read the report

• The explosion of OSINT, UAS, and AI-driven analytics has flooded the US intelligence enterprise with more data than analysts can process, and fixing it requires hybrid human-machine workflows rather than purely technical solutions, says Jared Martin in Smallwarsjournal | read here

• Orchestrated autonomy will replace AI assistants in intelligence work — networks of agents will monitor, analyse, and surface insights continuously, removing the need for analysts to initiate queries, writes Rep. Scott Perry in Federal News Network | read here

Why “Is This AI?” Is the Wrong Question — And What Analysts Should Ask Instead

Read more

In the last issue, we talked about getting Ollama and Open WebUI running locally. This issue picks up where that left off, namely using that setup to build a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline.

RAG lets a local model answer questions using documents you provide rather than relying solely on its training data.

For investigative and intelligence work, that matters. You feed the model your source material, and it draws on that material to respond. The model does not reach the internet. The documents stay on your machine.

Missed last week?

Before we get into it, here is last week's tradecraft and industry news roundup:

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Everything you need to know from the past seven days.

• Monetization Archive identifies and tracks monetized social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram | explore here | HT Aleksandra B.

• GDELT will migrate its services to Google Spanner using Gemini 3 Pro for architectural design and development | read here

• Researchers using CYGNSS satellites identified 85 GPS jammers in the Persian Gulf | explore here

Read more

This week we start building. Over the coming issues we will show you how to run your own AI capability, fully open source, fully in-house, with no internet connection and no running costs.

As always, the latest news and and tradecraft tips from across the OSINT industry are also inside.

Missed last week?

New Vacancy: Associate Analyst, North Quay — London

We have launched the first CTF on our new assessment platform. The challenge is not fictional. It reflects the actual work of the role. Complete it, perform well, and you progress through the application. A CV remains a formality.

If you think you can do the work and have the right to work in the UK, go here.

PS: Hiring? Contact us for a free company account and run the same process.

How to Run a Private AI Assistant on Your Own Hardware

This week we show you how to run an AI assistant entirely on your own hardware. No API key. No cloud. No cost per query. The model runs locally, your data stays with you, and the setup takes around 10 minutes.

The full guide, including chat interface setup and model recommendations, is below.

This is the first instalment in a series on building a local AI capability specifically for OSINT work.

Read more

This week we tackle a topic that runs deeper than any tool list: what open source intelligence is, who practises it, and why the field consistently mistakes tool proficiency for analytical capability.

As always, the latest tradecraft tips and industry news. Nothing older than seven days. Practical and ready to use today.

Last Week And This Month's Free Roundup

Threat Intelligence Analyst, 6-Month FTC, Tech Against Terrorism

Tech Against Terrorism is hiring a Threat Intelligence Analyst on a 6-month fixed-term contract with potential to extend. Full details here.

The Tool List Problem

Why OSINT's obsession with software is holding the field back

Hiring managers and job applicants make the same mistake.

One writes tool requirements where skill requirements should be. The other lists platforms instead of problems solved. The field ends up measuring software proficiency rather than actual tradecraft.

This week we look at why the OSINT community over-indexes on tools, how the field has fractured into four distinct groups, and what a genuine OSINT role actually looks like when you build it from real job descriptions rather than convention.

Premium subscribers read the full post below.

Read more

March kept the OSINT world moving. Here is what you missed and what it means for your work.

This edition is free for ALL subscribers. The analysis behind it is not.

Premium subscribers got access to four in-depth pieces this month:

Cut Hiring Time, Cut Costs, Hire Professionals Who Actually Have the Skills

Hiring for an OSINT role? We will list it and help you assess your candidates at no cost and faster using our brand new OSINT Assessment Platform. Reach out: contact@osint-jobs.com

Find Your Place In the OSINT Industry

Built on five years of in-house research and thousands of real job descriptions, our career taxonomy maps the industry and helps you find your path. Check it out: https://www.osint-jobs.com/osint-careers

A Small Selection of Tradecraft Tips & Industry News from March 2026

• released Dark Light Viewer, a browser-based tool that uses VIIRS night-time light data to track changes in night lights across the planet | try here

• Bellingcat released Turnstone, an open source tool that searches historical ADS-B flight data to explore patterns over time and in specific locations | view here

• The SIPRI Arms Transfers Database updated on 9 March 2026, replacing all previously published arms transfer data with new figures covering 1950 to 2025 | try here

• FlightGlobal reports that commercial satellite imagery from Chinese intelligence firm MizarVision tracks US forces operating against Iran | read here

• OSINT Field Notes - from Benjamin Strick geolocated Taliban special forces drills by matching sand dunes in desert terrain, confirming Kandahar Airfield as the departure point and pinpointing the exact soldier drop-off location and bombed dune south of the airfield | watch here

• Anna Schild and Jochen Spangenberg shared lessons and outcomes from the concluded VERA.AI project, discussing ongoing results and past and future efforts to counter disinformation | read here

• Cloudflare launched a web crawling API that lets free-account holders crawl up to 100,000 public web pages via a single API call | try here

• FIMI ISAC operates a central hub that shares in-depth reports on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, covering the latest TTPs, threat actors, and mitigation strategies for stakeholders, policymakers, and CSOs | read here

• Bellingcat’s Trevor Ball spoke with host Charlotte Maher about identifying weapons and munitions used in conflict, including those appearing in the Iran conflict | watch here

• OSINT Combine published an in-depth guide to searching and monitoring Reddit | read here

• OSINTERSECT’s Joseph Jones released a free Chrome extension called ‘vkXtract’ that extracts and presents VK data in various formats | try here

• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) of the U.S. Intelligence Community | read here

• Cyabra begins trading on the Nasdaq | read here

• A CBC Front Burner episode examines how amateur “OSINT cowboys” use AI-powered dashboards to monitor the Iran conflict and questions what happens when war coverage becomes gamified on prediction markets | view here

• A GIJN webinar led by investigative trainer Henk van Ess covers the latest tools and techniques journalists can use to detect and verify AI-generated text and images | watch here

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This is the second in a series on GDELT.

Last issue we covered the API access. This issue we go into Google BigQuery. We’ll show you how to access GDELT’s full dataset for free, query it using SQL, and apply a structured analytical framework to a real-world case study.

As always, the latest tradecraft tips and industry news. Nothing older than seven days. Practical and ready to use today.

Missed last week’s newsletter?

From the OSINT Jobs Team

1. Our Assessment Platform

Hiring for OSINT roles? Reach out: contact@osint-jobs.com. We'll walk you through our assessment platform and advertise your role — all at no cost.

2. Our OSINT Careers Taxonomy is live

Built on five years of in-house research and thousands of real job descriptions, our career taxonomy maps the industry and helps you find your path. Check it out: https://www.osint-jobs.com/osint-careers

3. OSMOSISCon 2026

For those in the US, the OSMOSISCon Career Fair on 31 May 2026 in Bonita Springs, Florida connects sponsors and exhibitors directly with OSINT professionals across corporate, government, law enforcement, and military sectors.

Set Up BigQuery, Query GDELT, and Start Analysing Global Media Coverage in Minutes

This is the second in a series on The GDELT Project. Supported by Google Jigsaw, GDELT monitors broadcast, print, and web news in over 100 languages from nearly every country in the world.

This issue goes further. We set up Google BigQuery, explore GDELT's two core datasets, and run our first SQL query against real data. We use US-Iran media coverage as a live use case and build a visualisation from the results.

As our ongoing research into open source intelligence job descriptions confirms, data analysis is one of the most in-demand skills in the field. This issue shows you what that looks like in practice.

Read more

This is the first in a series on GDELT — a free, real-time global media dataset that most analysts have heard of but few use directly. No code. No account. No subscription. Just a browser, a prompt, and a dataset that most analysts pay someone else to process for them.

As always, this issue includes the latest tradecraft tips and industry news. Nothing older than seven days. Practical and ready to use today.

Missed last week’s newsletter?

Hiring for OSINT Roles? Become a Design Partner.

We built an Assessment Platform so companies find candidates with the right skills, and candidates show what they can do before writing a CV or cover letter.

We have a few spots left in our design partner group. If your team is hiring for OSINT or intelligence roles, reach out: contact[@]osint-jobs[.]com

How to Use GDELT: The Free Real-Time News Dataset Built for Analysts (Part I)

This is the first in a series on The GDELT Project. Supported by Google Jigsaw, GDELT monitors broadcast, print, and web news in over 100 languages from nearly every country in the world.

In this issue we cover what GDELT is and how to start pulling from it today using nothing but a browser. No code. No account. No subscription.

We focus on the war in Iran as a live use case. The examples are practical and ready to run. Advanced querying and Google BigQuery setup follow in a later issue.

One thing worth noting. Through our ongoing research into job descriptions across the global open source intelligence job market, data analysis and technical skills rank among the most in-demand capabilities. This series builds on both.

Read more

Every week we cover the latest tradecraft tips and industry news. For our main section this week, we drew inspiration from a newly published guide on detecting AI imagery.

With conflicts escalating around the world and AI-generated content surrounding these events at scale, we took it as an opportunity to go back to basics.

We walk you through a verification framework we use ourselves — built for anyone working with digital content in an environment where AI makes everything look real.

Missed last week’s newsletter?

OSINT Jobs at the OSMOSIS London Expo

The OSMOSIS London Expo brought together OSINT professionals for thoughtful discussion, practical insight, and real peer-to-peer collaboration. From evolving tradecraft to responsible AI integration, the conversations reinforced that the profession grows stronger when practitioners share experience openly and challenge each other constructively.

OSINT Jobs was proud to be part of it. A big thank you to the organisers for putting it together. If you joined the event in London, thank you for contributing. If not, the conversation continues at OSMOSISCon in Florida this May.

Learn more about OSMOSISCon 2026 and continue the conversation in person or virtually! Receive 20% off Virtual Registrations OSMOSISCON 2026 - OSMOSIS

Use Code: CON2620PR

One Framework, Any Content: How to Verify in the Age of AI

The line between real and fabricated content keeps shrinking. Generative AI tools now produce visual material so convincing that even trained eyes struggle to spot the difference.

In a past newsletter, we highlighted an experiment where a researcher used Gemini to generate location-specific imagery that matched real geolocations with striking accuracy, a reminder that even established verification methods face new pressure from GenAI.

This week, AI Forensics published an updated “Human Guide to Detecting AI Imagery,” giving researchers, journalists, fact-checkers, and social media users a practical resource to identify AI-generated content.

We take this as an opportunity to go back to basics. Analysts already navigate a sea of information, deciding what matters, filtering out the noise, and then dedicating time to verify material on top of that.

This framework has never been more critical. It holds everyone to a standard process, keeps verification consistent, and leaves no room for speculation or AI-generated fakes.

Read more

This week we go deep. Anthropic published a study on AI and the labor market, and we used it as a lens to look at our own industry.

We pulled in findings from our Community Survey, hundreds of analyzed job descriptions, and four years of watching this field evolve week by week. The result is our most research-driven edition yet.

If you’ve ever asked whether AI will replace your OSINT job, this one’s for you.

Plus, a summary of the latest tradecraft tips and industry news from last week. As usual, never older than a week.

Missed last week’s newsletter?

Job Opportunity

Product Manager - Threat Intelligence

Tech Against Terrorism is looking for a Product Manager | 🇬🇧 UK | Full-time | Apply here

Is AI Coming for Your OSINT Job? Anthropic Has Some Answers — So Do We

Anthropic published a paper this week — Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence — that adds something significant to the debate around AI replacing jobs, and it deserves attention.

At its core is a new metric called observed exposure, built to measure not just what AI can theoretically do, but what people actually use it for in professional settings. Tested against early data, it finds limited evidence that AI has affected employment to date.

To measure exposure, the team combined the O*NET database covering around 800 US occupations, Anthropic’s own Claude usage data, and third-party estimates of whether an LLM can theoretically make a task at least twice as fast.

Computer programmers top the list at 74.5%, followed by customer service representatives at 70.1% and data entry keyers at 67.1%. At the other end, 30% of workers sit at zero coverage: cooks, motorcycle mechanics, and bartenders.

The headline finding cuts both ways. AI is far from reaching its theoretical capability, and there’s no systematic rise in unemployment for highly exposed workers since late 2022. But hiring of younger workers into exposed roles has started to slow.

What does this mean for the OSINT industry? What we’re seeing through our community survey and four years of weekly newsletters points in a similar direction and when mapped against what Anthropic found, the picture for OSINT gets specific.

AI is embedding itself across the full workflow, from collection and analysis to processing and report writing, amplifying tradecraft rather than replacing it. But the skills needed to use it well are unevenly distributed, and the hiring landscape hasn’t caught up.

We've shared our community survey findings openly and if you haven't read them yet, they're free for everyone.

But in this edition, our premium members get more: a deeper look at actual hiring trends across the industry, based on an analysis of job descriptions from around the world. What skills matter, where AI replaces or augments, and how to catch up to grow your AI skills.

Read more

February flew by and the OSINT world kept moving. But don't worry, we're here to keep you up to date.

This monthly edition is FREE for all our subscribers and based on our weekly premium content, which you can find below:

Thanks to all our premium subscribers for supporting our work!

Now let’s dive in!

Highlights from February 2026

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

• A free GitHub tool claims to bypass Discord's age verification by manipulating a 3D model, 404 Media reports.

• Instagram adds an "IGSH" tracking parameter to shared post URLs, linking them to the sharer's account — removing it before sharing prevents this. (HT Epieos)

• Blackbird.AI and Brandwatch Selected to Provide Information Assessment for NATO (view here)

• ShadowDragon has launched Dork Assistant, a free tool that translates plain-language research queries into advanced Google "dorks."

• ACLED launched ACLED Trends, a tool that combines historical conflict data, real-time trends, and scenario analysis to help users anticipate conflict risk across countries and regions (view here).

• As the CIA shuts down The World Factbook, OpenSanctions is launching EveryPolitician.org.

• Mary D'Angelo argues in a Feedly blog post that effective dark web monitoring requires structured workflows for breach claims, clear governance policies, and actionable data integration into your TIP (view here).

• Cyabra unveiled its 2026 rebrand and new mission to restore trust and authenticity for global enterprises and governments (view here).

• Sarah Wormer wrote a LinkedIn article sharing a framework of vetting questions analysts can use to evaluate browser extensions (view here)

More insights?

Reach out at contact [at] osint-jobs [dot] com for deeper and tailored insights about OSINT tradecraft and the wider industry.

This week, we explore the growing world of situational awareness monitoring. New dashboards keep launching. Each is sleek, powerful, and free, pulling multiple sources into one place in a way that is hard not to find impressive. But looking impressive and delivering effective monitoring are two different things.

And that gap made us think. What actually sits behind effective monitoring? We put together a five-point framework built around the thinking that separates useful situational awareness from information overload. Human-centred. No tool lists. No platform reviews. Just what actually matters.

Missed last week’s newsletter?

Job Opportunity

Intelligence Consultant (OSINT)

IMSL is looking for an Intelligence Consultant | 🇬🇧 UK | Full-time | Apply here

Upcoming Event: OSMOSIS London Expo 2026

A quick reminder — this Wednesday, 4 March, we'll be at the OSMOSIS London Expo 2026. Come talk to us. Don't miss this one-day programme packed with expert presentations, hands-on tool demos, peer networking, and direct access to leading OSINT technology providers.

For more info and tickets, click here.

Situational Awareness Tools Are Evolving Fast. Here’s What Hasn’t Changed.

Situational awareness monitoring dashboards keep multiplying. Tools like WarTracker24, WorldMonitor, Signal Cockpit, Monitor the Situation, and similar ones offer analysts a single interface, combining multiple sources into one sleek interface.

This weekend’s events in the Middle East put many of these dashboards to the test. Users reached for them seeking real-time awareness as events unfolded. Clean design and source aggregation unite these tools but that combination alone does not make an analyst effective.

The information environment moves fast and the truth gets murkier even faster. Too much information hits at once. Spotting what is real versus what is misleading gets harder by the hour.

This week, we take a step back. We show you what situational awareness actually takes, which sources do the job, and why how you work matters more than what you use.

Read more

An email address is often all you have. This week we show you how far you can take it.

Five fundamental techniques, zero tool lists, straight to the principle and the value behind each one. Plus last week's tradecraft tips and industry news, so you never miss anything in the OSINT industry.

Missed last week’s newsletter?

Upcoming Event: OSMOSIS London Expo 2026

A one-day program packed with expert presentations, hands-on tool demos, peer networking, and direct access to leading OSINT technology providers. We'll be there too — come say hello.

For more info and tickets, click here.

Investigating Email Addresses: Your How-To Guide for OSINT Investigations

In our newest deep-dive guide, we’re tackling one of the most common starting points in any investigation: the email address.

Whether you know who’s behind it or not, an email is often all you have and the question is how far you can take it.

We’ll be sharing the tips, tools, and techniques we’ve gathered over four years of running this newsletter, combined with the in-house expertise of public and private OSINT professionals.

Our focus stays on free tools throughout, but we’ll flag where paid platforms can give you a meaningful edge and explain why.

Before diving into techniques and tradecraft, it’s worth stepping back to look at the overall investigation workflow. For this, we highly recommend the workflow visual created by Michael Bazzell. To our knowledge, he was the first to visualize workflows, including email, domain, and people searches that many in the OSINT community have since adopted and built upon.

We won't repeat that or other workflows. Instead, we share a practical approach to investigating email addresses with little to no access to paid tools.

This is not a list of tools and resources. We walk you through the core principles and techniques built on over four years of covering weekly tradecraft tips and our team's daily hands-on investigation and intelligence expertise — building blocks you can reach for at any stage of an investigation.

Read more

This week we're shifting gears. Instead of just highlighting tradecraft tips and news, we're breaking down specific skills and walk you through on how to do it.

First up: constructing advanced Google queries with a custom AI assistant. Before we dive in, a quick career opportunity for those in the United Kingdom.

IMSL is looking for:

Intelligence Trainer/Assessor (Assessment Lead)

United Kingdom | Apply here)

Need qualified OSINT professionals? Post your role on osint-jobs.com and get in front of thousands of vetted practitioners globally.

DIY OSINT: Building a Guided Search Assistant with ChatGPT

ShadowDragon's Dork Assistant Builds Advanced Google Searches

ShadowDragon has launched Dork Assistant, a free tool that translates plain-language research queries into advanced Google "dorks."

This is an interesting and useful application, particularly for OSINT training where search operators are taught through real-world exercises.

When we tested it, we wondered if we could build something similar without creating a web app or paying for premium AI access.

After experimenting with various prompt structures, we developed a solution that not only constructs advanced queries but also teaches the investigative thinking process, guiding users through targeted questions, explaining operator choices, and progressively building complexity.

Below, we'll show you how to build it yourself using any free LLM. We developed and tested it on OpenAI's free tier.

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Another month has passed and a lot has been happening in the OSINT world. But don’t worry, we’re here to keep you up to date.

This monthly edition is FREE for all our subscribers and based on our weekly premium content, which you can find below.

Thanks to all our premium subscribers for supporting our work!

Now let’s dive in!

Highlights from January 2026

OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News

Researchers from Anthropic, the AI Security Institute, and the Turing’s Defence and National Security team show that attackers can poison language models with as few as 250 malicious documents, enabling backdoors and data leaks and underscoring the need for stronger defences.

Originally published in 2022 but recently reshared by the author in light of current developments, this practical step-by-step guide explains how to use real-time social media monitoring to investigate human rights violations.

Here are 32 commands for making your ChatGPT prompts more precise. This tip was shared on LinkedIn. For the full breakdown, including the cheat sheet, see the original post.

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A useful tip by the GDELT Project Blog, showing how GenAI can turn a static infographic into an interactive, clickable HTML page using Gemini 3.

Neil Hoyne, Chief Strategist at Google, shared an insightful post on building strong data analysis skills. This aligns with our in-house research and with what managers report as missing in many OSINT teams. Data analysis remains an essential skill for OSINT.

On LinkedIn, Steven H. released URL Dater, a self-hosted web app that can be used in investigations for estimating a website’s age.

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Gartner names Blackbird[.]AI the leading disinformation narrative intelligence AI company.

While doing research, we came across Google Scholar Labs from Google. You can now ask a detailed research question and get relevant academic papers instantly, which helps speed up literature reviews.

OpenAI is working on ChatGPT Jobs, a career-focused AI agent that supports users with resume advice, job searches, and broader career guidance, TestingCatalog reports.

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X user @Harrris0n published an article explanaining that every Waze report shares a user’s exact location, timestamp, and username on Waze’s public web map.

On LinkedIn, Kevin B shared an interesting article from Windscribe about its VPN Relationship Map, which documents relationships between VPN services, their corporate owners, and paid affiliates.

Learn how to convert a list of sources and their targets into a network using the free, no-registration Nocodefunctions web app and visualise it in Gephi.

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More insights?

Reach out at contact [at] osint-jobs [dot] com for deeper and tailored insights about OSINT tradecraft and the wider industry.

This week, we highlight new tools, research, and commentary that show both the opportunities and the tensions shaping OSINT today.

We look at emerging capabilities that lower the barrier to large-scale searching and aggregation, alongside research that shows how investigators and journalists work with archived and open data in practice.

We also feature several reflections on the state of the profession itself - why judgment, structure, and analytical design matter as much as tooling, how organisations risk confusing output with insight, and where dependence on platforms and automation may introduce new blind spots.

As always, we close with key industry updates that point to broader shifts in technology, infrastructure, and intelligence practice.

Job Opportunity

Tech Against Terrorism

(Threat Intelligence Analyst, Australia (Remote) | Apply here)

Need qualified OSINT professionals? Post your role on osint-jobs.com and get in front of thousands of vetted practitioners globally.

OSINT Tradecraft Tips

A short roundup of tradecraft tips to help you stay ahead in the field.

Read more

This week, we cover free satellite imagery sources, hands-on data extraction techniques, and new tools that streamline analysis and note-taking.

Plus, we look at why language skills, evidence standards, and clear peer review still matter as automation becomes more popular.

We also track key developments shaping the OSINT environment, from new forms of online manipulation to debates around AI in investigative work and the unintended consequences of synthetic media.

As always, the aim is to help you stay sharp, grounded, and up to date.

Before we dive in, we’d like to highlight an upcoming event from our friends at OSMOSIS Association. This will be of particular interest to our UK-based community, but is of course open to everyone!

Elevate Your Career — with a Special OSINT Jobs Registration + OSC Certification Offer

OSMOSIS London Expo | 4 March 2026 | London, UK

The OSMOSIS Association is coming to London! You’re invited to the OSMOSIS London Expo, a one-day experience created to help OSINT professionals grow, connect, and advance.

What You’ll Gain:
• Practical OSINT skills you can take back to work immediately
• Insight from experienced practitioners and industry leaders
• Meaningful connections with employers, platforms, and peers
• A clearer path to your next career move

Exclusive OSC Certification Discount!
Register for the Expo and receive a special discount on the Osmosis Association OSC Certification—a respected credential that validates real-world OSINT expertise.

Register today and receive a 10% discount. Use Code: OJ10

https://osmosisassociation.org/home/osmosis-london-expo/

OSINT Tradecraft Tips

A short roundup of tradecraft tips to help you stay ahead in the field.

Read more