How to Build an OSINT Timeline. Fast.
We share two free resources, plus a ready-made prompt for building interactive HTML timelines, and tips to help you decide what belongs in a timeline.
Hello from the OJ Team,
Timelines help to establish facts and sequence of events. This week we cover two free tools for building one, plus we share some tips for deciding what to include and what to leave out.
We also share the latest tradecraft tips and industry, as well as three new job opportunities. All from last week.
Let’s get started.
Missed Last Week?
Job Opportunities
Intelligence Manager, Pinkerton, USA | Read the full listing here
Senior Security Researcher, Microsoft, UK | Read the full listing here
Researcher, Citizen by Investment and Third Party Due Diligence, Control Risks, Spain | Read the full listing here
OSINT Tradecraft Tips & Industry News
Everything you need to know from the past seven days.
Joseph Jones launched TGXTRACT a toolkit for Telegram investigations. It is a free tool and currently only available on Windows, distributed directly through their official website. For more information, check out the respective links | Official Announcement | Official Website | Video Walkthrough
Brian Krebs posted about a new service called DecryptAds, which focuses on adtech data from websites and apps, and shows who they allow to collect data and serve ads | Brian Krebs’ post | Decryptads.com
Ben Strick uncovered a large network of Facebook pages and groups, posing as Australian and British local community outlets with more than 800,000 followers and members. The network posted emotive content related to immigration, religion and national identity. While the network appeared local, it was managed from Sri Lanka and ran paid ads to maximize reach | Read the full investigation here
Tom Jarvis identified a Chinese military rocket-sled test site. In his blog post, he explains how he found it and teaches some valuable techniques along the way | Read his blog post
The EU AI Act’s Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content requires AI companies, such as Anthropic, to label AI-generated content. Anthropic announced it would place invisible watermarks into the generated output. In this blog post, Anthropic explains how Claude marks AI-generated content | Official Announcement EU Commission | How Claude marks AI-generated content
Why timelines matter and how to create one
Investigations are all about finding facts. They are about establishing what happened, who was involved, where and when it happened, how it happened, and why. Only then, when all the facts are gathered and presented clearly, investigators can make a determination and thus reach a conclusion. There are several techniques to help along the way, one of which is timelines. They help to establish what happened first, what came after, and possibly link one event to another, thus establishing sequences of events that led to the incident under investigation. This week we cover two ways to build them using free resources.
