How to find out who is responsible for the bombing of hospitals in Syria without leaving them at home? How to look at Google Maps so as to detect crimes against human rights? Can OSINT help solve the crime problem? How to use the received data and how much universal and professional ethics can disperse? The book on open sources Open Source Investigations in the Age of Google, edited by Henrietta Wilson, Olamayd Samuel and Dan Plesh, is devoted to these and related questions. The authors and co -authors of the chapters were also practiced by practicing investigators (Arik Toler, Christian Tibert, Andrew Faynstein, Richard Gatrine), whose experience covers the widest range - from military crimes to investigations of cyberosis.
Excerpt for familiarization
In addition to reducing personal risks, our work requires the resolution of ethical dilemmas. In particular, to decide when and how to publish the results of the investigation. For example, if we convict a liberation movement in illegal actions, it will be disarmed. And this can put its members in a vulnerable position before the punitive and unfair actions of the authorities. Such situations make you face important, but difficult issues, about how to observe ethical and legal norms in investigations. What criteria to use to determine who to support? What can we do to stop the suffering of people at the hands of dictators? How can we collect evidence, at the same time guaranteeing that they will not be accidentally captured by special services and used in personal interests, and not to promote security and stability in South Sudan? There are no simple answers to these questions. But we solve such dilemmas as they arrive, turning for help to colleagues
OSINT, or intelligence on open sources, helps to find a tremendous amount of information for investigations. In the last 20 years, this field has changed radically, and now only devices with Internet access are enough to access significant data arrays. The compilers and authors of the book offer an interdisciplinary approach to investigations as a combination of tools of social sciences and digital technologies in the collection and analysis of data.
In five parts, the authors analyze how the intelligence methods on open sources have changed under the influence of social networks and the Internet, give examples of specific investigations and reflect on how these data can influence society. In particular, how to establish the guilty in crimes against human rights without physical access to the territories where these crimes are committed and how to attract the attention of the government and the public to the problems that remain in the shadows with the help of this information. The book discusses the algorithms and stages of a number of investigations, in particular confirmation of the authenticity of a video with the murder of two women and children in the Republic of Camerun in July 2018 (then BBC Disputed The statement of the Cameroon government that the video is fake), the use of OSINT for tracking small arms traffic, cases of investigation of the US and Russia bombing in Syria and methods for evaluating the arsenal of nuclear weapons in different countries.
On the one hand, the book will be useful to those who begin their way in factskeeping and investigations: the authors consider specific protocols for intelligence on social networks, according to satellite images and documents in the public domain. On the other hand, it will be useful for those who have been in the profession for many years: it allows not only to re -equip the base of protocols and solutions, but also think about the ethical side of OSINT. In all cases described in the book, the ethical principles and challenges that the investigator faces are also considered.
The book has not yet been translated into Russian, but it has been posted in free access: read or download it in .pdf or .epub format By link.
