Michael James

@Ginsberg5150

What was your OSINT highlight of 2022?

I’m very privileged to work with amazing people. This includes The OSINT Curious group and the Intell Team from QOMPLX.

I think one of the highlights was presenting to the Internet, Intelligence and Investigations Virtual Conference 2022 (i3). Talking Telegram to Law Enforcement professionals was very rewarding.

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What emerging (good or bad) trends did you notice over the past year?

Cyber crime organization becoming more mature in their use of everyday products (bad). More use of OSINT techniques to understand problems and research solutions(good).

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Any favorite tool or technique that you tried in 2022?

• https://github.com/salaheldinaz/eis3 - .eth domains tool by salaheldinaz (go follow them) Great for checking what information you can get from the .eth domains/NFT

• https://github.com/jordanwildon/Telepathy - Telegram tool by jordanwildon (Jordan Wildon - go follow him as well) Really cool tool that has already been improved.

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How do you see the OSINT landscape changing in 2023?

I see more people, companies, governments and malicious actors using OSINT in the future.

OSINT is becoming a needed resource for many people and the (US) government is starting to understand that Intelligence work is not all classified. In the next year we will see more groups like OSINT curious, Bellingcat and others that will assist with online investigations.

We have seen ““experts”” crawl out of the woodwork in the last couple of years helping with all manner of things. Remember to verify your work, peer check it, validate where you can and always be open to discussion about the research. The only way this field grows is if the professionals are able to communicate. Attack the ideas, not the people.

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Promote yourself! Do you have a blog / Twitter account / Company / Tool / Course that you’d like to share with the community?

• Come to Kansas City!

• @ginsberg5150 most places

• QOMPLX INC

Anything else you’d like to add about The State of OSINT?

Big thanks to the team that puts this together!!!!! You know who you are :-)