www.zmescience.com
Open in
urlscan Pro
151.101.2.207
Public Scan
URL:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/open-source-intelligence-ukraine/
Submission: On June 06 via api from US — Scanned from DE
Submission: On June 06 via api from US — Scanned from DE
Form analysis 5 forms found in the DOM
GET https://www.zmescience.com/
<form action="https://www.zmescience.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
<input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
<button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>GET https://www.zmescience.com/
<form action="https://www.zmescience.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
<input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
<button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>GET https://www.zmescience.com/
<form action="https://www.zmescience.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
<input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
<button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>POST
<form id="mc4wp-form-1" class="mc4wp-form mc4wp-form-182851 mc4wp-form-styles-builder mc4wp-ajax" method="post" data-id="182851" data-name="Amazing science stories like this">
<div class="mc4wp-form-fields">
<div id="newsletter_box">
<h5> Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...</h5>
<p> ...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong. </p>
<p>
<label>
<input type="email" name="EMAIL" placeholder="Your email address" required="">
</label><label>
<input type="submit" value="SUBSCRIBE NOW">
</label>
</p>
<p>
<label>
<input name="INTERESTS[4ddd1778ce]" type="radio" value="1dc4b04688" required=""> <span>Daily</span>
</label> <label>
<input name="INTERESTS[4ddd1778ce]" type="radio" value="69e332ed88" required=""> <span>Weekly</span>
</label>
</p>
<p>
<label>
<input name="AGREE_TO_TERMS" type="checkbox" value="1" required=""> <a href="https://www.zmescience.com/privacy-policy/" target="_blank">I have read and agree to the terms & conditions.</a>
</label>
</p>
</div>
</div><label style="display: none !important;">Leave this field empty if you're human: <input type="text" name="_mc4wp_honeypot" value="" tabindex="-1" autocomplete="off"></label><input type="hidden" name="_mc4wp_timestamp"
value="1654469890"><input type="hidden" name="_mc4wp_form_id" value="182851"><input type="hidden" name="_mc4wp_form_element_id" value="mc4wp-form-1">
<div class="mc4wp-response"></div>
</form>GET https://www.zmescience.com/
<form action="https://www.zmescience.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
<input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
<button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>Text Content
WE VALUE YOUR PRIVACY
We and our partners store and/or access information on a device, such as cookies
and process personal data, such as unique identifiers and standard information
sent by a device for personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement,
and audience insights, as well as to develop and improve products.With your
permission we and our partners may use precise geolocation data and
identification through device scanning. You may click to consent to our and our
partners’ processing as described above. Alternatively you may access more
detailed information and change your preferences before consenting or to refuse
consenting.Please note that some processing of your personal data may not
require your consent, but you have a right to object to such processing. Your
preferences will apply to this website only. You can change your preferences at
any time by returning to this site or visit our privacy policy.
AGREE MORE OPTIONS
* News
* Environment
* Health
* Future
* Space
* Features
THE ANATOMY OF A BLACK HOLE: DIVING DEEP INTO THE SINGULARITY
FIVE TURNING POINTS IN THE EVOLUTION OF WINE
FACE OF THE DOLLAR: THE STORY OF PETER THE MINT EAGLE
WHAT THE VAI SCRIPT REVEALS ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF WRITING
WHY DOES BOTTLED WATER HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE?
NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT: THE MANY MYSTERIES OF VACUUMS
WHAT VACCINES AND BOOSTERS ACTUALLY DO AGAINST COVID-19
REMEMBERING THE TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENT: WHEN RURAL ALABAMA BLACK MEN WERE
INTENTIONALLY EXPOSED TO SYPHILIS WITH NO TREATMENT
MECHANICAL TURK – THE FAKE CHESS-PLAYING MACHINE THAT LACKED INTELLIGENCE BUT
STILL FOOLED HUMANS FOR DECADES
TRENDING TAGS
* More
* About
* The Team
* Advertise
* Contribute
* Our stance on climate change
* Privacy Policy
* Contact
No Result
View All Result
HOW OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE (OSINT) IS EXPOSING THE UKRAINE WAR IN REAL-TIME
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Science News
HOW OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE (OSINT) IS EXPOSING THE UKRAINE WAR IN REAL-TIME
THIS IS THE FIRST WAR THAT IS ALMOST LIKE A LIVE-BROADCAST -- AND THE OSINT
COMMUNITY IS HELPING US MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL.
by Tibi Puiu
March 15, 2022
in News, Pieces
Reading Time: 11 mins read
A A
A A
Reset
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit
During an ongoing war, it is often extremely difficult for outsiders to gain a
sense of what’s truly going on in the theater of combat as each side employs
propaganda to understate their losses and embellish enemy weaknesses. The
ongoing war in Ukraine is rather unique and unusual for a number of reasons, one
of which is the unprecedented activity of open-source intelligence, or OSINT — a
community of journalists, researchers, and amateurs who are employing open and
freely available information to cast fresh light on this humanitarian crisis.
Here’s why that matters.
Contents [hide]
* 1 What is open-source intelligence?
* 2 OSINT exposing war crimes and assasination plots
* 3 OSINT and the war Ukraine
* 4 Piercing the fog of war
WHAT IS OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE?
Image credit: ADSBExchange.com/Twitter/The Aviationist.
OSINT is an umbrella term that refers to any information that can be legally
gathered for free from public sources about an individual or organization. Any
publically available information is subject to OSINT scrutiny, including
satellite data, books, reports, and newspaper articles — although in practice
intelligence gathering is mostly performed on the internet, using information
posted on social media and instant messaging groups, along with many other
online sources.
OSINT can be used for both good and evil. For instance, publically available
information can be used to gather intelligence on a potential victim to profile
them and narrow down possible vulnerabilities. Hackers can use publicly
available information that is virtually hidden to unsophisticated users to
improve the security of a friendly system or, conversely, to attack an
unfriendly cyber target. OSINT is, essentially, intelligence produced from
public sources of information.
ADVERTISEMENT
There are many readily available tools found online that the OSINT community
uses to support its efforts. Some researcher-favorites include Nmap and
Recon-ng. Simply by inputting an IP address — a unique number assigned to all
information technology connected devices such as printers, routers, modems and
even IoT refrigerators — into Nmap can reveal what hosts are available, what
services those hosts offer, the operating systems they run, what firewalls are
in use and many other details. But even using search engines like Google and
Bing can be used to retrieve PDFs, Word documents, Powerpoint and Excel files
from a given domain if you know how to make the right queries.
Other important tools allow OSINT researchers to geolocate pictures and videos,
revealing fake war footage such as videos from old military exercises or
previous conflicts unrelated to the current one.
OSINT EXPOSING WAR CRIMES AND ASSASINATION PLOTS
While OSINT has been mainly associated with cybersecurity, in more recent times
OSINT researchers have been documenting war zones, sort of like remote war
correspondents armed with a digital forensics kit. Eliot Higgins, the founder of
the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, is one of the first such
researchers who achieved mainstream recognition after he exposed the use of
various weapons in Syria starting in 2012.
ADVERTISEMENT
Initially posting under the alias Brown Moses, Higgins monitored and scrapped
information from hundreds of YouTube channels, Twitter feeds, and WhatsApp
groups searching for images and footages of weapons employed in the Syrian civil
war and by whom. He did all of this unpaid while looking after his young
daughter in a Leicester suburb, thousands of miles away from the Damascus
hotspot. Many of his reports were picked up by media and human rights groups,
revealing harrowing accounts from the war. For instance, Higgins has put
together a database of 491 videos of cluster bombs being used across Syria,
together with map references and details of the type of weapons used.
“Before the Arab spring I knew no more about weapons than the average Xbox
owner. I had no knowledge beyond what I’d learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Rambo,” Higgins told The Guardian in an interview.
“My wife sees me doing all this work and thinks I should be getting paid for it.
But I’m doing it because I see stuff that isn’t being reported in the mainstream
media and want to record it.”
Since Higgins’ first investigations in Syria, the British OSINT researcher has
recruited a crew of experts, turning Bellingcat into one of the world’s foremost
investigative journalism organizations. For instance, Bellingcat was the first
to uncover evidence that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons
against his own people. But some of their investigations are so shocking they
sound like they must have been performed by a spy agency with billions in
funding like the CIA or MI6 — not a motley crew of volunteers working with
public data; and yet, that’s exactly what it is.
Using a combination of open-source flight data, satellite images, and leaked
Russian databases, Bellingcat exposed the identity of Russian operatives working
for the military intelligence service GRU involved in the poisoning of MI6
double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018, in Salisbury,
England. Using the same techniques, Bellingcat was able to reveal that Russian
intelligence officers from the FSB followed Alexei Navalny on over 30 trips
since 2017. In one such trip, they poisoned Navalny in August 2020 with a secret
nerve agent. Navalny, one of the most important opposition figures in Russia,
survived the assassination attempt, but was later jailed on what seem to be
false charges and is facing 15 years of prison.
Bellingcat is also at the forefront of OSINT in Ukraine. One of their
investigations has revealed the use of cluster munitions — weapons specifically
designed to inflict casualties to civilians — on non-military targets in
Ukraine.
OSINT AND THE WAR UKRAINE
Bellingcat is far from being alone. The OSINT community has grown and is very
active on the Ukraine invasion. Intel Crab, a 20-year-old student at the
University of Alabama, has been sifting through thousands of TikTok videos,
security camera feeds, and satellite images to reveal troop and weapon
movements.
SORRY TO INTERRUPT, BUT YOU SHOULD REALLY...
...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive
scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.
Daily Weekly
I have read and agree to the terms & conditions.
Leave this field empty if you're human:
Other Twitter accounts like Calibre Obscura and Oryx have been documenting war
footage posted online and have kept tallies of varified major equipment losses
on both sides. As of today, Oryx has documented 209 tanks, 130 armored fighting
vehicles, 187 infantry fighting vehicles, 64 armored personnel carriers, 39
infantry mobility vehicles, 9 communications stations, 41 engineering vehicles,
13 aircraft, and 408 trucks and jeeps lost by Russia in the war so far.
The Ukrainian war is very different from previous major conflicts, in the sense
that it is much more open. Everyone, military or civilian, carries a phone with
a camera, whose footage can be uploaded online in a matter of seconds. The
challenge lies in knowing where to look and having the necessary skills to find
that needle in the haystack that everyone else is missing among the mountains of
irrelevant information posted online.
Part of the Russian military convoy near Ivankiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 28. Credit:
Maxar Technologies.
Other OSINT discoveries are just obvious — if you have the right tools. By now,
you have mostly heard about the ominous “40-mile Russian column” advancing
menacingly towards Kyiv. Every major news organization used images released by
Maxar, a space technology company that provides real-time satellite imagery.
Earlier, on 24 February — just hours before Russia’s invasion — Jeffrey Lewis,
an arms control expert who leads a team of analysts at the Vermont-based
Middlebury Institute of International Studies, posted a Google Maps traffic jam
forming on a road near Ukraine’s border. Those were actually Russian military
forces that were about to storm the border.
Online tools like Flightradar24 and ADS-B Exchange have allowed journalists to
track surveillance aircraft operated by the military and its contractors in the
days leading to the invasion, as well as during the ongoing conflict. This
includes a US Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone, which was visible
on Flightradar24 in Ukrainian airspace, apparently watching the Donbas region on
February 24. These same sites have been used by the OSINT community to track the
movements of the private jets and luxury yachts of Russian oligarchs hit by
international sanctions.
The level of sophistication of some of the OSINT information is simply stunning.
OSINT groups, for instance, have been able to intercept shortwave radio-based
communications employed by Russian forces. The video below shared by
Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev is simply surreal, showing how unencrypted Russian
communications are getting jammed by Ukraine forces with their national anthem.
This is meme-level trolling you’d expect to see between two teenagers playing an
online video game not during an actual war between two major countries. But such
are the times!
PIERCING THE FOG OF WAR
Governments or warring parties — once the only ones with eyes on the battlefield
— can no longer control the narrative of a conflict, at least not in the way
they once did. It’s just not possible to straight out lie anymore with a
straight face.
Take for instance Russia’s false flag attempt from February 22, when separatists
in the Donbas regions claimed that three people had been killed by an IED
explosion that destroyed a car and van. The blame was pinned on Ukraine by
Russian state-controlled media, but Bellingcat showed that the result of the
explosion didn’t match the profile of an IED device. Moreover, the victims were
almost certainly cadavers planted at the scene, with images clearly showing cuts
made to the skull, most likely by a bone saw. This kind of procedure is
typically performed during an autopsy. After this botched attempt, Putin gave
the order to invade two days later anyway on the ridiculous pretext that it must
protect Russian native speakers from fascists.
All of these developments, and much more, are revealing the horrors of war in
unprecedented detail to the world. The sheer volume of open data from this
conflict is staggering, allowing the OSINT community to provide a panoramic
perspective that rivals or perhaps even surpasses the operations of spy agencies
in some instances. In fact, some of this information often makes its way to NATO
intelligence officials, according to Lukas Andriukaitis, who used to serve in
the Lithuanian special forces and is now the associate director of the Atlantic
Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
> “There will always be a fog of war, but I think it is the thinnest veil of war
> we’ve ever had,” Intel Crab said. “It’s surprising to me because it’s been,
> for the longest time, so niche on Twitter and the internet as a whole,” he
> told Rest of World.
We’re getting an unprecedented view into the very heart of a war and we have
access to unprecedented information. How much of a difference this will make
remains to be seen.
Tags: russiaUkraineukraine war
ShareTweetShare
WE RECOMMEND
1. Be Radiant: Bimekizumab versus Secukinumab in Plaque Psoriasis
Kristian Reich et al., NEJM, 2021
2. Ukraine war will amount to attrition and modest gains
Expert Briefings, 2022
1. Patchy success of Russian attack points to poor plans
Expert Briefings, 2022
2. Empire Loyalism and Nationalism in Ukraine and IrelandComparing the Sources
of Conflict in the Donbas and Ulster
Taras Kuzio, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 2020
Powered by
* Privacy policy
* Do not sell my personal information
* Google Analytics settings
I consent to the use of Google Analytics and related cookies across the TrendMD
network (widget, website, blog). Learn more
Yes No
TIBI PUIU
Tibi is a science journalist and co-founder of ZME Science. He writes mainly
about emerging tech, physics, climate, and space. In his spare time, Tibi likes
to make weird music on his computer and groom felines.
Popular in the Community
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
* News
* Environment
* Health
* Future
* Space
* Features
* More
© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.
No Result
View All Result
* News
* Environment
* Health
* Future
* Space
* Features
* More
* About
* The Team
* Advertise
* Contribute
* Our stance on climate change
* Privacy Policy
* Contact
© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.
1