The main aim of writing this blog is to explaining people about ground realities of OSINT world.
Let’s first understand what not to expect from OSINT:
OSINT is easy and can be done in few seconds and minutes.
Absolutely no, OSINT is really a time consuming process in general. If you are using OSINT for some personal reasons like a ID verification check, it can be done in minutes. But, if you are using OSINT for some professional work, you have to follow the OSINT cycle process which takes time and is not a minutes game. So, don’t expect it to be short kids game.
Learning how to use OSINT tools is enough for the work.
Absoultely wrong, OSINT tools are just an added bonus, don’t expect that they will give same results in all cases and will not be giving the required results. You must familiar with the basic working of all tools you are using in your osint workflow and how you can do that work manual way. The reason of learning so is firstly, we don’t know when the tool will stop working or maybe the tool is not giving you the required information or it’s not intended to gather the data that you are epecting, so in that caes you have to go for manual approach.
You can gather intel about anyone without their permission.
Respecting individuals and organization’s privacy is important and must. Yes, its true we gather intel about some people without their permission but that is not true everytime. In many cases, you are required to take permission of the individual and organization for doing so, you will learn this bettter when going deep into the practice. Inshort, just keep this in mind, if a person is doing wrong, you can directly go for intel gathering without permission but within some boundations, but not in cases, its somewhat related to national security or law enforcement related stuff.
You can do OSINT work for anyone whoever is paying you for this.
No, you can’t. You must use your OSINT knowledge and techniques for good. Never involve yourself in any work where the other party is supposed to be misuing this information. Take an example of stalking a girl’s account, if someone is paying you for doing so, directly say no, as if you do so , you are involved in a crime of harming someone’s privacy and incase somethine wrong happens to that girl, you will also be responsible for that. So, always use OSINT for good.
OSINT industry if full of money.
Some people have this misconception that its easy to earn money by just doing a paid OSINT course. It’s not the case, in order to earn from OSINT, you must be having good skillset and knowledge, It’s true that right now, we dont have much competition in this field, but just like other field, you must possess good skills and knowledge in order to work and earn from it.
So, these are the things that you should not expect from OSINT, that’s it. Now, lets move on to understand what you should expect from OSINT.
- Good in Information Gathering: If you learn OSINT, for sure, you will be good in effectively gathering information from pubic source and that too very fast as compared to other people.
- Good in Online Research: Learning OSINT Would also be helping in online research as OSINT involves use of advanced research techniques and tools which helps you in gathering more accurate and precise information.
- Improvement in Cricitical Thinking: OSINT practitioners are supposed to be having improvement in their thinking aspects and also good in problem solving which can help in other fields.
- Source Verification and Reliability: Easy to check the authenticity of a source and the information whether it’s true or fake and you would also be able to check the reliability of the source, how much you can trust the source.
- Better in Maintaining your Privacy and Personal Safety: When you learn OSINT, you will be better in managining your personal safety and privacy as you will be familar with all legal considerations and possible techniques and how to save yourself form them.
- Gaining some Domain Specific Knowledge: Once you start practicing your knowledge, you will be learning many new things in whatever you will be working in. For example, if you will be using OSINT for journalism, you will be having good knowledge in OSINT as you continue to work.
That’s it for today. From tommorrow, we will be starting learning about the technical topics in OSINT starting from, The OSINT Cycle.
If i missed something, let me know, so we can cover that topic or point in upcoming blogs.
Thanks for reading this blog.
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