OSINT stands for Open Source Intelligence, where open source means publicly available and intelligence means information gathering. In simple words, Open Source Intelligence means information gathering or collecting data from publicly available resources.
Open Source INTelligence = OSINT.
Well, "open-source" in the context of OSINT means locating and collecting information from any publicly available source. Such as published works, publicly available archives, the internet, your local city hall, books, videos, movies, forums, social media, leaked data, hacked data, pictures, newspapers, reports, and so on.
In ancient times, we only used books, manuscripts, arts, sculptures, and so on, but in modern times due to the advancement in technology we have search engines, online newspapers, web archives, social media sites, searchable archives, torrent, file sharing sites, and other millions of things available online.
Below are some examples of offline and online information used for open source intelligence.
Offline
Diplomatic: Government, law enforcement and courts, NGOs, international agencies
Academic: Academic research, journals, dissertations
Corporate: Annual reports, conference proceedings, press releases, employee profiles, résumés
Mass media: Television, radio, newspapers, magazines
Online
Internet Search/Database: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wayback Machine, Whois
Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram
Sharing & Publishing: YouTube, Flickr, Pinterest, Dailymotion
Blogging, Forums, and Online Communities: WordPress, Medium, Reddit, 4Chan
Deep web: The deep web consists of any non-indexed web pages (sites that are not reachable by internet search engines).
Dark web: The dark web is only accessible through darknets. Darknets can be small peer-to-peer or friend-to-friend networks, as well as large networks like Tor and I2Ps. Many sites on the dark web host illegal content.
OSINT in general is a massive subject that is constantly evolving and new techniques are always being explored and new tricks being discovered. This is a huge subject, and here's why.
First of all, the term "OSINT" is essentially an "umbrella" term for open-source intelligence work. There are many different categories in the intelligence field plus a ton of different acronyms are used for different topics of research, which are explained below.
Acronym | Meaning |
OSINT | Open-Source Intelligence |
SOCMINT | Social Media Intelligence |
GEOINT | Geospatial Intelligence |
IMINT | Imagery Intelligence |
ORBINT | Orbital Intelligence |
VATINT | Vehicle and Transportation Intelligence |
SIGINT | Signals Intelligence |
TECHINT | Technical Intelligence |
FININT | Financial Intelligence |
Interested in learning more about all these terms,the then explore the below Wikiphow://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_gathering_disciplines