OSINT is CRAZY – The Social Media Deep Dive

Till now, I always thought OSINT meant doing boring, manual searches for every tiny detail, and honestly, it felt kind of dull. But just now, when I started exploring social media OSINT, I realized how much we can actually track using free websites available online. We just need to log in, and we can find out a lot about someone.

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Twitter OSINT

I’m not a heavy Twitter user, but once I saw what’s possible with just a username, I was surprised. And if you somehow get their Gmail, the game levels up even more.

Tools:

• Socialbearing / Twitonomy

  • Gives deep analytics of any public Twitter account

  • Shows post frequency, hashtags, common words, who they interact with

  • Can predict their sleep schedule from timestamps

  • Helps map their social circle

• Spoonbill

  • Tracks all profile changes: name, bio, profile pic, etc.

  • Shows every change made on the account over time

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Facebook OSINT

I don’t use Facebook much these days, but I still have an account. Facebook has tightened privacy settings, but it's still possible to extract data.

Tricks:

• Search for tagged photos

  • Use: photos of "name"

  • Even if the account is private, photos they're tagged in by public accounts are visible

  • Metadata from those pics can reveal time, location, etc.

• Download content and profile pics

  • Tools:

    • sowdust.github.io

    • intelx.io

  • These allow downloading and analyzing content that Facebook normally restricts

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Instagram OSINT

This is the platform I use the most. I was hoping to find out who follows someone recently or who they talk to the most, like on Twitter, but Instagram is quite secure. Still, there are some useful tools.

Tools:

• Wopita.com

  • Saves public data/pics from accounts before they went private

  • Lets you download all previously public posts

• Codeofaninja.com

  • Tracks Instagram username changes using user ID

  • User IDs never change, so if you save it, you can always track their new username

• Imginn.com

  • Downloads stories, profile pics, and posts from public accounts

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Snapchat OSINT

I never thought Snapchat could be useful in OSINT, but it actually has a unique feature.

• map.snapchat.com

  • A live map showing where public snaps are uploaded

  • Click any area to see recent snaps from that location

  • Useful for investigations if someone was at a known place and time

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Reddit OSINT

Reddit is more open like Twitter.

• All a person’s posts and comments are public (if you know the username)

• People often share personal opinions, locations, habits in discussions

• A great source to build a behavioral or psychological profile

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LinkedIn OSINT

This is highly underrated in OSINT but can reveal a lot.

• Users share:

  • Phone numbers, DOBs, emails

  • Resume, work history, certificates, education, etc.

• Even private accounts reveal info through search engine indexing and previews

Before, I used to think there’s no harm in someone knowing my certifications or where I studied, but now I realize very few people share my exact combination of details. That makes it easy to uniquely identify someone.

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Final Thoughts

That’s all for this blog. Next up, I’ll dive into Web OSINT and using Kali tools to automate this work instead of doing everything manually.

Still, manual searching has its own importance. Tools can fetch data, but only humans can connect the dots.