Episode 4 – From Conflicts to Council Records: Lessons for Investigators

From dodging misinformation to archiving video and testing LLM geolocation, this episode unpacks the latest tactics and tradecraft shaping open-source investigations.In the fourth episode of the rebooted OSINT Podcast, host Jake Creps explores how OSINT is being used - and misused - across today’s information landscape. This instalment highlights new tools, recent community research, and practical case studies that show how to adapt your methods in a fast-changing environment.
Highlights include:
📰 A Guide To Monitoring Conflict Amidst a Sea of Misinformation – how investigators separate signal from noise when tracking warfare online. 🕵️ Private Investigator Case Studies: How We Find the Unfindable – ten concise examples of creative approaches from professional PIs. 🔁 Trillions of Posts Go Dark on Facebook – Here’s Your Flashlight – lessons in building redundancy when platforms change or go offline. 🎥 YouTube Video Finder – a tool that aggregates archives to recover lost content and metadata. 🌍 GeoIntel – experimenting with LLMs to bulk-check and narrow down geolocation candidates. 📂 Council Meeting Transcript Search – making static datasets more accessible with smarter search.
Each segment highlights practical ways OSINT practitioners can sharpen their methods, while also showing the risks and limits of open-source intelligence.
References:
* A Guide to Monitoring Conflict Amidst a Sea of Misinformation (bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-world/2025/09/01/a…)
* Private Investigator Case Studies (diligentiagroup.com/legal-investigation/privat…)
* Trillions of Posts Go Dark on Facebook (digitaldigging.org/p/trillions-of-posts-go-dar…)
* YouTube Video Finder (findyoutubevideo.thetechrobo.ca)
* github.com/atiilla/GeoIntel
* Council Meeting Transcript Search (council-search.bellingcat.com)

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