OSINT: Open-Source Intelligence

Jeff M

IT Professional, ethical hacker, Indy Game programmer

Reviews

---

Good theory learning with a lot of very basic tools and resource overview... Sadly, the Open Source part of OSINT does not equal free and this is not the instructors fault. The first part of the course focuses on installing a virtual machine that has all the tools bundled in, but the rest of the course mainly focuses on web page tools. I understand the theory of protecting your identity, but time could be better spent on a hypothetical use case and tying the tools back into that use case. Overall I am a bit disappointed as this course is more informative than it is an OSINT instruction guide. It is broad, offers a lot of knowledge on the basics and shows the use of many tools with very little building on each other as the use case changes for each (We get a very basic overview and then on to the next one..) Additionally, the course shows a Last updated 4/2021, but only some content has been updated and a few sections do show older Linux distros being used. I am glad to see the instructor is looking at improving some of this content section and hopefully the course will get better and improve as this is a very complex topic. Example implied theory part: Why show Cherrytree and provide templates for note taking application and then not use it to log any of the findings. I would have loved to see a full use case from state-to-end. Example, should use "John Doe" as your main person of interest and build from there with each tool. Felt a little off the cuff as the instructor seems very knowledgeable in the subject, but might be trying to tackle this with too many tools. I completely understand balancing the privacy concerns of using a real life individual.

---