While the blog was being slowly brought back online, we kept working on two projects that have proven useful for our day-to-day work and in which we are investing a fair amount of time.
We have given Argos a new lease of life and, building on the experience gained, we have developed the first beta of Speculator.
Argos
Argos is the script we use to spin up the VMs we need for quick analyses, since it installs all the resources required to carry out some of the work for which we cannot allocate budget. The repository is the same one as before and, as well as updating it to the latest release of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS, removing tools that were no longer being maintained and adding new ones, in the past few weeks we have tidied up the documentation and started updating the various scripts that launch the tools.
Speculator
Speculator was born out of the experience we built with Argos. It is the same script adapted to Debian 13 “Trixie” machines. Like Argos, it installs tools, configures the user profile, and within a few dozen minutes hands you a standardised environment ready to use. Try it for yourself — the public repo is here.
In recent weeks we have been working on building a proper workflow and writing an English FAQ page that answers the most common questions: requirements, bundled tools, customisation of the Zenity scripts, and how to contribute.
The name is not random. The speculatores were a unit of the Roman army that specialised in territorial reconnaissance.
Why should you use one of these scripts?
Argos and Speculator are aimed at the same kind of analyst — those who need a starting point to build their own OSINT machine quickly and conveniently.
Both repositories are public and open to contributions and feedback. If you find a bug, if you think we have missed a tool you use daily, or if you have a suggestion on how to improve the workflow, get in touch! Drop us a line in the comments, or come for a chat in our Telegram group.