FAQ

OsintOps is an Italian blog and collective project dedicated to Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). Founded and curated by a team of six authors with diverse backgrounds — from cyber threat intelligence to digital forensics, from geospatial analysis to operational security — the blog publishes articles, practical guides and tools for the OSINT community.

OsintOps is a collective project with six authors/editors: OsintTrapper (founder and editorial curator), Mister Serious, Alessandro Rella, polifemo, Francesco Poldi and Paolo Dal Checco. Each contributes their own expertise in OSINT, cybersecurity and investigative analysis. To get to know us better, visit our Team page.

Yes. All articles, guides and tools published on OsintOps are free and openly accessible. Our open source projects on GitHub are released under licences that allow their use, modification and redistribution. We have no paywalls and no paid members-only areas.

OsintOps is a bilingual project. The primary language is Italian, but the site is also available in English. Articles are progressively translated. Projects on GitHub (Argos, AnuBitux) ship with documentation mainly in English to reach the international OSINT community.

There are several ways to contribute: reporting bugs or errors in our tools, proposing new features via GitHub issues, submitting pull requests with improvements or fixes, suggesting new tools or resources for inclusion in the projects, or simply sharing our content with the community. Every contribution, large or small, is welcome and appreciated.

OSINT stands for Open Source Intelligence, i.e. intelligence derived from open sources. It is the collection, analysis and use of publicly available information — web pages, social media, public records, satellite imagery, news articles — to produce knowledge that supports decision-making. OSINT does not involve access to confidential or classified sources: every piece of material used is lawfully accessible to anyone.

Open source information is any data that is publicly available, observable or purchasable without any special legal status. Open source intelligence (OSINT) is that same information after it has been collected, verified, analysed and contextualised to support a specific decision. In other words: information is the raw data, intelligence is the product of analysis.

OSINT relies on publicly accessible sources, so the collection of open source information is in itself lawful. However, it is essential to operate in compliance with the laws of your own jurisdiction, including privacy regulations (such as the GDPR in Europe), the terms of service of the platforms used, and stalking and harassment laws. Ethical and lawful use is the analyst’s responsibility.

Counter-OSINT is the set of techniques and practices aimed at protecting your personal information from collection via open sources. It includes digital hygiene (password management, 2FA, email aliases), minimising your digital footprint, configuring privacy settings on social media, removing personal data from services and databases, and being aware of metadata-related risks (photos, documents).

For complete beginners, we recommend the following resources:

• “OSINT Techniques” by Michael Bazzell (11th edition) — the industry reference, with step-by-step instructions for tools and investigative strategies.
• “Deep Dive” by Rae Baker — covers practical OSINT tools and techniques with real-world examples.
• “Criminal Intelligence: Manual for Analysts” — the fundamentals of criminal intelligence analysis and the investigative method.
• The OsintOps blog — our articles often start from the fundamentals and walk the reader through step by step.

Operational security (OPSEC) is essential in any OSINT activity. The core practices include:

• Network anonymity: use a trusted VPN or the Tor network to mask your real IP address.
• Dedicated environment: conduct your research from a virtual machine (VM) or a separate device, to avoid contamination with your personal data.
• Browser fingerprinting: use browsers or extensions designed to minimise your digital fingerprint.
• Non-attributable accounts: use dedicated accounts that cannot be traced back to your real identity when interacting with online services during your research.

Yes, this is strongly recommended. For many OSINT activities it is essential to use dedicated “investigative” accounts that cannot be attributed to your real identity (sometimes called “sock puppets”). Using personal accounts can compromise the investigation, expose your identity and may breach some platforms’ terms of service. Each investigative account should be created with dedicated email addresses, on a network separate from your usual one.

Ethical use comes first. You must always operate within legal and jurisdictional boundaries. The purpose of OSINT tools is the lawful collection of information on authorised targets. They must never be used for harassment, unlawful surveillance or activities that violate privacy laws or platforms’ terms of service. Responsibility for ethical conduct rests entirely with the analyst.

We recommend running OSINT activities from a dedicated virtual machine (VM), separate from your personal environment. Minimum requirements: a hypervisor such as VirtualBox, a VM with at least 4 GB of RAM and 50 GB of disk, and a Linux operating system. This avoids contamination with your personal data and keeps a clean, reproducible environment for each investigation.

No OSINT tool guarantees the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of the information collected. Every external source has its own terms of service and limitations. The analyst is fully responsible for the independent verification and validation of all information before considering it reliable or using it in any operational context.

Validating open source information follows a structured process that includes: source analysis (credibility and reliability), technical analysis (integrity of the document, image or video), content analysis (authenticity), provenance verification (origin of the material), internal consistency and external corroboration with independent sources. The Berkeley Protocol provides a comprehensive methodological framework for this process.

Some of our tools integrate artificial intelligence models to speed up information collection and analysis. However, it is imperative that every piece of information generated by AI is always verified and validated by a human analyst before being treated as fact. AI is an accelerator, not a substitute for professional judgement.

Argos is an OsintOps project named after Argus Panoptes, the hundred-eyed giant of Greek mythology, the tireless watchman. Like its mythological namesake, Argos is designed to observe, monitor and gather information from open sources in a systematic way. For more details, visit the Projects page.

AnuBitux is a live Linux distribution designed for cryptocurrency and blockchain investigations. It provides a preconfigured environment with specific tools for transaction tracking, wallet analysis and investigations into suspicious activity in the crypto world. It is available as a downloadable ISO image from our GitHub.

Yes. The OsintOps Telegram channel is our main direct communication channel with the community. We post article updates, alerts about tools and OSINT resources, and news from the open source intelligence world. You can join via the link in the site footer or in the blog sidebar.

No. Our tools do not implement any tracking or logging of user queries. However, every external service or website you access through our tools operates under its own privacy policy and may record your interactions. Always practise safe browsing.

OsintOps operates in compliance with the GDPR and the ePrivacy framework. We do not collect personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the site to function (anonymised analytics, technical cookies). For full details, see our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

Artificial intelligence is used as a supporting tool in the creation of some content and projects. However, every article is written, reviewed and validated by human authors. AI is an accelerator, not a substitute for editorial judgement. No LLMs were harmed during the making of our projects.