We're all too familiar with the tragic scenes coming out of Ukraine on social media.
Russia's invasion has been covered like no other conflict, with smartphones and the internet giving locals the ability to document and then widely disseminate what is happening on the ground, almost instantly.
Much of that information is disorganized, but not all. A great article in Rest of World put us onto the world of Open-Source Intelligence, or OSINT.
The rise of OSINT
Sorting through social media videos, satellite imagery, security camera footage, troop movements and even talking to locals, OSINT researchers are trying to put the puzzle pieces of war intelligence together, publicly. But these aren't professionals.
One popular Twitter account is @IntelCrab — which is run by a college student. That account has exploded in popularity over the last few weeks, gaining 80,000 followers in February by curating and combining various sources into timelines and stories.
For some OSINT researchers Google street view is a key tool which they use to try and map videos and photos to specific locations — looking for easily identifiable landmarks, buildings or features. A fence, a particular tree or an unusual roof could all be clues to where a battle or an attack might have taken place.
