In-Person Workshop in New York on March 24-28, 2025
Hello all dear Patrons,
We are organising a new in-person workshop in New York on March 24-28, 2025 on digital investigation techniques.
We use Eventzilla for registration, with a relatively light screening process preceding confirmation and payment for the workshops.
You can register directly in Eventzilla 2025-02-04 14:38:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Content warning: This episode discusses child sexual abuse material and non-consensual pornography.
In December’s edition of Bellingchat Premium, Bellingcat senior researcher and trainer Kolina Koltai joins editor Melissa Zhu to discuss her investigation into OpenDream, a site that calls itself an "AI art generator" but hosted a public gallery that was full of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
You can read the investigation on 2024-12-24 13:20:15 +0000 UTC View Post
On this free edition of Bellingchat Premium we are sharing a recent on-stage interview given by our founder, Eliot Higgins.
Conducted at Bellingfest, our 10-year anniversary event, Eliot spoke to moderator and tech journalist Monique van Dusseldorp about Bellingcat’s journey, building a global community of online investigators and the future of the open source research field.
2024-11-29 12:05:35 +0000 UTC View Post
On this month’s edition of Bellingchat Premium, Edward Tian discusses Artificial Intelligence, large language models and how open source investigators can use new tools being created with these technologies.
Edward is a long-time Bellingcat contributor who has gone on to found GPTZero, a startup developing AI detection models and interpretability tools.
You can read more about GPTZero here. Links to the ...
2024-07-31 11:17:17 +0000 UTC View PostIn a special edition, recorded for the two year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Editor Maxim Edwards explores how Bellingcat has worked to cover the conflict with researcher Michael Sheldon and former staff member, and now New York Times Visual Investigations Reporter, Aric Toler.
You can find all of our coverage of Ukraine here.
Want to access our investigations in Ukrainian or ...
On this month’s edition of Bellingchat Premium, Aric Toler discusses the recent leak of hundreds of US intelligence documents by an Air National Guardsman. Aric also details how he tracked the source of the leak via Telegram, 4chan and several servers on the messaging platform Discord (some of which were dedicated to video games and fans of a popular YouTuber).
We've attached an MP3 of the podcast to this post as well as allowing you to listen on your platform and device of choice. 2023-04-19 13:42:07 +0000 UTC View Post
This webinar requires prerequisite knowledge of the command line and of programming. A registration link to the workshop can be acquired through the completion of a simple task that will prove prerequisite competency for the training, found here. If you are a $15+ Patreon subscriber, please send an email to workshops@bellingcat.com after completing registration and we will prioritize...
2023-03-22 15:07:30 +0000 UTC View Post
In this month’s edition of Bellingchat Premium, Miguel Ramalho and Lucy Swinnen discuss Miguel’s latest article that uses open source techniques to investigate the whereabouts of Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos.
You can read Miguel's article, here.
2023-02-28 20:55:33 +0000 UTC View PostIn this recording of a Discord Stage Talk that took place in July 2022, Bellingcat researchers Annique Mossou and Giancarlo Fiorella go over a list of tips and suggestions for working with traumatic materials within the context of open source research. Aside from providing definitions for the terms "resilience" and "trauma", Giancarlo and Annique also shared tips from Bellingcat Discord server members who were in the audience during the talk.
2022-08-09 12:25:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Bellingcat’s Giancarlo Fiorella, Hannah Bagdasar, Aric Toler and Tristan Lee recently held a Discord Stage Talk where they discussed their beginnings as open source researchers and how they turned their passion into a career. Long-time Bellingcat contributor, Jake Godin of Newsy, also took part in the conversation.
We’ve uploaded audio of the talk here where you can listen for free.
Some further reading about how to get started in open source research can be found 2022-05-27 16:49:13 +0000 UTC View Post
On this month's Bellingchat Premium, Aiganysh Aidarbekova discusses how Russian QAnon channels are interpreting the Ukraine conflict.
While a variety of international QAnon channels have praised President Putin, some QAnon followers in Russia have taken a different stance and called for peace in Ukraine.
We've attached an MP3 of the podcast to this post as well as allowing you to listen on your platform and device of choice.
You can follow our latest reporting of the war in ...
2022-04-29 18:16:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Bellingcat's Aric Toler and Logan Williams recently held a Twitter Space to discuss accessing and analysing data leaks that have come out of Russia in recent months. Aric and Logan also took questions from listeners on some of the issues around understanding and processing such leaks. We are uploading the audio of the conversation and providing full access for free.
You can also read a recent piece that Aric discussed in the Twitter Space about the Yandex Food leaks 2022-04-19 15:50:09 +0000 UTC View Post
In an exclusive video for our Patreon subscribers, Giancarlo Fiorella explains the concept of geolocation and how it can be put to use by online investigators.
You can find some of the many Bellingcat investigations that have utilised geolocation here. Explainer pieces that detail how to perfect geolocation techniques can be found <...
2021-10-29 10:11:32 +0000 UTC View Post
On this month’s Bellingchat Premium, senior researcher Nick Waters talks to Eoghan Macguire about Bellingcat's latest resource -- the ability to send a satellite to capture imagery of any location on earth.
Bellingcat has purchased a subscription to Planet Labs, a private company whose satellites can capture 50cm resolution imagery of requested sites of interest within a few days.
... 2021-09-27 13:55:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Last month, Bellingcat published an in-depth piece about the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon. It detailed several brutal incidents of schoolchildren being kidnapped or, in the worst instances, killed.
In this episode of Bellingchat Premium, Maxim Edwards is joined by Bellingcat researchers Carlos Gonzales and Youri van der Weide, as well as Billy Burton of the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis Database of Atrocities, to discuss how open source tools helped researchers document what was going on ...
2021-08-31 21:39:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Eoghan Macguire speaks to Foeke Postma about how he discovered US service members stationed on bases where nuclear weapons are stored in Europe were exposing a multitude of sensitive security details via flashcard apps.
The troops posted information such as the exact shelters where nuclear devices were stored, secret duress words for when guards are under threat and even the position of cameras that monitor weapons vaults.
We've attached an MP3 of the interview to this post as wel...
2021-05-31 13:00:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Eoghan Macguire speaks with Nick Waters about a recent mock hearing that sought to test the admissibility of open source evidence in a court setting.
The hearing featured a real judge and lawyers who argued over whether social media videos showing the aftermath of an airstrike could be used in a fictional court case that was set up as part of the exercise.
It is hoped the lessons learned will inform how open source evidence can be stored, reviewed and analysed for use in future le...
2021-03-31 10:38:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Eoghan Macguire talks with Giancarlo Fiorella about the work Bellingcat has been doing to piece together the now notorious events of January 6 in Washington DC, when a disparate mob of Donald Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists and far-right groups stormed the US Capitol.
We've attached an MP3 of the interview to this post as well, allowing you to listen on your platform and device of choice.
You can check out some of our previous work on this subject via the following li...
2021-01-29 15:01:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello all!
Bellingcat researcher Giancarlo Fiorella put together a really cool video showing how Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020) can be used as a verification tool.
Giancarlo walks you through the entire process of lifting off, moving the camera, and aligning it to recreate perspectives of photographs that need to be verified. Giancarlo uses the example of a photograph supposedly taken in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh area (between Armenia/Azerbaijan) that was shared b...
2020-11-09 14:46:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Natalia Antonova chats with Robert Evans about the internet's favorite, special boy: Jacob Wohl. He tries to grift, fails every time, and gives us a few OSINT lessons on what not to do along the way.
We're making this chat available to all of our patrons. You can read our investigation into Wohl's comically inept attempt to smear Robert Mueller here:
Natalia Antonova chats with Nick Waters on the lessons on digital investigations with the recent shootdown of PS752 outside of Tehran.
With this brief chat, we're making it available to all of our patrons. You can read our investigation geolocating the first video showing the missile strike here:
2020-01-30 18:46:37 +0000 UTC View Post
Natalia Antonova chats with the Brenna Smith about her ongoing newsletter, CryptOSINT, which looks into the intersection between cryptocurrency and open source investigation. You can sign up to her newsletter here.
We're opening this episode up to all of our patrons, regardless of tier. Enjoy!
We've also attached the MP3 for the podcast to this post, s...
2019-12-09 22:10:33 +0000 UTC View Post