NeedleStack

The director of the soon-to-open Open-Source Intelligence Laboratory of University of Albany joins the podcast to discuss the definition of OSINT and how his students will research its effect on society.

It’s a new year and as researchers work to hit their goals, we want to revisit some of our most important advice for securely investigating online. It’s time to take stock of your security hygiene and revisit how your digital fingerprint may be getting in the way of finding the data you need.

Watch when Jack Rhysider of Darknet Diaries shares his amazement at what hackers will do “for a free burrito,” or the moment Rob Fuller, a read team and CTI director, condemns security awareness training. From journalists to OSINT investigators to dark web experts, here are some of the best moments we shared with guests last season.

Our second book club episode features essential reading for threat intelligence. New York Times reporter, Nicole Perloth, gives a history of the zero-day market and how it has changed the cyber weapons arms race. Learn how this market was created and what it means for future cyber defense.

This special edition of NeedleStack features a must-read for open-source researchers, We Are Bellingcat by Eliot Higgins. Our producer Shannon discusses what she learned from the founder of Bellingcat’s tell-all and how researchers can learn from the organization’s practices.

In this episode, an expert OSINT practitioner from both government and private sector practices joins to share hands-on tips from in the field. He also shares what the students of Center for Intelligence and Research and Training are learning from their real-world client experiences.

Authoritarian regimes create propaganda and disinformation, in part, by blocking citizens’ access to traditional news sources. In this episode, co-founder of Samizdat Online, Yevgeny Simkin, walks us through how their program works in partnership with outlets to syndicate articles to bypass censorship in Russia and other countries — to get citizens and researchers the information they need.

Nick Hardinges from the Reuters fact-checking team joins the podcast to walk us through how to go about debunking information online, from deciding what’s worth covering to why grainy images should make you skeptical. Ultimately, fact-checking takes time, persistence and a healthy dose of intrigue. Key takeawaysKnow these telltale signs of doctored contentCheck your sourcesDo some digging on what you seeAbout NickNick Hardinges is a former digital news editor and current fact-checker for Reuters, whose job is to find harmful, widely circulating and topical misinformation, and then address those claims in articles directly responding to the claims being made. Nick’s main focus is on setting the record straight on social media but to sometimes address claims from elsewhere, such as outright lies in politics, or damaging conclusions reached in unscientific ‘research’ papers.Where to find Nick@NickHardingesFIFA COVID misinformation storySpotting the difference between legitimate videos and satire

Social media and traditional media overlap now more than ever, with social media providing an opportunity to reach and resonate with new audiences – for better or worse. Rachel Baig knows this intersection well. As a social media journalist and trainer for Deutsche Welle, she knows the ins and outs of not only using social to identify a great story but also how to spot a fake one. In this episode, Rachel breaks down important lessons from her training to understand media spoofs, verify images and videos, spot tell-tale signs of bots and more.

Fact-checkers’ biggest nemesis is the proliferation of disinformation in the digital age. Chris Paul joins the episode to talk about Russian propaganda and disinformation techniques. Why are they so effective? Is it skill or just an innate vulnerability for humans to want to believe what they see? Chris Paul walks us through his research from the technical to the psychological.