Open Source Intelligence Gathering

In the hacker community, “open source” usually refers to software for which the source code is freely available.  In the intelligence community, open source intelligence (OSINT) refers to gathering information from publicly (but not necessarily freely) available sources.  The collection of OSINT is also common in computer security, where it is used by penetration testers to gather information about a target, and by incident response teams to identify threats.  It can also be used by anyone seeking a competitive advantage – in business, finance, sports, or just to find (or avoid!) long lost high school friends.

HackPittsburgh member Dan is running a “hacker contest” (hackerwars.net), which will be filmed partly at Hack Pittsburgh; one of the first challenges will be for the teams to collect OSINT on the fictional target.  For this Friday night talk, you are invited to watch them while a moderator narrates the techniques they’re using.  It will cover:
– Finding information on a web site
– “Google hacking”
– Mining social networks and correlating them
– Finding useful metadata
– Other good databases and sources of information

This will be filmed, but we will not use anyone’s picture or voice without permission.

Free & open to the public.
Doors open at 7pm, event starts shortly thereafter.
We’re at 1936 Fifth Avenue, in the garage around back (on Watson).
Look for our flag over the door.