Resources
Resources and Tools for Investigative Journalists and Civil Activists
In today’s world, where technology plays a crucial role in transforming investigative journalism, it’s more important than ever for journalists and anti-corruption advocates to embrace advanced tools and techniques. To help researchers, activists, and journalists around the globe, we’ve put together a carefully curated list of resources. This toolkit serves as a complementary resource alongside our video series titled “Tracking Corruption,” available on our YouTube Channel (Link).
Crowdsourcing Opportunity
Did we miss a database? If so, please let us know!
Do you know of a website or database not included in this resource? If so, please email abawer@unishka.com with a copy to admin@unishka.com
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Business Registries
Cyber Security
- Signal
- Session
- Wire
- Wickr
- Mega
- ProtonEmail
- Tails
- Virus Total – URL/File Scan
- Check if your email address is in a data breach
- DeHASHED – Breach Checker
- LastPass – Password Manager
- 1Password – Password Manager
- Dashlane – Password Manager
- Website Scan for Virus
- GIJN Digital Security
- Secure Drop – Share and accept documents securely
- Cover Your Tracks – See how trackers view your browser
- Hushed – Temporary & Second Phone Number App
- Google Voice – Virtual Phone Number
- VeraCrypt – File Encryption Tool
- ExploitDB – Cyber Exploit Archive
- PulseDive – Threat Intelligence
- PolySwarm – File and URL Scan
- Fofa – Cyberspace Search Engine
Websites
- Osint-tool.com – gives you access to a suite of OSINT utilities directly on any webpage you visit
- VisualPing – Website Change Tracker
- Tackly.io – Website Change Tracker
- Klexon – Website Change Tracker
- Carbon Dating The Web
- DNS Cyrillic Check – Check if malicious or Cyrillic domains are registered
- Geo IP Tools – Check if your VPN is working
- Moz Link Explorer – Analyse URLs.
- Shodan – Internet of things search engine.
- SpyOnWeb – Check if websites belong to the same owner.
- Whatcms.org – What content-management system is this website using?
- _IntelligenceX – Advanced Search Engine
- Who.is – Domain Lookup
- Toby – Bookmark Manager
- Security Trails – DNS Data
- DorkSearch – Google Dorking
Maps & Satellites
- Google Street View
- Google Earth Pro
- Bing Maps
- Yendex Maps
- Open Street Map
- Moriwo – Map of Nigeria
- WikiMapia
- LiveUAMap – Timeline of news and zones of control in conflict
- GeoVisual Search
- HERE WeGo – More recent satellite imagery from places like Afghanistan and Iran than Google has.
- Kakao Map – Mapping service for South Korea
- Mapa.sk – Mapping service for Slovakia
- Mapillary – Street View
- F4 Map Demo – 3D Buildings
- Dual Maps – 3D Buildings
- Earth Explorer
- MapCarta
- Qwant – Shops/Places Tags
- Image Hunter (Apollo Mapping)
- Military Grid System
- Newspaper Map
Databases and Leaks
- Global Organized Crime Index
- The ENACT Organized Crime Index
- Retraction Watch – Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
- The Subnational Corruption Database
- Distributed Denial of Secrets
- WikiLeaks
- Global Leaks
- ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database
- ORRCP Aleph – 442 million public records
- Open Corporates
- Catalogue of Research Databases
- OpenSanctions
- Sanctions Explorer
- OSINT Tools Map
- Public Records (Various)
- Corporations Search (Corporation Records by State)
- County Search (All County Records by State & County)
- Citizen Audit (Nonprofit Tax Audit)
- ZoomEye – Various Data Search
- GrayHatWarfare – Search Amazon Public S3 Buckets
- LeakXI – Identifies Services that use weak passwords
- Offshore Leaks ICIJ
Data Tools
- Google Pinpoint – Explore and analyze large collections of documents
- Tesseract – Data extraction tool
- Tabula – Extracts data from pdf files
- DataBasic – Easy-to-use web tools for beginners
- DataWrapper – Charts, maps, and tables
- WorkFlowy
Social Media
- NodeXL (For mapping crowds around certain topics.)
- CrowdTangle (Usefull for analizing and tracking Facebook accounts.)
- 4CAT (Analyse and process data from multiple online social platforms.)
- CrowdTangle – Usefull for analizing and tracking Facebook accounts.
- IntelTechniques
- IntelligenceX
- PhantomBuster
- Snscrape
- Social-searcher
- SMAT (Disinformation tracker)
- TweetDeck
- Twitter Operands List
- Twitter List Copy
- Twitter – Twint
- Twitter Advanced Search
- DiscordLeaks
- Skopenow
- HaveBeenZuckered
- Search For Telegram Groups Based on Location
- Thread Reader
Tutorials/Resouces
- What is Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)?
- The Kit – Tutorial into investigative process
- Tutorial: TOR + VPN
- Bellingcat Guides
- Security in a Box – how to use social media and mobile phones more safely.
- Data Journalism Handbook
- Security Planner
- Surveillance Self-Defense
- Tech Solidarity – Do and Don’ts for basic security
- Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment (SEAH) Investigation Guide
- An activists guide to archiving videos
- OS Skills List
- Sector035 – Week in OSINT
- YouTube: OSINT at Home
- The OSINT Curious Project (TOCP)
- Techopedia
- OSINT Tutorials
- How do we work together to detect AI-manipulated media?
- IntelTechniques – Course
- Verifying Online Information – PDF Book
- Academic Literature on Open Source Research & Methods
- Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations
- Setting Your Moral Compass: A Workbook for Applied Ethics in OSINT
- A definitive guide to verifying digital content for emergency coverage
- Video as Evidence: Verifying Eyewitness Video
- How to Maintain Mental Hygiene as an Open Source Researcher
Image & Video
- InVID Verification Plugin
- Google Lens – Reverse Image Search
- TinEye
- Metadata2Go – Get All Metadata Info of Your Files
- Compare Images
- Forensically
- Youtube DataViewer
- Shadow Analysis – Make an approximation of the time of the day using shadow direction.
- Image Verification Assistant
- EXIF Purge – Remove metadata
- Foto Forensics – Photo Forensic Analysis
- PimEyes – Face Search Engine & Reverse Image Search
- Search4Faces
- Amazon Rekognition
- Practical face restoration for *old photos*
- PureRef – Arrange images in groups
- Cleanup.Pictures – remove objects from an image
- ThisPersonDoesNotExist – Generate Fake Images of People
- Am I Real? – Detects if faces were generated by ThisPersonDoesNotExist
- Mattw.io – Search YouTube Videos by Coordinates
Transport
- Marine Trafic
- Vessel Finder
- My Ship Tracking
- MariTime Database – Ship Company Details
- Military Ship Tracking
- Vessel Registry EU
- Vindecoderz – Detailed information about a vehicle’s history.
- Thats Them VIN Search
- Flight Aware – Flight Tracker
Crime Data
- Criminal Search (Criminal Records by State & County)
- Inmate Search-Nationwide (Past & Present Inmates)
- CrimeMapping
- Public Records Search
- Nationwide County Court Records (By State & County)
- Pigeonly – Search and find your inmate in over 4,000 facilities in USA
People Search
- _IntelligenceX – Email Searcher
- hunter – Email Searcher
- PeekYou – People Search
- ThatsThem – People Search
- ZebaSearch – People Search
- Foller.me – People Search
- Spokeo – People Search
- TrueCaller
- GetContact
- Whats My Number
- Epieos – Tool for email and phone reverse lookup
- Watools – the WhatsApp Online Tracker
- Search Systems
- Nigeria Phonebook
- Hitta – phone numbers/names (Sweden)
- Person Lookup – South Africa
- 192.com – Finding someone’s address in UK
- Check Usernames on 160 Social Networks
- Blackbird – Usernames on 500+ websites and social networks
- Radris – People Search
- URLscan – Scan a URL to check it’s safe
- Malicious URL Tester
- Tella App – encrypting data on your phone and for securely transfering files
- Phone Search
- 3ayli – Finding family members in Lebanon
Archiving
- Archive.org
- Way Back Machine
- Auto Archiver – Archiving Tool
- TV Archive
- Hunch.ly
- Pinpoint
- Archive.is
- Arweave – Decentralized (blockchain) archiving.
- Wayback Machine Downloader
- Perma.cc
- Fact Check Archive
Academic Research
- Google Scholar
- Core
- Talk To Books
- Text Analyzer JSTOR
- The Library of Congress
- Open Knowledge Maps
- UK Research and Innovation
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- BASE – Academic Search Engine
- NATO Library
- Project MUSE
- World Bank Open Data
- Open archive of the social sciences
- ArXiv – archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles
- AnswerThePublic – Keyword Research Tool
Other
- Dumpster Diver – Tool to search for secrets in various file types.
- Bitcoin block explorer
- Google Journalism Studio
Other Toolkits
- OSINT Dojo
- Top OSINT & Infosec Resources
- Bellingcat’s Online Investigation Toolkit
- The BBC Africa Eye Forensics Dashboard
- Marc Kranat OSINT Dashboard
- OSINT Essentials
- Terrorism & Radicalisation Research Dashboard
- OSINT China – French-oriented
- OSINT Framework
- Digital Investigative Journalism in Africa Toolkit
- Open Source Intelligence Network
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