# OSINT and SITREP with Twitter



## DadofTheFamily (Feb 19, 2015)

I have found Twitter to be a helpful resource for OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) and SITREP. If you are not familiar with Twitter, it is a generally billed as a micro-blog or a two-sentence Face book. It's used by tons of people for everything from the mundane and useless to breaking news

Twitter has already proved itself as being an effective tool during times of unrest, upheaval and disasters.


2009's Iranian Green Revolution kept the world on edge through Tweets.
2012's Hurricane Sandy was chronicled via Twitter
2013's Egyptian revolution was Tweeted live.
2015's Unrest in Ferguson was Tweeted live.

You can use Twitter to create your own Early Warning for monitoring an emergency situation, possibly keeping you ahead of the curve and news cycle. Here's how to create your own OSINT and SITREP Dashboard:


Setup a special Twitter account for just the purpose of monitoring SITREP. It's better to do this since it's private and you'll have less noise (chatter with other people you may follow). You are not going to post anything here. You're just monitoring for gathering intel.

Follow relevant local twitter feeds (such as your local/state police, fire, EMS, government, weather and airport)
Follow relevant NOAA twitter feeds especially if you live in areas prone to earthquakes and harsh weather conditions
Follow relevant weather feeds for your area.
Follow state and US Emergency Management feeds (FEMA, DHS, Emergency Management)
Organize your feeds into lists. Lists are important to keep your SITREP from being cluttered with idle chatter (you'll see why later)
Next setup an account on Twitterfall.com
Connect your Twitter lists to your Twitterfall.com account and you can quickly sort and organize information based on events or situation you want to monitor. They are all color coded for easy viewing.
Within minutes you'll be gathering OSINT intel and SITREP

Twitterfall also allows you to search for keywords and hashtags if you want to filter your results even more.

Another neat feature of Twitterfall is the Geolocation feature that can fine tune information that is more likely first hand. So for example there may be an event happening in New York. You can choose to see Tweets originating from as little as a 10 KM radius and up to 200 Miles. This is very helpful when people are taking photos or videos from the general location where an event is happening.

So what am I monitoring?


I monitor financial content from economists, commentators, the FED, central bankers, etc.
I monitor breaking news events and independent reporters in conflict areas
I monitor emergency management departments throughout my region, states that border mine and several major cities.

What I am not montoring?


I do not monitor the main stream news outlets since they are cluttered with useless news.
I do not monitor preppers on Twitter who keep babbling on and are always selling stuff
I do not monitor twitter feeds from my favorite websites since I visit them frequently
I do not monitor "noise". I don't want drivel, I want Intel!

There are other Twitter programs like HootSuite that can provide even better organization and searching but I've found Twitterfall easy to use and a great place to start.

I hope this helps add some more info for your OSINT colleciton.


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Excellent post, and excellent suggestion.

Information will give us the heads up on what is going to hit us. Hopefully.


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## Sasquatch (Dec 12, 2014)

I booted my Facebook page a few years ago but I do use twitter. It has been a great source for keeping up on news. I hear about most things on twitter long before the news gets to it. I only follow information sources rather than celebrity nonsense.


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## Piratesailor (Nov 9, 2012)

thanks for the information. I may need to rethink twitter..


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## DadofTheFamily (Feb 19, 2015)

Just make sure you make your Twitter account private. You don't need to tweet, just silently gather intel.


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## Prepared One (Nov 5, 2014)

I want to get Twitter so I can keep up with the Kardashions!


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## CourtSwagger (Jan 3, 2013)

That is an excellent idea. I haven't gotten on Twitter yet. Think I will now. Great post!


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## Arklatex (May 24, 2014)

I have been using Twitter since Ferguson. Never tweeted though. The islamic state feeds are another good one to follow.


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## CWOLDOJAX (Sep 5, 2013)

Good post, thread.

I am interested in Twitter news (in English) for the Ukraine, Georgian, Venezuelan, among others.

Any ideas?


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## DadofTheFamily (Feb 19, 2015)

For Ukraine

@UkraineConflict
@unaPhotographer
@kjovano
@alessaprentice


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## CWOLDOJAX (Sep 5, 2013)

Thanks


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## Will2 (Mar 20, 2013)

Just a word of caution. NATO uses social media to engineer and control the public. Information from untrusted sources may be false. People can lie.

Do not trust Facebook or twitter for anything important. If you don't have trusted human interest from a secure com it is only a possible situation, don't bet the farm on it, use it only as a cautionary.

Example
http://theconversation.com/army-joins-the-social-media-war-with-psy-ops-brigade-37125

There is a lot of false info online, do not trust your life to the internet.

Online counter Intel and disruption and bait ops are done.


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## DadofTheFamily (Feb 19, 2015)

I want to move this thread back to the top as we approach Jade Helm and also are monitoring all the other interesting things that are happening right now. I continue to find Twitter to be an excellent OSINT tool to monitor the open source communications from private and government sources. I'm setting up "follows" on the local communities per what is claimed to be the operational theater for Jade Helm. Twitter again it's a great tool to be able to use this information to gather on the ground intelligence from both official and unofficial sources especially effective on bypassing the mainstream media. I would encourage people to try using Twitter for open-source intelligence and prove its value during the Jade Helm exercise.



DadofTheFamily said:


> View attachment 10136
> I have found Twitter to be a helpful resource for OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) and SITREP. If you are not familiar with Twitter, it is a generally billed as a micro-blog or a two-sentence Face book. It's used by tons of people for everything from the mundane and useless to breaking news
> 
> Twitter has already proved itself as being an effective tool during times of unrest, upheaval and disasters.
> ...


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