What is Open-Source Intelligence and how does it apply to modern-day Executive Protection? Is this something that everyone should know something about or is it only for a few select specialists? 

Today we're talking with Pete Jenkins of ISS training, one of the leading training providers on the subject. We're going to be looking at the applicability of OSINT in everyday EP operations, its use as an investigative tool and how we can use that knowledge to protect ourselves and our clients from unseen threats.

This is a huge area and we'll be covering a lot in this episode, including:

• What sort of background, prerequisites, or prior learning do candidates need before they embark on an OSINT course?
• Why does today’s EP professional need this skillset? Does everyone need it, or should it be assigned to a designated, skilled expert?
• How can EP operators use OSINT fundamentals to mask the movements of their principal?
• If you're looking to remain under the radar, what can people do to stop others from finding them? 

More about Pete:

Peter is a former Royal Marine Commando and Director of security consultancy ‘ISS Training Ltd’. Peter is proud to have taught surveillance & intelligence related subjects in over 18 countries worldwide to various enforcement agencies, specialist military & intelligence units and close protection teams.

He was instrumental and at the forefront in the design of the current RQF Qualifications in Surveillance Operations. He is the author of specialist training books; ‘Surveillance Theory’, ‘Surveillance Tradecraft’ & ‘Covert Imagery’.

He continues to carry out live operational surveillance work and works semi-professionally as a commercial photographer and NUJ photo-journalist.

LinkedIn

ISS Training Ltd

OSINT Resources Mentioned on the show:

192.com

Tweet map

Snap map

Rosetta

Bellingcat

Google earth

OSINT Techniques - Michael Bazzell

OSINT curious project

More about the Circuit:

The Circuit Magazine is written and produced by volunteers, most of who are operationally active, working full time in the security industry. The magazine is a product of their combined passion and desire to give something back to the industry. By subscribing to the magazine you are helping to keep it going into the future. Find out more >

If you liked this podcast, we have an accompanying weekly newsletter called 'On the Circuit' where we take a deeper dive into the wider industry. Opt in here >

The Circuit team is:

• Elijah Shaw
• Jon Moss
• Shaun West
• Phelim Rowe

Connect with Us: 

Circuit Magazine

BBA Connect

NABA Protector

British Bodyguard Association

We can take a photograph that was taken 30 years ago, put

it into a search engine that we can find out where that person

is knowing what they look like.

Even though it's 30 years later,

welcome to the Circuit.

Magazine, the number one source information on protection matters.

The industry leading magazine for all security professionals who

want to stay ahead of the game.

Open source intelligence for the EP professional.

Is it something that everyone has to do or is it only for a few select specialists?

I'm here with John Moss and today we're going to be talking with Pete

Jenkins of ISS training, and we're going to be looking at its applicability,

not just in an academic sense.

In every day, operations, it's a pleasure to, you know, have Pete, because of

course he is a longstanding friend of the BBA, uh, and circuit community.

Uh, John, what do you think we can try and get out of today's?

Well, you

know, this is a huge area and I think it's something that almost

everyone needs to know something about.

And I'm not just talking insecurity.

I mean, everyone who uses the internet.

Because.

That's your information.

That's out there and other people have access to it.

It's open source.

So it's out there to be accessed by anyone.

And if you don't know what's out there then you're putting yourself at risk.

So, yeah.

You know, I'm really looking forward to getting Pete's perspective on this,

and it's also great that Shaun is on the interview as well, because this

is, uh, a bit of a rabbit hole that I know Shawn's going down at the moment.

He's really delving

into that.

Yeah, he is.

And he's also a student of Pete's.

So this is going to be nice.

We can have the student and the, uh, the teacher, uh, all on the same podcast.

But let's take a step back.

Uh, a lot of people with a military background might know a spectrum of

intelligence that one can sort of draw from HUMINT, uh, SIG INT, uh, geo int.

But, but, but where does this OSINT sort of fit in or does

it overlay all over the top?

Uh, because I suppose any of those ins could be available open sourced.

Yeah.

You've just answered your question as far as I would answer it anyway.

That's how I see.

It's, um, it's kind of a convergence of all of those things, because

all of those factors still come into play for the most part.

It's about how you access the information more so

than anything else.

And do you think that this is something that will be of concern?

Of course, not just to individuals about their own data,

but in a day-to-day EP role.

How often will an AP operator be tasked with finding out some old scent, or

is it going to be more of a specialist role for some specially tasked operator?

Well,

I think most high net worths now and prominent people at anyone who.

Is vulnerable.

I mean, we're all vulnerable to some degree, but people with means and

people, you know, with something to protect should be investing in this.

And for the most part, a lot of people are, there are high level

talented experts, you know, who are being employed in these roles.

However, the things that they go out looking for and the

threats that they're trying to.

I'll often at a very different level to what the EP operator can look for.

And there's that that's not just to do with skill ability and now focus.

It's also knowledge.

Nobody knows the principle quite the same way as what protection

does protection and maybe, you know, the Butler, uh, and so on.

But you, you have to remember.

The protection is with the principal everywhere they go.

So they see things, they hear things more importantly, they get a feel for things

and they don't just see the principal.

They see all the family members and they might see them in a way

in which the principal doesn't.

And so you have this very unique perspective where you have all these

different pictures, these different, um, The these different viewpoints of the

principal's life, the family life, and that can enable you to be able to look

for threats that almost everyone else in that inner circle wouldn't know even what

to look for, how to look for, or if they saw something they wouldn't necessarily

know that it was of importance.

Does that

make

sense?

It does.

I think you framed it excellently and actually that's quite a

motivational factor as to why someone BP should go on a nursing course.

Um, I, I, I really liked that, so perfect.

Why don't we hear from Pete himself and, uh, along with Shaun

west, let's explore this very, very timely topic of open source

intelligence.

and now let's meet one of the contributors to the circuit magazine.

Open source intelligence and the EAP protection specialist of tomorrow.

We are very, very pleased to be welcoming.

Pete Jenkins of ISS training to the podcast, myself and Shaun West eight.

Students of OSINT in fact, are going to be looking at this topic

and interviewing Pete, just to see how we can improve the industry.

It's a pleasure to have you on

Pete.

How are you doing?

That's great.

Thank you very much for having me.

I'm fine with that.

Love it.

Love it.

Well, let's, let's get into it.

OSINT what's wrong with the current state of affairs in the industry.

I'm not sure if there's anything wrong with it, but, um, it's

something that's growing literally on a daily basis and because the subject is

so dynamic, it's it changes every day.

Um, that's the hard part because you've got to keep.

I've got to go on trading courses for specific, um, topics involving opensource.

Um, otherwise I'll get left behind.

Good example is, um, a website that I use very regular for,

um, photography and research.

Um, a geolocation has just changed, like they're charging people

for it when it used to be free.

Um, so that's what we're up against is finding other sites

that can do the same thing, um, and make life easy for ourselves.

Uh, I see.

Yes.

Always, always evolving.

That's that's very important.

Um, but what about yourself?

Um, why, where did, where did, what is your passion for this topic?

Come from?

I think from.

For the surveillance work that we're doing and the investigative work that

we're doing so many people these days put things up on the internet, whether it's

social media, uh, business forums, dating sites, um, if we're carrying out some

background checks prior to a surveillance, it's our first port of call to go onto the

internet and find out as much as we can about that subject to their intentions.

Or even if it's just a photograph to identify them.

Um, and we can also use this life in conjunction with actual live

surveillances that are, yeah, that

sounds, that sounds current and exciting if you're, if you're

in the field, especially, um, what, what, what about the people out there

that know nothing about this topic?

Be completely uninitiated.

What, what, what should they know?

A lot of people will Google something.

They'll look at a person, but then now I was just put in the first lane

and the second name, but there are search and certain search operators

that we use, simple things like speech marks that collect phrases

together and put in a third search term or using a certain search engine

to find out particular information.

And I think this is what people lack.

They just go straight to Google.

Bang something and hoping they're gonna come out with the results and they'll get

43 million hits when we don't want that.

We want five or six hits on that subject.

So it's knowing how to minimize those hits and be a bit more

accurate with our, with our research.

I think that's one of the main things, um, and then show.

Of demonstrators be do on the open-source course, how easy it is to

get some information, or you can take a photograph that was taken 30 years

ago, put it into a search engine.

Then we can find out where that person is now and what they look like.

Even though it's 30 years

later.

Okay.

Powerful tools, photos.

Um, well, uh, with us, of course we have Shaun west, uh, a student of yours and a

student of, uh . Um, Shaun I think we're going to angle this interview slightly

different in the, you can be the, uh, champion for the audience, I suppose,

because you've been on the course.

So maybe if I ask you, you know, why did you feel you

needed to go in such a course?

And, and, and what, what, what were your general, uh,

Uh, the reason I wouldn't go in the course, I just thought was a great tool.

And I looked at develop myself in the industry.

Um, I work, you know, from being a close protection operator.

When do we do the sort of management levels when my own company and, you

know, have a number of high net worth clients, aren't, it's a great tool

you can bring to the, you know, add to your toolkit, be able to search things

professionally, find out, dig deep.

And karaoke better due-diligence then like, like pizza, just to deal with other

people who maybe just do a Google search.

Well, I learned a great deal on the course, and it actually blew me away

with some of the techniques and how easy it was to find information on people.

You know, why people do it.

You can find things on the internet and you should watch

your privacy settings, but.

Easy.

It actually is, is actually pretty scary.

Interesting.

Well, we'll then obviously there's, there's a wealth of data out there, but,

um, but Pete, you know, for people who are embarking on their first course, you

know, like, uh, Sean, wasn't, it's in this topic, what sort of a prerequisite to, to

sort of recommend is there, is there any, um, other course they need to have done?

Is there any background they need to

have?

No, particularly I think because I'm a bit computer stuff.

I mean the two day course that we host all you need is a decent computer.

Um, we provide all the exercises, visual ones, the, um, the practical exercises

that the guys carry out on the course when it gets to being geeky, then you

need to know a little bit more about things like lineups and machine code

and, um, And it does get complicated, but in two days we can only teach so much.

Um, and even since Sean did his course, we have really sexed up the course and we've

changed it quite a lot because of other searches of the systems that are in place.

Um, and it's not just about searching for people either.

It's, um, we may have a photograph of a person that stood up.

Um, and we want to establish where in the world are they what's, what

was the date and what was the time when the image was taken and there's

no data embedded within that image.

So by using various search engines, we can find out where the location is.

And then by other systems find out the date and the time of exactly where it was.

And we've had to do this for insurance purposes or insurance

fraud purposes, I should say.

Um, I think rest of it and I forgot what your question was.

No, no, no, that's fine.

That's that paints a great picture.

I was, I guess I was wondering, you know, someone says, well, it sounds

a little bit too complicated for me.

Um, I, I need a forensic background.

I need an it background.

What would you

say to that?

No, not at all.

Especially for a two day course.

Uh, It sounds doesn't sound much being two days, but we do

cover a hell of a lot of ground.

Um, and it's very practical.

We, um, send all the learners, um, photographs, images, exercises.

So when we do a session on say using a search engine properly,

they get given a live exercise and it gets to be a bit of a teamwork.

Effort on behalf of the learners or a competition to see, you

can find the results fast.

Um, it may be a picture of, um, a guy sat in a graveyard and from the

image we need to know, where is that person to an accuracy of three meters

using a system called what, three words, which is quite new to people.

We also need to know what time of year it is by looking at what Sydney image.

And then if they think they identify where it is.

They've got to corroborate that they can't just guess they've got to corroborate

and prove that that is the exact spot.

Um, and there's lots of exercises like that, but we teach a bit, we give an

exercise that we teach a bit more than we give another exercise and it's quite

progressive throughout the two days.

Um, so you don't really need to be a cake or it literate to, um, to do the course.

You just do need to actually be a bit computer savvy.

As long as you can work a computer or a search engine.

And you've got an inquisitive mind, I think, um, you know, you don't stop as

soon as one door closes, you look at it and you think I'll check the box.

What else could I use?

What other tools do I help to find that information, the information you require?

Um, but yeah, I think you're right.

You don't need a forensic background or anything like that.

So it's probably suggested it is just inquisitive mind.

You're able to use a computer and you have an internet connection.

And to me is

what you can find.

Yeah.

The other thing to add to that, and Sean's correct.

You won't find everything on the internet about a place or about a person.

So it's getting that background and then actually putting your boots on the ground

and possibly corroborating that with it.

A lot of people think open source is great.

It will tell you everything.

You need to know it doesn't, you've got.

Well, the other half out yourself, um, by the maze.

So Pete, that presents an

interesting question.

Um, when, especially the uninitiated I thinking about, you know, they're saying,

well, what, what, what can open source do?

But more to the point, what is open source?

And where's the line blurred between open source and well, close to us.

Where's that line?

Well, I suppose it's only it's freely obtained on the internet.

But then again, you're going to hit paywalls.

For example, if you do use a particular search engine, um, I'll use one

line to.com as an example, because most people are familiar with that.

Um, it's a combination of the electors register, the phone

book and company's house.

Um, you can do so many searches free or I'll get you so far for

nothing, then you have to pay.

So you hit a paywall.

If you've got a big budget, you can pay to for subscriptions to many, many of

these sites and databases where your, where it's easier to get information.

Um, so that's, that's it generally you need to pay for it or it's free.

So, so, uh, is it possible to be searching for open source

intelligence and suddenly stumble across non open source sources?

Um, which, which are perhaps not allowed, is that a likely scenario?

Well, if you find that.

I would say by virtue of that fact it's open, but, um, on a recent exercise,

we did, we had, so identifying the, um, the captain of a certain vessel,

we found a spreadsheet in Denmark.

So listed all this personal private information about a lot of boats owners

that own vessels in the UK, um, which was totally unexpected and actually probably

a breach of the data protection act.

Um, because this, this document that you could learn, um, download

a spreadsheet, contained a lot of personal private information from

people's names that addresses telephone numbers and their email addresses,

um, which was quite a surprise, but it was there, it was on the internet, but

it was puts out by another country.

so yeah, you can find things, that you probably shouldn't be able to.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, that's, that's, that's that's useful.

Cause I think may, may, maybe people will be fearful.

Oh no, I stumbled across this and now I'm going to get a visit from,

uh, some, uh, agency or whatever.

Um, why don't you think that today's EP professional.

Needs this surely it's going to be one person in the team.

Uh, is, is it that everyone will be faced with needing to conduct

some ocean research at some stage, but w Y E P and Y O said

various reasons.

So if you've got pressure groups or, um, activists sites, you can

monitor those for anything that might go against your principal.

Um, if you're looking at life, some areas, um, some towns, some cities you

can actually go on their website and you can dial into their CCTV so you can see

what the street, um, cameras are looking at and actually get an updated view.

Um, there's.

Tweet maps where you can, let's say you've got an incident

in, let's say a Regent's park.

You could then go on to tweet, map or snap map and various other

sites and actually look to see who's, who's tweeting and who's

Snap-chatting from that exact, um, site.

Um, and it may give you a heads up or some of any incidents or

anything that's taking place there.

It might be a March.

It could be, um, a conference.

What have you, so it can give you things like.

Um, another good example is we conducted a surveillance on

two characters in the summer.

They came from abroad on a ferry and by monitoring their social media, we knew

exactly where they were on their journey throughout that drive on the ferry.

When they got off the ferry, we also knew what vehicle they were driving.

And when they attended this, um, this events, we knew exactly

what we were looking for.

We knew exactly what they looked like and what they were dressed in.

We knew the vehicle and when they talked to various people at risk events, we

were able to photograph those people that they're connected to and then turned it

back on its head and search social media.

And we actually found out the identities of all the people

that were connected with.

At this particular event.

So in conjunction with, um, conventional surveillance, we're also using open

source at the same time to back up the team really, and gather more intelligence

alongside that as well.

If you're a CPO working one up, you can also use open source.

If you haven't got time to go and do a Remy, there's lots of information

out there before you could a view.

If you're going to a different city, you want a football stadium,

you can do complete walk-throughs at some of these places now.

So there's, there's lots of information to be had there.

If you haven't got the time, like you said, or the manpower.

You get out and do these recce's.

There is, there is a lot you can draw from, from online and different

tools that are available to

you.

And possibly I could see that being very important when no one could

travel anywhere, because I saw a lot of IPI, uh, companies offering

intelligence as a service in a way they hadn't been before, because they

wanted to of course, maintain business operations, um, was OSINT especially.

Useful during the pandemic, especially because there was a lot of hype, a lot

of hysteria, um, still is, you know, um, and, and, and does send help in, in, in

that regard where you can't have people.

Um, on the ground all the time

during the pandemic, Pete, it was it's funny because

during the pandemic, obviously, because the surveillance operators

or investigators couldn't go out on the ground, but equally, so

our, what would be our potential targets weren't going out either.

So, so in some respects that sort of, um, Dive a little bit.

And we had a big, low from both sides.

Um, although some of the investigations still took place.

Um, there were travel restrictions, but we're able to get around that.

Um, but open source.

We're still able to build up pictures because investigations basically were

put on hold during the pandemic, which is why there's a big demand in surveillance

at the moment, because all the work, especially within the insurance fraud

industry, it's now stacked up and they are well behind them in their investigations.

But when those jobs will be insurance company are coming in and stacking up,

it gives the chance for the researcher to do their background checks on those.

So they're ready to go out to the surveillance teams and then do the work.

So, um, yeah, that, that would, if it was to be an advantage of it,

the pandemic probably that was it.

It just gave guys chance to do all the background, but still we've

got a backlog of, um, surveillance is actually out on the ground.

And then

what.

Uh, skills to think that somebody will learn on a OSINT course, because I can

imagine, I don't know doing, doing, for example, January 6th, there were loads

of Twitter, vigilantes identifying all sorts of things around the Capitol, and

it seemed quite exciting, but it seemed quite, I don't know, amateurish in a

way, although they did seem to draw up a lot of good stuff, uh, from just photos.

So, so what are the skills that people.

Sort of learn in an oath in course,

as well as the research-y.

Um, it does take practice because we cover a lot of ground, um, on the course,

but you've got to go away and digest it and then put it into practicalities.

Um, Sean hit the nail on the head earlier on by saying.

You've got to think outside the box.

So if you've got a demonstration and you've got some guy in a t-shirt

with a logo on it, and with frizzy hair, we can take a snapshot of that.

Hopefully we'll put it into a search engine and it might reveal their

identity or it'll show where they've been at another events or demonstration.

Um, another piece of software might pick up on the wording on his t-shirt and

that will give us another clue to a.

Uh, their identity or whether actually photographed on the internet as well

as the system out there called Rosetta, I think Facebook started it off where,

um, you can hold a blackout or you can have wording on the t-shirt and what

the search engine does now actually reads what's on the placard and does

a search for that term or that phrase rather than a picture of the black card.

Um, so that's helped in some ID.

I know.

The open source experts, Bellingcat.

They you've cracked a lot of jobs, a lot of research stories, um, by tying

various people, various demonstrations by the clothing that they wear and

identifying them at one on one website to another, to another to another.

But I think thinking outside the box, where can I go with this?

I've got this image.

What should I do with it?

Should I put into another search engine?

Shall I, shall I identify it?

Something simple, like a logo on a shirt or something in the

background, it may be a sign.

It may be a piece of furniture that actually identifies where that

person was when they've taken it.

And that's using your common sense as well as with your intelligence and no.

What you know of how to search for this.

So there's a combination of all things really.

So Pete,

I can imagine an EP operation wanting to do it, everything

you've just mentioned in reverse and find out how to obscure.

Access to their principal.

And I think people quickly realized how to block the call sign of

an incoming, uh, private jet.

Um, that, that, that, that was, um, that surprised many when

everyone could just find it easy.

Um, but, but what would you have to do to try and hide the movements of your

principal from, you know, potentially

dangerous eyes first?

Quite a big question.

Um, I think first of all, it's going to be from a security of the.

The security team and anybody else connected with the principal, even from

the photograph that the principals cleaner puts up on Twitter or Facebook of that

principal leaving the house to, um, yeah.

That the whole security issue.

Um, I don't think the weak link is the security when the principal is

anybody that's surrounding them.

I think it's not an education.

What I deal with is high net worth families.

And they have the younger siblings or teenage, family who are on all

of the different social networks.

And, you know, some of them don't understand.

They just, you know, they post everything wherever they go, whatever they do,

whatever they buy, eat everything.

And every time they post it love their location, who they're

meeting with what they're doing.

Until someone points out to them what they're doing and that there may be a

target because of who their, you know, their uncle or their father, mother is.

They don't really see they're doing anything wrong.

And it's just goes straight back.

The simplistic things such as you, I guess, use any of the passwords as well.

You know, you'll love these people.

I'll use same username, password on so many different sites.

And just from, from doing your course, Peter, that was my first sort of

step into Open source intelligence, professionally doing a course.

And it, it opens the, you go down the rabbit hole and you become quite

addicted to learning more learning new tools and you find tools.

And just put my email address into a couple of the tools when

it comes up, you know, with the leak sites, your own passwords.

And so I've sat with.

And he's put his email address and he couldn't believe what I found out.

He was like this, we instantly changed all of his passwords on everything.

And like, it's just a bit of education to these people to

help from doing a small course.

What I doing an intro and then moving on.

So I'm by no means somebody who's done years of training.

What, what I can find out.

You had initiated with a little bit of trading can find out if someone's

targeting you, it's pretty scary.

What, so what we do for today of course, to professional.

And I think that makes you look bad and think Jesus.

Yes, I do look at my security and stop posting my things all over the place.

I don't use the same username passwords, wherever it is.

You can be a bit more thought to what you're putting out there.

Your footprint, I guess.

Hmm.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, early, earlier this year, we had to trace an individual only near

his Facebook details has instant.

Um, and Snapchat and it was quite good really for us because he likes to take

selfies and we demonstrate this on the course that this, this character,

we have to find out where he was.

And we established, he was in London and by taking the selfies, we took five or six

different selfies and family photos with.

Establish what parts of London it was.

And then literally I spent five hours on Google earth, walking the streets,

digitally, walking the streets of this, um, this postcode area looking for

these five or six different properties were, which were in the background.

And they established the four of them were all on the same.

Um, and that gave us a great heads-up because over a four year period he'd

been photographed on that same street.

So then we could go back to the client and said, this is where he is.

This is what we're up to.

Now we know exactly that he's in London.

We know he's on this street.

Do you want to go further and actually locate exactly where he is?

So, um, yeah, just purely by people putting pictures up, but

they think it's quite innocent.

They're actually telling us quite a lot of, um, giving us a lot of intelligence.

Um, although it's a selfie it's, what's in the back.

Yes, this was in the foreground and everything else.

That that makes me think because on my own Instagram account, I try and

post pictures of interesting things and I try not to duplicate them and I

try not to, uh, you know, put myself in them and that that's the common,

uh, travel risk management policy.

If you're, if you're going to Mexico, never, ever put a geotag

because people are waiting.

You know, find you.

Um, and, and, and, and, and here, if you, if you're looking to remain under the

radar or just, uh, you know, protected, what else can people do to protect

themselves, um, apart from not posting that that's obviously going to be good.

Um, uh, can, can they post pictures of nice looking flowers and bits and bobs?

I mean, well, what, what, what, what should

they be doing?

Not using the internet full stop, but, um, but it's like you say,

somebody has a picture of a.

Uh, nice flower.

I don't know.

They're in Mexico, they've taken a picture of a flower.

They put it on Instagram and then somebody goes, where are you?

So then they go, well, we're in, um, whatever town in New Mexico.

So then people come, I stayed there, but I stayed in this hotel

when they start, well, now I'm in this hotel and it goes on.

So you can put one picture up, somebody asks a question

that's on your friends list.

And all of a sudden you've got the whole history.

Um, so keep it in the.

Yeah, yeah.

Keep, keep it all private.

Um, I mean, it's a simple hack to find out when somebody's birthday is with Facebook,

you go onto their profile, you search within that profile for the word birthday.

And then all of a sudden you've got all these people going happy

birthday, happy birthday beat.

And it's like, the whole world knows my birth date now.

Um, not that I use it as a password or anything, but, um,

but it's just one little pivot point to take us somewhere else.

If we do not see.

yeah, don't post anything at all.

That's personal or, I mean, I've got this philosophy.

I only put on the internet, what I want other people to see, keep it as simple

as that, whether it's on Facebook or LinkedIn, uh, And it's like Facebook.

I only accept friends of people I've actually met and shook hands with.

Um, very rarely will I take a fund request of somebody?

I don't know.

LinkedIn is a bit of a different matter, but, um, social media, um, and that's

where you put your personal private stuff and you want your friends.

it always surprises me on LinkedIn.

Uh, some very attractive person could be any agenda, but anyway, person, um,

maybe from Eastern Europe, um, suddenly making loads new security friends.

Really like how come 300 of my fellow contacts have accepted, um, this,

this is clearly not, uh, not right.

Um, uh, but what do you think then, Shawn, is this something that EP

should actually be worried about?

Or is it a certain portion of the EP team that's going to be having to

protect their principal in this way?

I think everyone should carry out the training.

It just adds another dimension to what you can offer to your principal.

So I definitely think everyone should do it.

If you're working in the industry, increasing your investigative

skills is it's just a good tool.

It's a good training to do.

But also when you are asking the question, what can people

do to stop people, finding them?

There is organizations out there that do sort of professional online

vulnerability assessments, and they can do digital erasure roles, you

know, things that you've put up in the.

And they were almost a digital Overwatch of things that come up about

yourself and it can remove all of that.

And I imagine it'd be quite a full-time if you're trying to find something on

somebody, you're always going to find it.

If you're looking deep enough.

It's like security, you know, you put, you put your cameras up, you put your,

whatever you put up as a deterrent.

So if you do, if you are a high net worth individual, you can't go

to these companies and get them to a raise the information that you

don't want it to be easily found.

And it just makes it a little bit more difficult for

someone who's looking for you.

Of course, they're not going to erase everything.

It may be enough of a deterrent for someone to close the door

and move on to the next easier.

I think if I, if I can answer that the, um, I

think for CPOs and, and what.

They should be Googling themselves.

I should say, doing research on them selves.

And unlike Sean said, finding out where they'd been mentioned on the internet,

whether it's, um, a social media handle or they've been named or their photograph,

um, because the main reason is recruits.

Also carry out open source research.

So if I, if, if I'm recruiting for a surveillance operator or an instructor or

an investigator, um, and I get 20, 30 CVS, what's the first thing I'm going to do.

I'm going to put their name into a search engine, the date of birth,

or the company that they worked for.

And I'm doing a quick sift first.

And if I see somebody dancing naked on a table in the pub, um,

then they're not going to be the person because I mean, in the CPS.

But if your principal does that search is one of the, um, the

security team, it just backfires.

So yeah, you need to clean up the, your presence on the internet for the

benefit of recruiters that don't, that won't dismiss you or for the benefit

of your, um, uh, your principal that might decide to do a quick search.

Cause they bought yeah,

exactly.

That.

I mean that, that's, that's a great point as well, because I recruit a lot of CPOs.

It's one thing I never thought about that, but yes, I do that.

I always Google who I'm employing have a quick look on social media, just to sit.

You can see how they're communicating with their friends.

You can kind of get a background of, you know, their personality as such.

And yeah, it is a massive tool that recruiters do use.

And there's be many times where just through carrying out that quick two

minutes on Facebook or something like that, it has cost people a job, whereas.

I thought they're not right for this position and I've just moved

on, but where, if I'd went off the CV, you know, it might have been

fine, but yeah, you do definitely.

And it's a great point that Peter, if you are working in the industry, you

have to sell yourself as a professional.

So what is that?

Whatever is on your social pages and also needs to speak like you're a

professional and I have actually seen people, um, Lose jobs as well from

things that they've posted you on.

Principal's Yeltsin posting your pictures of the.

Doing whatever they're doing.

And people have actually lost positions because of this.

So yeah, for sure.

You need to keep an eye on what you're putting out

there.

Pete.

Obviously people can go on a course, like, like your course.

Um, but the, there seems to be a lot of books, um, out there.

Um, Are these books, easy reading.

Do they require to be accompanying a course?

Um, what was the books?

Could people go to, to sort of look

at it's a book, one of the, probably the Bible for open-source

research, um, looking through.

Author is it Michael?

It is it's Michael Brazil's eighth edition.

It's like six inches thick, but, um, I I've got a copy and I've speed.

Read it.

And I've got hundreds of dog ear tamps, um, throughout the book.

It's a great tool.

It's a great reference point, um, to use, if you're going to do this sort of

work, the only problem, like we're on our eighth edition, uh, And if it's six

months, 12 months, he's probably gonna update it to a ninth one, but, but the

recent copy, it's not that expensive.

It's I think it's worth every penny is a great tool.

Um, because you do forget things.

There are thousands of websites out there.

You can't cover them all.

Uh, Michael's book does cover quite a lot of research and tips of, um,

how to do things and because it's so dynamic, he's, he's progressive.

He rewrites the book when he feels the need to.

Yeah.

And it said normally it's updated.

It's pretty good.

Um, the other place to go is, um, belling cat's website and or YouTube.

I mean, YouTube is fantastic.

You've just got to put in open source research, Twitter or Snapchat, and

you'll get guys up there for some reason.

They're always from Holland or a lot of them are from Poland.

And I feel that that should probably be international leaders

in doing this type of work.

I don't know why, but they, um, they seem to be very good at.

So, um, yeah, reading books go.

I mean, I'm not a big fan.

I mean, I've written a few books, but I'm not a big fan of books because I'd

rather have somebody in front of me, coaching me, tutoring me, um, picking

up on my mistakes to, to get it right.

Uh, But yeah, there are some good resources out there.

Few books, um, and the internet.

Yeah.

I,

I I'm with you with the Dutch.

Um, I think there's a lot of Dutch, that's part of the OSINT curious project

and there's, uh, there's, there's a lot of interesting Dutch operators.

Um, so Pete, what's next for you?

So I'm involved in a lot of things as well.

We've just finished a two week surveillance costs.

Um, in my other hat, I work as a promotional photographer.

Um, and then the UGA photo journalists.

So we've, um, we've had a few projects.

Um, some have hit the news recently.

Um, a couple of more may hit the New Zealand in three or four weeks time

on some of the, uh, Investigations that I've been involved with,

but I'm slowly training, carrying out the investigation work still.

Um, it should take us up to Christmas if, for my life to say that word.

Yeah.

It's nearly there.

It's a think things, things are moving really, really fast.

All right.

Well, this is short and sweet, but I really appreciate the

look into the world of ocean as applied to executive protection.

That's why it's fantastic to have Sean our co presenter.

Anyway, who's been on your course, uh, and, uh, yeah, Pete

from Shauna, myself, it's been

a pleasure having.

That's been a pleasure being here.

Thanks very much.

Open source

intelligence.

Absolutely.

Everywhere as is your data.

I think such a key set of takeaways from Pete and, and of course Shaun's,

uh, experience learning from Pete.

I really enjoyed today's session.

Uh, what did you take away?

Uh, John, I think there was so many different nuggets.

Yeah,

definitely.

We, we went down, lots of rabbit holes.

I fail in this one and all it did was peak interest.

I think this is really a great taste, the episodes to wet people's appetite and

also to, um, bring home the importance of why everyone needs to know something.

and if that's of interest to you.

The different ways in which you can take that knowledge further, just like Sean has

done.

And as Pete alluded to, even with that canonical book, um, that, that,

that people seem to, to pick up, um, or no send, it needs updating every

six to 12 months, because there's always a new source or there are

always sources that used to be free and, and not, uh, and things that

used to be closed and are now open.

So I think.

It's a continual education to try and look at it.

And there are some real world applications.

You, you don't want the call sign of your principles.

Private jet features.

All over the place, but yet, conversely, you might want to know if somebody of

particular interest who potentially could threaten your principal is coming to town.

So it's really swings and roundabouts.

You're going to use it internally and externally.

Yeah.

I think one aspect of the discussion that I really enjoyed

was,

well, first of all, let me say that.

I think.

Uh, lots of people, this topic can often seem like, uh, you know,

delving deep into search engines and extracting information about people

through social media and so on.

And of course that does play a big part in it.

But I think the example that.

Brought up with the photograph that he gives to students, you know, and asks

them if they have this competition to see who can come back with the information.

First, I think these, um, a really good exercises and it's a really

good demonstration of how powerful.

These resources are that you can get a random photograph and that

you can then run with that and start to extract information.

Like where is the person?

Where, where on the planet are they, what, what road are they on?

What time of year?

What time of day, you know, and taken all these different bits of information with.

Investigative mind, which I think is also really important.

It's not just tech.

So it is about application as well.

And coming up with, a really specific set of data, you know, from that

that's, that's really exciting and, and it's really, uh, dangerous as well.

And that's why we should be enthused by this and gab, you know, to,

to get the knowledge ourselves.

But.

So we can use it in an investigative way, but also so that we can

ring fence ourselves and our clients and protect them.

Absolutely.

And, and, and the power of some of these, uh, uh, open source,

uh, you know, feeds, uh, both.

You know, both sides of the fence is, is amazing.

Um, I think in the podcast, I mentioned the docent curious

project, which has quite a lot of people from the Netherlands.

And I know Pete said there's a lot of strong practitioners from the Netherlands.

I literally went on their Twitter feed and they've sent me to, and

the enormous, uh, treasure trove of potential Osen sources ranging from.

Arm's trading banking, bribery, datasets, crypto country,

risk geo N human trafficking.

I'm literally written them off the page.

And I'm thinking if, if I found this list on just one little search,

what could I find if I spent time?

Um, now, now, obviously I can't vouch for the effectiveness of any of these tools

that I've literally just come across, but that's the spirit of you've got.

Curious about, um, about the task at hand.

There's a lot of places we could go with this podcast

today, but I'm really pleased.

We looked at it in, you know, with that teacher trainer and a student perspective.

Talking about learning and development.

We have our very own learning and development forum coming

up on the 19th of November.

Uh, it will be in the UK evening, uh, us afternoon and Australian morning, and

it's going to be a very, very interesting.

All around workplace violence and its applicability to executive protection,

which I think John you'll agree is going to be an increasingly big problem.

Well, Paul

it's always been a big problem and it will always continue to be a big problem.

And yeah, I think.

In recent times, it's probably been exacerbated also.

And, people coming back into the workplace workplace is changing

and different pressures and stresses on us as well, these days.

So these can all spill over onto.

Knowing how to deal with these situations, both, you know, once they do spill

over, but also what really interests me is the preventative side and the

steps that can be taken beforehand.

And I know, uh, without, dropping any names at this stage, I know some

of our guests that we have lined up are very knowledgeable in this area.

So it's, it's going to be an absolute feast.

Absolutely faced.

And indeed, you know, we're bringing the pages of the magazine to life.

I think it's going to feature more in our articles.

Of course, we're always looking for more lovely articles and varied articles.

But apart from that, I think we're really pleased at the moment at the

engagement we're getting across the board, but we still need you to share

this podcast to spread the word.

If you liked it, hopefully did, uh, please share and spread the message.

And then if you wouldn't mind, if you go to our individual sources

and hit, like, it really does boost everything we're doing.

And just, just to show that little bit of support, uh, be that on Twitter or

Instagram, or indeed, if you go into the BBA connect app or the NABA Protector.

Uh, that is also a fantastic place to engage.

Oh.

Sent I'm really, really interested in it, actually.

So much more interested.

Now I've done a little bit of hosting myself.

So from John and myself, it's been a pleasure talking to Pete Jenkins today,

and we look forward to engaging with you on another Circuit magazine podcast.

You have been listening to the circuit magazine podcast,

be sure to subscribe and be sure to not miss an episode.