Benjamin Strick

On the same day that UN condemned post-election violence and blackouts in Tanzania, Meta disabled accounts of activists that were posting footage showing violence carried out by Tanzanian police against protestors.

Meta link: transparency.meta.com/reports/cont...
UN: www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Stolen photos of European influencers used to push Trump propaganda on X | CNN A phony campaign on X backing Trump ahead of the US election is using stolen or manipulated photos of real women in Europe to push its agenda.

In 2024 I investigated many similar accounts that posted very similar types of content, claiming to be ‘Trump supporting women’ from the US, but they were fake accounts using images stolen from European influencers.

The findings were reported here 👇 edition.cnn.com/2024/08/28/e...

X rolled out a new feature overnight showing where accounts are based. This network of “Trump-supporting independent women” that claimed to be “real Americans” are based in Thailand.

The photos were stolen from European models & posts pushed pro-Trump lines while targeting Islam and LGBTQ people.

‘Oh my God, this is our Tanzania’: CNN investigation shows police shooting protesters, signs of mass graves | CNN In the chaotic aftermath of Tanzania’s disputed presidential election last month, police and gun-wielding men on patrol shot at groups of protesters, many of whom appeared unarmed or were holding only...

Tanzanian police killed protestors and there are signs of unmarked mass graves where bodies were reportedly dumped.

It was an honour to support the team at @cnn.com to document these horrible events.

edition.cnn.com/2025/11/21/a...

Video here: edition.cnn.com/2025/11/21/w...

Gotta love a bit of lights at night, especially when you can see them on a global map.

NASA’s Black Marble updates every day and shows every glow, blackout and wandering ship 🛰️⛴️

Thank you!!! So nice of you 🙏

OSINT Field Notes - from Benjamin Strick | Substack Digital investigations, tools, techniques and dispatches, from satellites to social media. Short, sharp, and always something you can use, in your inbox every month. Click to read OSINT Field Notes - ...

Shout out to @bendobrown.bsky.social for his newsletter!
He’s sharing a lot of tips, but reading this also brings me back to the days i just started doing osint. Newsletters like these taught me so much! 🥰

osintfieldnotes.substack.com

OSINT Field Notes #2 From simple panorama how-to's and Starlink signals to drone footage, fake architects, and the digital fingerprints that expose hidden networks.

This is the second edition of OSINT Field Notes: a monthly newsletter on digital investigations, with tools, techniques and notes from the field.

Thank you for all of the warm messages after the first one. It's an honour to work with the community.

osintfieldnotes.substack.com/p/osint-fiel...

Open source documentation by our Sudan Witness team at CIR on mass displacement, detentions & killings during the RSF takeover of El Fasher and the commanders linked to them: www.info-res.org/reports/disp...

This is the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica. Absolutely horrific level of destruction, all visible on NOAA imagery. View the map here: storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/melis...

Reminder that mass killings of civilians are happening in Sudan after the RSF’s takeover of El Fasher this week.

And there’s still a severe famine.

I’ve been doing investigations on human rights abuses in Sudan for the past decade.

Analysis by our @cen4infores.bsky.social team has identified multiple execution videos involving RSF commander 'Abu Lulu' and other fighters shooting unarmed people at the site.

New satellite imagery analysis from Yale shows detailed view of the site where footage showed RSF executing unarmed people in the berm just north of Sudan’s El Fasher.

For y’all interested in getting your own views into things like boat / naval activity in the Caribbean etc, this one’s for you.

YouTube video by Bendobrown How to Use NASA Night Lights Imagery to Track World Events

Lots of folks sending me interesting case studies on NASA night lights data after I published this tutorial. Amazing to see so many applications used in Mali, North Korea, South China Sea and more.

Check out some case studies and how to use it here 👇

youtu.be/x9JR7myjivs?...

Thanks for sharing! 🙏

YouTube video by Bendobrown How to Use NASA Night Lights Imagery to Track World Events

[ #IMINT #SATELLITES ] How to Use NASA Night Lights Imagery to Track World Events (by @bendobrown.bsky.social):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9JR...

Our world glows differently after dark and NASA’s satellites see it all. From wars to disasters and even the movement of vessels.

So I made a tutorial on how you can read those patterns using night lights imagery. Watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9JR...

Bring back WIO! Would love to see it come back!

To be fair, I already struggled writing a monthly. Was going to do a fortnightly but I just found I couldn't get to the depth (or find the time) to commit as much. Don't know how you managed your weeklies!

YouTube video by ONEST Chair of Norwegian Nobel Committeeon why 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Maria Corina Machado

“We want to send a message to all authoritarian leaders: choose ballots, not bullets.”

Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee on why 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Maria Corina Machado: “She is an extraordinary example of civilian courage.”

youtu.be/2JSAqdkT6z4

The Discord Hack is Every Users’ Worst Nightmare A hack impacting Discord’s age verification process shows in stark terms the risk of tech companies collecting users’ ID documents. Now the hackers are posting peoples’ IDs and other sensitive informa...

New from 404 Media: the Discord hack is every users' worst nightmare. Yesterday the hackers started posting Discord users' selfies, identity documents, email addresses, phone numbers, more. I watched in real time. This is risk of tech storing ID for age verification
www.404media.co/the-discord-...

Thank you 🙏

I love me a good newsletter, especially one jam packed with open source investigation goodness. Nicely done @bendobrown.bsky.social 🕵🏽‍♂️

A great new newsletter. Check out the section on exporting the great firewall.

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites

The style is now unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war

OSINT Field Notes #1 - DIY Power Grid Map, Great Firewall Leak & Birds Eye View Tool Technical teardown on how to make a custom KML for power grids. Plus: tracking tiny ships, detailed aerial views and a case file on the Geedge leaks. Read time: 8 min.

I made a newsletter. I went overboard with detail, but I love sharing #OSINT tips and tricks.

I've covered:
- Innovations & resources.
- Free detailed aerial imagery tool.
- DIY power grid map.
- Analysis of leaked data on mass censorship & surveillance.
osintfieldnotes.substack.com/p/osint-fiel...

New from @elisethomas.bsky.social on the laundering efforts of A7, a political and commercial enterprise aimed at enabling large-scale evasion of sanctions levelled against Russia. 👇

A7 Abroad: Sanctions evasion as a service A7, led by convicted fraudster Ilan Shor and backed by sanctioned Russian banks, claims to have moved over $86 billion in less than a year. CIR’s investigation details how A7 uses shell companies and ...

New @cen4infores.bsky.social investigation: Sanctions, shell companies and Russian state-backed money laundering.

Here’s how Ilan Shor and the Kremlin are laundering tens of billions of dollars around the world.

www.info-res.org/reports/a7-a...

Is everyone appreciating how utterly sick this is