What OSINT Is and Is Not
Defines lawful OSINT, separates raw information from intelligence, and sets the boundaries for safe public-source research.
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OSINT Bible Handbook Edition.
A practical field-reference edition of the Aldermere OSINT method. This page summarises the handbook structure, chapters, and appendices for readers who want a compact, usable guide to lawful research, source checking, evidence handling, verification, reporting discipline, and defensive OSINT workflows.
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6Volumes
60Chapters
9Appendices
£10Special price
Volume 01
Foundations
Ethics, Law, Consent, and Harm Reduction
Explains proportionality, consent, minimisation, redaction, and why publicly visible information still needs careful handling.
The OSINT Mindset
Builds disciplined habits: clear questions, controlled assumptions, source records, confidence language, and stopping when the task is answered.
Building Your Workspace
Outlines a clean research workspace for notes, screenshots, evidence folders, browser hygiene, and repeatable case structure.
Notes, Evidence, and Source Control
Shows how to record source links, capture dates, screenshots, uncertainty, and evidence cards so findings remain auditable.
Search Fundamentals
Introduces deliberate search planning, query refinement, date awareness, source comparison, and avoiding tool-first wandering.
Source Reliability and Bias
Teaches how to assess source type, motive, age, repetition, corroboration, and the limits of what a source can prove.
Identity, Entities, and Attribution Basics
Explains careful attribution, entity separation, name-match risk, relationship clues, and avoiding premature identity claims.
Building a Safe Investigation Plan
Turns objectives into a controlled plan covering scope, exclusions, sources, risks, outputs, and stopping points.
First Complete Mini-Investigation
Walks through a small end-to-end investigation from question to evidence capture, confidence statement, and short report.
Volume 02
Search and Sources
Search Operators and Query Building
Builds staged search queries and records what was searched, where it was searched, and why each result mattered.
News, Archives, and Cached Material
Uses news, cached pages, and archives as dated snapshots, preserving context before relying on excerpts or screenshots.
Government, Public Records, and Registries
Works with official registers while separating legal existence, public record details, update dates, and real-world control.
Academic, Technical, and Specialist Sources
Checks specialist material for authority, age, narrowness, measurement, evidence, opinion, and speculation.
Company and Domain Research
Maps company and domain clues as relationships requiring corroboration across records, websites, domain data, and public statements.
Social Platform Search Basics
Handles social material as volatile context and avoids identity conclusions from one platform clue.
Forums, Marketplaces, and Community Sources
Treats community sources as leads requiring verification because rumours, repetition, and partial context can mislead.
Alerts, Monitoring, and Change Detection
Sets scoped monitoring terms, review cadence, and stop rules so alerts do not become uncontrolled collection.
Building Source Lists
Creates controlled source maps with source type, reliability, update rhythm, relevance, and reuse limits.
Search Workflow Case Study
Demonstrates a repeatable search trail from question to evidence to finding, focused on discipline rather than volume.
Volume 03
People, Companies, and Communities
Person-of-Interest Research, Safely and Lawfully
Starts people-related research with legitimate purpose, written scope, sensitivity, consent where needed, and a stop condition.
Username and Profile Correlation
Treats username overlap as a clue, checking dates, context, self-declared links, and independent corroboration.
Email and Contact Clue Analysis
Analyses public contact clues without testing private access, sending probes, or assuming shared details prove identity.
Organisation Mapping
Maps organisations as brands, roles, domains, records, departments, and public statements without overclaiming ownership or control.
Company Ownership and Directorships
Separates registered roles, beneficial ownership, employment, influence, and public representation in company records.
Job Posts, Leaks of Process, and Public Footprints
Uses job posts and public process artefacts as dated clues about tools, hiring, workflow, and exposure.
Community and Network Mapping
Describes visible interactions and repeated signals while avoiding assumptions about motive, coordination, or hidden relationships.
Reputation, Scams, and Fraud Indicators
Preserves and compares public warning signs as indicators, not verdicts, using official routes and cautious escalation.
Handling Ambiguous Identity Matches
Keeps ambiguous matches explicit by separating rejected, unclear, plausible, probable, and confirmed claims.
Entity Investigation Case Study
Shows a defensible entity investigation from scope to sources, confidence, limitations, and cautious final finding.
Volume 04
Images, Maps, and Geolocation
Image Search and Reverse Image Search
Uses reverse image search as discovery while recording image source, capture timing, earlier copies, and reuse context.
Metadata and File Clues
Handles metadata as context that may be stripped, altered, or misleading and preserves originals before analysis.
Visual Geolocation Basics
Builds geolocation through independent visible clues, separating observed facts from candidate-location inferences.
Maps, Satellite View, and Street-Level Clues
Compares map, satellite, street-level, and local-photo evidence while recognising age and feature limitations.
Weather, Sun, Shadow, and Time Clues
Uses environmental clues to support time and place analysis while guarding against seasons, edits, and weak assumptions.
Transport, Buildings, Signs, and Language Clues
Reads vehicles, buildings, signage, scripts, and local markers as context-dependent clues requiring corroboration.
Video Verification
Preserves original video, extracts representative frames, and checks upload context, audio, continuity, and visual clues.
Event Verification
Matches media to the correct event, time, place, and narrative while detecting old footage and misleading captions.
Geolocation Reporting
Reports claims, clues, comparison sources, confidence, and limitations without exposing unnecessary private-location details.
Geolocation Case Study
Demonstrates the trail from image to map comparison to a proportionate, sourced, uncertainty-aware location finding.
Volume 05
Analysis, Workflows, and Reporting
Turning Clues into Findings
Shows how clues become findings only after testing, sourcing, context, restrained wording, and separation of observation from inference.
Link Analysis and Entity Graphs
Uses entity graphs as analytical aids with sourced nodes, labelled edges, confidence levels, and limits.
Timeline Building
Separates event time, publication time, and capture time so sequence, gaps, contradictions, and uncertainty are visible.
Confidence Levels and Analytical Language
Matches wording to evidence strength so reports do not imply certainty where only possibility or probability is supported.
Contradictions and Alternative Explanations
Actively looks for ways a conclusion could be wrong and considers benign explanations before suspicious ones.
Report Structure and Evidence Packs
Builds readable, sourced, proportionate reports with evidence packs that allow significant claims to be traced.
Redaction and Privacy Protection
Treats redaction as part of analysis, removing unnecessary personal data while preserving original evidence securely.
Automation Without Losing Control
Uses automation for monitoring and organisation only with logs, human review, scope limits, and stop conditions.
Quality Control Checklist
Checks analytical logic, citations, confidence language, redaction, sensitivity, and release readiness before sharing.
Full Investigation Report Case Study
Combines scope, evidence, analysis, report structure, limitations, and release decision into a complete case example.
Volume 06
Defensive OSINT and Professional Practice
Personal Digital Footprint Audit
Uses defensive OSINT to reduce personal exposure without creating a dossier, prioritising practical risk reduction.
Family and Small-Business Exposure Review
Reviews family and small-business exposure with extra restraint, consent, role separation, mitigation, and safe reporting.
Scam, Fraud, and Impersonation Checks
Triages suspicious claims, preserves evidence, compares official routes, avoids risky engagement, and escalates credible risk.
Brand and Domain Monitoring
Builds recurring defensive checks for brands, domains, impersonation, change, and exposure without uncontrolled alerts.
Incident Support and Evidence Preservation
Captures and preserves incident evidence calmly before removal, with controlled redaction, escalation, and handover.
Working With Clients or Teams
Sets scope, ownership, communication, evidence handling, review, and handover so outputs remain traceable and safe.
Legal Boundaries and Escalation
Defines legal and ethical stop points when authority, necessity, proportionality, sensitivity, or safety is unclear.
Tooling, Maintenance, and Updates
Maintains tool reliability and repeatability by documenting source changes, tool changes, workflow updates, and intervals.
Building Your OSINT Playbook
Turns practice into repeatable playbooks with scope, evidence rules, review points, outputs, and stop conditions.
Capstone: Defensive OSINT Operation
Brings collection, evidence, analysis, redaction, reporting, and review together for an exposure-reduction operation.
Reference
Appendices
Appendix A — Glossary
Plain-English definitions for key OSINT, evidence, reporting, and safety terms used throughout the handbook.
Appendix B — Safe Investigation Checklist
A field checklist for purpose, scope, lawful sources, evidence handling, personal-data minimisation, and escalation.
Appendix C — Source Reliability Rubric
A scoring guide for assessing source authority, age, corroboration, motive, and limits before relying on a source.
Appendix D — Confidence Language Guide
Suggested wording for confirmed, likely, possible, unclear, unsupported, and contradictory findings.
Appendix E — Redaction Checklist
A release-safety checklist for masking unnecessary personal details while keeping evidence understandable.
Appendix F — OSINT Report Template
A structured report outline for scope, sources, findings, confidence, limitations, recommendations, and evidence packs.
Appendix G — Tool Category Index
A non-product-specific index of tool categories for search, archives, domains, images, maps, capture, and reporting.
Appendix H — Visual Index
A quick reference to the handbook’s visual workflows, checklists, maps, and evidence-handling diagrams.
Appendix I — Final QC Checklist
A pre-release quality check for traceability, wording, redaction, privacy, proportionality, and audience suitability.