S02 E03: Silicon Valley Bank, Protests, Terrorists, Hacker Forums, Deep Fakes & Donald Trump

About this Episode

Hosts: Daniel Clemens, ShadowDragon CEO
Nico Dekens (aka Dutch_OSINTguy), ShadowDragon Director of Intelligence and Collection

This time it’s a one-on-one conversation as Daniel and Nico cover the latest news in and outside the OSINT world. Their intel perspective on the news is fascinating, but the discussions between the headlines make this episode even more compelling.

Listen in as the guys discuss the increasing importance of incident response, crisis management, and operational security, while throwing in advice on protesting, voting, personal security awareness, and more that will add clarity in an ever-changing digital world.

Silicon Valley Bank
• Learn what went wrong in 60 seconds
• Keyword monitoring detected early what other banks were at risk (i.e., Credit Suisse)
• Disruptors started pushing false messages about US and EU bank failures
• Getting messages, true or false, out to one or two key influencers can topple a company quickly
• OSINT data could help drive aggressive investment strategies

Extinction Rebellion (XR)
• Protest group was infiltrated by Dutch law enforcement
• Group feels abused being investigated by the same technique used on terrorists
• Amnesty International calls the working method of the police and judiciary "particularly problematic"
• Police have an obligation to maintain public order and prevent civil unrest

Update: Stabbing Incidents and Alerts in Europe
• There have been more stabbing incidents and lone wolf attacks since we discussed the rising trend in a recent episode
• U.S. defense employee was stabbed in the United Kingdom near her GCHQ office
• Intel agencies issued alerts for increased risk to Vienna prayer houses from Islamic State jihadis
• Brussels metro stations are on high alert; U.S. embassy issued an alert for stabbing threat

Terrorist Threat Response
• Islamic terrorists may go silent for a while, but they are playing a long game and will return
• Include native foreign language and dialects for OSINT search queries
• Individuals need to increase situational awareness and safety protocols

Breached.vc Hacker Forum Owner Arrested
• Young man arrested and labeled “kingpin” of hacker info sharing stie
• Suspect Conor Brian Fitzpatrick of Peekskill, NY looks like every hacker kid of the last 25 years
• Profile does not fit old school hardcore criminal type
• Hacker surprisingly made basic mistakes with operational security (opsec)
• Unless law enforcement has a replacement in place, the forum will re-emerge elsewhere

Donald Trump Announced Pending Arrest
• More social media responses are from the left than the right
• Messages are so extreme there is an indication they may be generated by bots
• People on the right are not responding or mobilizing as they did with January 6th events
• The realistic deep fake photos have had a limited effectiveness

Deep Fake Tools Are Getting Better
• The quality of fakes is getting so good they are making into mainstream media
• Nico likes tools from Open AI, Midjourney, and HuggingFace.co
• With text to image get very specific with visual details, but also perspective, camera angle, lens, etc.
• People are creating AI-generated text and visual content without proper attribution

Join us again for more fun discussions about social media, open source intelligence, law enforcement, media manipulation, and the world at large. Look for upcoming guest appearances by other intelligence professionals.

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Thank you for listening.