The NOS editors couldn’t figure it out: where were these images of Ukrainian buses with evacuees filmed? Social media said it was Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, but there is too much false and half-true information blowing from the war zone to assume that.
And so appeared on the twitter account @nos_osint a call to the public: location wanted. The account was created by NOS journalists Ben Meindertsma, Mitchell van de Klundert and Joost Schellevis, who were busy verifying photos and videos from day one of the invasion of Russia. After a week, they decided to enlist the help of the public. Van de Klundert: “We saw that many people on Twitter were checking the same images as us. It’s a shame if everyone is doing double work.”
Quickly verifying social media images is important for the NOS because it Journal and news hour and the online channels are partly filled with it, explains Meindertsma. “And it was journalistically relevant to know if the Mariupol evacuation was underway. It would change things if it were anywhere else in Ukraine.”
Clarification came within thirty minutes: Twitterer @hugeglassofmilk delivered the coordinates of the intersection where the buses were driving as a digital flash delivery person. That was not in Mariupol, but in Zaporizhzhya, three hours away. “Hero”, responded Schellevis. “Verified,” tweeted @nos_osint.
The ‘hero’ in ordinary life is Yorrick de Vries, a 26-year-old history student from Groningen. He has only been ‘osinting’ for two weeks, he says, although he has been following the OSINT community since the Syria war. “The reason for starting it ourselves is that the war in Ukraine is getting close for the Dutch: it is in Europe, it affects our gas and energy prices. I saw an opportunity to inform them.”
OSINT – Open Source Intelligence – has been used for years in all kinds of sectors, from intelligence services to NGOs. The most accessible form is figuring out where and when images were made. But by combining disparate sources – from satellite images to hacker-uploaded phone calls – you can go much further. Seasoned osinters have even identified war criminals this way.
On YouTube, instructional videos promise to teach you how to osinte in a few hours. That’s right, says De Vries – although he didn’t need them himself. “I mainly use my common sense. I start with the question of whether an image can be verified at all. Then I ask the question: what do I see?” For example, on the bus video he saw a car company. “And then the question: what do I know? In Ukrainian Telegram groups, it was mainly about Zaporizhzhya, not Mariupol.”
Form of transparency
He scanned the facade of the garage using the Google Translate app. After some back and forth translation, he got hold of the Ukrainian word for car parts in Cyrillic. Using Google Streetview, he first searched Mariupol and then in Zaporizhzhya for garages, until the relevant intersection loomed up (the NOS had only searched Mariupol). How did De Vries know that the Telegram messages were reliable? “That was an assumption. If something like that is not right, you will automatically get stuck.”
Most ‘riddles’ that @nos_osint asks for help with are solved within one to two hours. “In the meantime, you can continue working on something else,” says Meindertsma. In addition to saving time, the project is a form of transparency. “You show how you do your work as a journalist, instead of saying: this is correct, just believe us.” And yes: “It is also possible that others are really better at it than we are.” Van de Klundert: “I’m sure of that.”
The reader who explains to the journalist how it works: it does take some getting used to. OSINT further shrinks the shrinking distance between the two. Is that even desirable? “Ultimately, it remains a journalistic process, in which we double-check what we receive and decide for ourselves whether we publish it,” says Meindertsma. “I wouldn’t just put the people who help us on the editorial board and tell them: good luck with it.”
Also because news organizations impose ethical codes on themselves. Rules that the NOS has expanded for the OSINT project. Van de Klundert: “For example, we have agreed that if someone films from home that a Russian tank is doing something, we will not share the exact coordinates.” Such a thing can bring retaliation later.
The NOS journalists agree that everyone can learn to osinthe, but Meindertsma does point out the difference between smart googling and more serious detective work. “Specialists like Bellingcat make legally watertight stories about war crimes. That is not for everyone, not even for us.”
The name of Bellingcat quickly comes to mind when it comes to OSINT. The research collective of Briton Eliot Higgins has a strong link with the Netherlands: it got stuck in the shooting down of flight MH17 – or so it found out before official authorities did –, has a large share of Dutch volunteers and regularly collaborates with Dutch media.
Higgins initially mainly researched images of the Syrian civil war that started in 2011. It was the time when OSINT came into being in its current form, says Wim Zwijnenburg, researcher at the peace organization PAX and volunteer at Bellingcat. He sees a new catalyst in the Ukraine war. “A lot of people approach me if they can help, or send messages: look what I traced.” He hopes for a new generation of talent. “With different skills and who, for example, look more at TikTok.” Among other things, he specializes in scanning satellite images for the ecological consequences of armed conflicts.
Dates and webcams
According to Zwijnenburg, the current impulse for OSINT is partly due to the location of the conflict. “Google Maps and Streetview data is available from all over Ukraine and there are many webcams in the cities. That was not the case in Syria and Yemen.”
Yorrick ‘@hugeglassofmilk’ De Vries hopes to use his skills as a professional journalist at some point. He thinks that Dutch journalism discovers OSINT a little late, “but better late than never”. He hopes it will last even if the Ukraine war comes to an end. “I don’t know whether the NOS will also actively verify images if a civil war breaks out in Venezuela or somewhere else further from our bed.”
According to Zwijnenburg, every journalist (and citizen) benefits from basic OSINT skills. Even, say, a parliamentary journalist: he would be better off learning to google for list candidates. “OSINT is a kind of Swiss army knife that sometimes contains something useful and sometimes not.”
Meindertsma says that OSINT will prove particularly interesting for the NOS in major crises that develop quickly and where few reporters are on site. His colleague Van de Klundert thinks otherwise and hopes that OSINT will have a permanent place at the NOS. “There is always a crisis somewhere. We could keep a permanent OSINT team and deploy them where they are needed. Also in domestic news. When the streets in Limburg flooded, images were also circulated on social media before Gerri Eickhof was in the water.”
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