Defining Active vs. Passive OSINT
The Definition of OSINT
While exploring the online world, you’re bound to encounter open source information: data that is publicly available to view, collect, and analyze. This type of data can be useful for online researchers or investigators, thanks to its highly accessible nature. You only need to search for a simple phrase on the web to find millions of detail-rich resources on your chosen subject.
However, open source intelligence can become more difficult to acquire on certain websites and platforms. Though the open web is typically just that—wide open for internet users to access—modern websites and popular social media platforms now require users to create accounts in order to enter. In this new guarded online environment, analysts and researchers can no longer collect all OSINT passively. Instead, they must create accounts and clear barriers of entry to gain access to some information. With this variation in barriers to data, online users have to adjust their information-collection methods in web spaces that are more secured. This represents the key difference between obtaining passive and active OSINT.
Passive vs. Active OSINT
Passive and active OSINT each require a different level of effort and precision from the online user.
Passive OSINT: Collecting with a wide and invisible net
If you consider the word “passive,” which can mean “unassuming,” you could visualize a collector of passive OSINT as someone who quietly absorbs information on the web. Analysts obtain passive open source intelligence in a simplified manner; picture a fisherman who releases a net underwater, allowing hundreds of fish to swim inside. Information collected passively might include the headlining articles on a global online news source, or the popular posts of a public social media user. While in search of passive OSINT, users may also want to avoid drawing attention to their activities. These users would rather remain invisible to their research subjects to avoid retribution. They could also skew data results by revealing their intentions.
Active OSINT: Collecting with a trained fishing pole
On the opposite side of the OSINT spectrum, active open source intelligence implies a dynamic approach to locating public data. With active open source intelligence, researchers need basic credentials, such as emails and usernames, to first gain access to sites that hold valuable data. The information you might collect as an “active OSINT analyst” could be less obvious to the typical online user. Though you’re still acquiring public information, these details may have been obscured or archived. This makes the information slightly more difficult to find.
You might also not worry about revealing your presence to subjects of inquiry when performing active OSINT. For example, you could choose to download a PDF file linked on a research subject’s blog. Or, you might ask to become friends with someone on their Facebook page to view their status updates. If we’re sticking with the fishing analogy, active OSINT discards a net in favor of a pole for a more targeted collection method.
Why Understanding Different OSINT Types Matters
Intelligence gathering on public online spaces varies in difficulty. Web researchers need to acquire different skillsets and technologies if they want to collect a full breadth of information. Understanding different types of open source intelligence and collection methods can help you decide where to invest your time and resources when building your OSINT toolkit.
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