Benjamin Strick
Investigator | Human Rights | Hybrid Wars
- Makes videos on maps, data & #OSINT
- Director of Investigations at @cen4infores.bsky.social
- Prev at BBC Africa Eye. Bellingcat contributor.
- Wow. 100,000 subs on YouTube. For maps, metadata and the occasional weaponised Hilux. Since Feb 2021, my channel has been about breaking down imagery, tools, tracking world events and sharing methods to democratise OSINT. Thanks for watching, sharing and nerding out with me 🤓
- Satellite imagery helps you understand what’s happening on the ground, from above. There are loads of free tools out there. Here are 6 I actually use (and what each is best for). Thread 👇🛰️
- 1. Google Earth Pro = historical context. Best for: “What did this place look like before?” Use the historical imagery slider to spot change over time (damage, new builds, movement, land use).
- 2. Copernicus Browser = more than an image. Best for: fires/burn scars, floods, drought, vegetation stress, smoke/haze context. Switch presets like SWIR, false colour, NDVI to reveal patterns you won’t see in normal colour imagery..
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View full threadFull walkthrough with more tips, tricks and some very interesting locations in my YouTube video on 6 top free satellite imagery sources. If you're only using one tool for satellite imagery, this will show you how they work together. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0RQ...
- Excited to share the first edition of OSINT Field Notes for 2026. There's a lot here, from film geolocations, hybrid war maps, laptop farms, broken redactions and surveillance map sources. Read here: tinyurl.com/osintfieldno... Here's some nuggets from the dispatches section 👇🧵
- 1. Geolocating footage from Venezuela Footage coming out of Venezuela is overwhelming. Here's two resources that might help from @geoconfirmed.org (geoconfirmed.org/ven) and LoLManya (google.com/maps/d/u/2/v...)
- 2. Hacker Takes Down Far-Right Dating Website Live A researcher infiltrated a neo-Nazi dating site, used automation to scrape profiles, identified the operator, mapped the data, then shut it down (media.ccc.de/v/39c3-the-h...) H/T @intcyberdigest.bsky.social & @martharoot.bsky.social
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View full thread11. Flock Cameras An impactful investigation by @404media.co and others showed how misconfigured surveillance feeds can end up exposed in the open internet. A brilliant YouTube video from @bennjordan.bsky.social covers this really well. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-...
- Google Earth has updated imagery of Southern Lebanon, showing the scale of destruction of towns and communities, in detail, after the IDF's operation in the region between Oct 2024 and Jan 2025. The imagery of this area is from 6 June, 2025.
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickIt's amazing how much knowledge we all have at our fingertips (all of us with internet, toilets etc so no more than half of us, but still.) Great responsibility.
- For those looking for geolocated footage from recent events in Venezuela, @geoconfirmed.org has mapped the community's crowdsourced geolocations here: geoconfirmed.org/ven Use it and give credit where it is due. pic.x.com/i5jESLxm6T
- For those looking for geolocated footage from recent events in Venezuela, @geoconfirmed.org has mapped the community's crowdsourced geolocations here: geoconfirmed.org/ven Use it and give credit where it is due. pic.x.com/i5jESLxm6T
- This footage from Brno (برنو) in Sudan's South Kordofan region, shows the sheer number of RSF affiliated fighters that descend upon these small towns when they are attacked, looted and burned. The location is: 11.27240, 29.4757. It was filmed during the attack and takeover of the town last week.
- Reposted by Benjamin Strickokay!!!
- Sometimes political figures and influential accounts delete posts that could cause headlines. But some archives store those posts forever. In this video, we dig into five tools to look up deleted tweets and search through political posts. youtu.be/QZi4iRN_Uj8?...
- Since February 2022, the Eyes on Russia project by CIR and the #OSINT community has verified and mapped footage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The data is searchable by location, date and description. For example, you can search "drone" and see areas they are largely present in.
- You can find the map at: eyesonrussia.org Back in 2022 I made an explainer on how the content has been verified and how to navigate the map, which you can see here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaXz...
- Investigation finds evidence that a Sudanese Armed Forces operation carried out in Wad Madani was marked by ethnically motivated violence, mass killing of civilians, dumping of bodies into canals and mass graves. Impactful work by @cnn.com & @lighthousereports.com edition.cnn.com/interactive/...
- This is the third edition of OSINT Field Notes, a monthly newsletter on digital investigations, techniques and tools. This issue covers X location data, Nano Banana, 3D flight paths, and a sanctions data diving. Thank you for the support on these 🙏 tinyurl.com/osintfieldno...
- Sudan air force bombing of towns, markets and schools has killed hundreds. Brilliant open source investigative monitoring by our Sudan Witness team at CIR. www.bbc.com/news/article...
- 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...
- 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.
- 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...
- 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 🛰️⛴️
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickShout 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
- 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...
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickReminder 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickFor y’all interested in getting your own views into things like boat / naval activity in the Caribbean etc, this one’s for you.
- 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...
- 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?...
- Reposted by Benjamin Strick[ #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...
- Reposted by Benjamin Strick“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
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickNew 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-...
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickI love me a good newsletter, especially one jam packed with open source investigation goodness. Nicely done @bendobrown.bsky.social 🕵🏽♂️
- 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...
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickA great new newsletter. Check out the section on exporting the great firewall.
- 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...
- Reposted by Benjamin StrickNEW: 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
- 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. 👇
- 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...
