I See New People
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Hello, come on in, feel free to crouch in a comfortable, concealed spot. This Substack was OSINT focused from 8/2023 until the 2024 election. Now it’s more about avoiding unwanted attention as Pax Americana unwinds like a broken clock spring.
These days we’re focused on how you would go about protecting yourself, and perhaps those around you as well.
Attention Conservation Notice:
I’m fairly good at writing catchy titles and I wander all over the place in terms of interests. Most articles here have an ACN immediately after the intro that offers reasons to NOT read any further. The introduction covers what’s current, the rest of this stuff is largely historical.
Shall We Play A Game?
Cicada 3301 Metaverse agreed to produce a puzzle I’ve been working on since 2020, and as part of this I’m charged with Brand Defense Strategist duties. Having participated in a variety of social movement starting with the Coffee Party back in 2009, I’m familiar with the behavior problems that beset open membership groups that find themselves doing notable things. You can see more of what’s happening with the puzzle at rauhauser.org.
Open Source Intelligence:
Back in June of 2024 the OSINT stuff connected to Disinfodrome reached an all time high when MIOS: Iran’s PressTV made it all the way to the Washington Post. Disinfodrome was always crafted out of end of life gear off Ebay and it ceased operation at the end of January, 2025.
There were 142 followers the day the news broke. Today as I write this, on January 25th of 2025, I see there are 449 subscribers and 1,704 followers.
There used to be quarterly areas of interest, as seen below. Now I’m not sure precisely what we’re doing. We may go with month to month topics, we might get back to quarterly … or maybe I’ll just let Fluff Warrior set direction.
September 2023 - a sort of boot camp, meant to help develop skills with the tools needed to operate safely.
4th Quarter 2023 - using The Online Operation Kill Chain as a basic, we considered this from the aspect of a small ISR node characterizing and interdicting malign influence.
1st Quarter 2024 - loosely focused on PANOPTIC, short for Pattern and Action Nomenclature Of Privacy Threats In Context, a MITRE privacy oriented framework. We’re going to keep coming back to this one when I find material.
2nd Quarter 2024 - for the Malign Influence Operations Safari we got access to a fancy new tool set in the form of Semrush/SEOQuake, and we also explored some high profile leaks.
3rd Quarter 2024 - I began calling the Snivel War by its name. No one was more surprised than I in early November, when America made what I feel is a terrible choice. The name, however, is still apropos - the Democrats squandered every chance we gave them to pursue a new course.
Geocyber:
The Geocyber area was meant to focus on the overlap of international affairs boiling over into kinetic conflict, and what that meant online. Instead it’s taken on a similar focus and tone to the retired Neal Rauhauser Wordpress site. During the decade prior to the launch of NIB I would pick a new research direction after every presidential election, with climate change, and energy/food/water security featuring strongly.
This section is likely to get busier, assuming I start paying attention to the news. If I do, and I do mean IF, it’ll be a mix of international journalism and finds on Substack/YouTube.
Disinfodrome:
There used to be a cluster of Open Semantic Search systems in a telco bunker somewhere. The gear was end of life systems off Ebay and the audience was a few dozen reporters and fellow OSINT researchers. The last of Disinfodrome was turned down at the end of January, 2025.
Tool Time:
The Tool Time section was a mix of advice meant for the moderately technical person who likely supports others involved in conflicts, occasional security stories from the They Did WHAT?!?!?! end of the field, which also happen to contain object lessons for us, and a good bit of my grousing about my personal low budget computer museum.
This may or may not come back in 2025, but the tone has changed. Instead of addressing the rising staff engineer/security officer in a section dedicated to their growth, security related stuff is going to appear in the main stream, and it’ll be adjusted for a broader audience.
Safety Dance:
ToolTime was retired in favor of a more broadly accessible set of security related suggestions, one that I expect everyone will need. ToolTime was more for those doing tech support for small groups. Unlike the irregularly serialized ToolTime, this is just one post with a collection of other links in it.
Conclusion:
So there you have it. Something of a direction is set for 2025. Much of what’s mentioned in here is now historical in nature.
I have a Canadian literary agent and now that I know what America’s choice is, I can begin crafting that long overdue book on how we got here. I worked against our dissolution from March of 2009 through the 2024 election …
And Ingo Montoya’s under-appreciated line feels apropos as I update this section.