I found the pieces on OSINT and Bellingcat fascinating. I have been on X for a few years and I have seen a lot of OSINT work in relation to the war in Ukraine, so it was fascinating to see more examples of OSINT work in other contexts. I thought the analogy in the documentary of the present moment in digital space being akin to the time of the invention of the printing press was helpful: there has been a sudden development which is still rapidly evolving, and the consequences of that change and our understanding of it are not yet settled. For example, I was struck by the simplicity of the investigators’ methods for investigating Russian soldiers. They could search the soldiers’ units on VContact and then check the mothers and wives’ forums to see discussions of troop movements. So, my first question for Christian would be: how are governments responding to OSINT investigations? What counter measures have they employed?

 

I was also interested in the part of the documentary where Christian shows us how a car bombing in Iraq was staged. He goes on to explain that it took him several days of research to find out what actually happened—time, he explained, that traditional news outlets don’t have. So, what does this mean for journalism? To what extent are we going to rely on citizen journalists being able to prove their claims vs will people continue to trust big news organisations?

 

I was very interested in the TIME piece on the Ukrainian government’s app. Citizens can use the app to report war crimes and Russian troop movements as well as interact with the government in other ways. The article was particularly interesting in the context of the other readings on OSINT as this seems to be an exampled of state-sponsored engagement with OSINT both for military purposes in the present and for War crimes prosecution purposes in the future. As Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation says that “this war has been the most radical shift in warefare since WWII, at least in Europe”. I hear people say this sort of thing about the war in Ukraine in the context of drone warfare, too. I imagine the same will be said once AI is deployed more regularly on the battlefield too. However, the liberal in me is worried about how a government app on your phone could be abused. I spoke to a Russian guy my age I met last year in France and he was telling me about a similar government app in Russia. There, however, Russian men started to receive their draft orders via notification on their phones so they could no longer claim not to have seen them. They could also lose access to their drivers’ license and bank accounts through the app if they did not respond to the draft order. In any case, I think the app will be a huge resource to ICC investigators (the Foreign Affairs piece was super helpful at explaining why prosecuting Putin would be so hard) and historians. My other questions for Christian would be to ask how OSINT is evolving with technology, e.g AI. and I am also interested in how Bellingcat investigators remain transparent whilst also protecting sources / unique investigative practices.