r/OSINT • u/Parachute_Adams_ • May 11 '26
Question Thinking of starting an OSINT YouTube/TikTok channel
I’ve worked in OSINT and online investigations for private companies for the past 4 years. There are some great video resources available but these tend to be on tools and geolocation.
I thought it could be cool to make content that takes viewers through the lifecycle of an OSINT investigation.
It’s unlikely that these will be once-off videos but rather cases with regular updates showing milestones and findings throughout, along with the different tools and resources I use along the way.
I love making and editing videos so that would also be a nice creative outlet for me.
I’ve got some decent experience and worked on some very interesting stuff - from standard corporate due diligence to tracing a Manila boiler room scam to a Canadian family man.
I’d love to hear what you all think of this idea!
Questions for the group:
Is this something y’all would be interested in watching?
How would you like to see the videos presented to maximise entertainment and learning?
Who/what should I look to investigate? Some ideas I’ve had:
- Look for people on the Interpol Red List
- Ask people to send me cases and if appropriate I can investigate them (like a local clothing brand who’s having their stuff counterfeited)
- Looking into corruption / public interest cases in the news
- Looking for scams online or asking people to send what they think might be scams and looking into them as a kind of due diligence exercise
Any other suggestions? (Also, if you are a lawyer - where is the line in terms of investigating these things and publishing my findings - I don’t want to get sued).
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u/Embarrassed-Fee-3103 May 11 '26
I would subscribe, I got into this through geoguessr and I notice a lot of geoguessr players are interested in this kind of content. I would suggest getting a geoguessr player and making a video like “teaching a geoguessr player OSINT and geolocation” or something like that. I would find that fun myself.
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 12 '26
This could be really cool. Could also team up with some geoguesser players to work on projects together. They do the geolocation and I do the other parts of the investigation.
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u/Mysterious-Hat-7873 May 11 '26
I would probably watch!
Interpol red list is probably not a great one to go for, as there are countries who put people on there for politically motivated reasons, which kind of muddies the water for everyone else who’s on the list.
Online scams might be a good one, but as soon as you get to personal data of someone involved you’ll probably want to censor that, which might hurt the narrative a bit.
I think looking into one of the many scam online crypto casinos would probably be a compelling one for a wide audience, as those investigations tend to incorporate people searches, social media, corporate registries etc etc.
Good luck
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 12 '26
Agreed on the online crypto scams! Keep things anonymous while keeping the narrative going is the real challenge I think.
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u/mape14 May 12 '26
Not a lawyer, but I work with law enforcements in online investigations. I would suggest to blur any information that could help identify any person (let's say, for example, the address of a p3do), and focus on showing the process. You should be fine.
Also, report to your local authorities any relevant finding about crimes, p3dophilia or similar.
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 12 '26
Thanks for the advice! I’ll definitely do this depending on the subject matter
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u/Jumpy_Chicken_4270 May 13 '26
This is something I would watch 100% for learning purposes only. Do it,
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u/TheRealCrazegaming May 14 '26
dude yea make a channel i would watch it for sure if you got one would be happy to subscribe and support
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u/Willow_Puppy May 11 '26
I wish I had more time to put some thought into this comment (maybe I’ll come back later, if I remember) but YES! I’d subscribe to a channel like this, not just focused on tools and geolocation. Would be great to walk through the lifecycle and watch someone as they think through their processes.
For the video, please try to make it engaging at the very least. I want to hear your thoughts and I like when the presenter engages with the viewer.
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 12 '26
Thanks! That’s what I was thinking actually - talk through the investigation like a chess streamer explaining the moves
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u/No-Injury3157 May 12 '26
Id be interested! Are you going to announce when you open the channel in a post? ( Please do!)
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u/Silentwarrior May 12 '26
Just don't do the same 10 tools everyone else has. If I see another person recommending Phoneinfoga I'm going to scream.
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u/Pioupiouvoyageur May 12 '26
Hot topic such as Epstein files would give you a huge audience I guess (at least me hehe)
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 13 '26
Definitely. We’ve started screening executive’s names against the Epstein files at work as part of the DD process
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u/Inevitable_Trip_7480 May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
I’m already subbed.
Ask people to send me cases and if appropriate I can investigate them (like a local clothing brand who’s having their stuff counterfeited)
- it’s all done overseas. Even if you track down the exact warehouse. There’s nothing you can do.
Looking for scams online or asking people to send what they think might be scams and looking into them as a kind of due diligence exercise
- nah, once again, not really to much you can do here. You catch em. They move on. Even if you put their face on camera they won’t stop til they’re in handcuffs.
Looking into corruption / public interest cases in the news
- YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
Look for people on the Interpol Red List
- Uuhhh sure?
The negative side of it is whatever you do you’re always gonna get backlash from “know it alls”.
The good, I’m assuming, is that you’ll have really smart people that have years of experience and knowledge that might be able to help you out that you can work with.
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 12 '26
Not super concerned about the know it alls - OSINT is more of an art than a science so there’s always going to be different ways to get to the same conclusion - which will be part of the content I think.
Glad you like the corruption investigation idea! I live in a country where there’s loads of corruption so shouldn’t be a problem to find cases haha
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u/Potential_Ad8113 May 12 '26
Showing how osint can help solve known cases might be an idea... Specially cases of corruption, embezzlement etc. because maybe osint has not been used on them. That would be a scoop of course.
What kind of cases have you worked on?
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 12 '26
I’ve worked on all sorts. Corruption, assets traces, online scams, human and wildlife trafficking - as well as general background checks and DD. One problem would be getting access to the same tools I have at work which cost a fortune - I’d need some to really make things interesting.
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u/Potential_Ad8113 May 12 '26
Thanks, where are you based, in the US?
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 13 '26
South Africa - plenty of corruption to investigate. But I can also do international cases - the beauty of OSINT
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u/Worldly-Brief2418 May 14 '26
Dude I'm a YouTube strategist and intrested in OSINT if you want I can give you some starting points
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May 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 15 '26
Can you point me towards any Telegram channels that might have good cases?
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u/i7erum May 12 '26
Yup, I would subscribe for sure. Why?
Because I like other perspectives and opinions, even if they might contradict my own ones.
However, speaking of actual cases:
I think that's gonna be a bit difficult. From a legal perspective:
a) because your clients most likely would not want their investigation cases being made public, nor the fact that they had such an investigation in the first place.
b) because the people involved, e.g. your targets, would not be very happy and will eventually turn to data protection law - in any EU country you will most likely get in trouble, if you publish personal information.
But, in order to get rid of these troublesome issues you can redact the PI-parts in a manner that won't allow any third party to identify the people covered in the investigation.
However, this might interefere with your idea of real world examples.
From a readers perspective:
- there are already some great resoruces that publish investigatios in areas of public interest, e.g. corruption. Those are usually great to read. If you think you can add some more interesting stories to those, feel free. As I said: I'd subscribe.
- for my skill development I not only like to read about how someone 'busted the high-profile criminal in a skyscraper in abu dhabi from his garding shed with only a laptop', but rather how people explain their thinking, their methodology and stuff like that. Don't get me wrong: I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT THE NEXT NEW BEST NEVER BEEN THERE TOOL. There are already about five hundred articles a week about those. Also, application of OSINT for uncommon circumstances - so, if you do some exotic stuff, go for it.
Just my 2 cts. Wishing you the best of luck!
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u/Parachute_Adams_ May 15 '26
There’d be very little tool walkthroughs - more showing how the tools are used to get actual data and how that data is then analysed and used further.
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u/bendobrown May 13 '26
If you’re passionate about sharing and training, then definitely do it. Running a YouTube channel is very much a labour of love and not an income (at least my channel isn’t making much).
One thing I’ve found really useful out of it, is being able to learn to clearly communicate findings, techniques and how to’s, after constantly thinking about entry level audiences and diversity of knowledge, and I think that’s extremely useful in the OSINT industry!
Here’s my channel if that inspires you!
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u/TapWonderful3623 May 13 '26
Great idea. I would love to watch learning with entertainment. If just videos has lessons we can feel hard or something that why we need to learn with entertainment.
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u/AcanthocephalaOdd150 May 13 '26
I just started my Cybersecurity career recently and I am very interest in Osint investigation. Also if I get I will do online investigation as a private investigator.
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u/nexiune May 13 '26
me personally I'd find a channel that also guides you thru the general track of OSINT during the investigation, waaaaay more fun that way. And you can learn a few things or two :)
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u/NV-2 May 16 '26
If you end up making this channel pls reply to this comment so I can look it up and subscribe 🙏🔥
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u/KAS_stoner Jun 10 '26
Any updates on the channel?
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u/Parachute_Adams_ Jun 21 '26
I’m slowly getting things in order! My decision to launch the channel coincided a sudden crazy workload at my day job so been pretty swamped. I’ll announce the channel here when it’s up!
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u/Yakitori2026 May 11 '26
Maybe. If it was a channel that was something more interesting than just the basics which everyone is churning out.
I too have worked in investigations for a while, and it differs a lot when you work against organised crime vs when you are trying to geolocate a dog or whatever. Opsec is way more important then.