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Benjamin Strick

@bendobrown.bsky.social
16K followers 354 following 283 posts

Investigator | Human Rights | Hybrid Wars - Makes videos on maps, data & #OSINT - Director of Investigations at @cen4infores.bsky.social - Prev CIR, BBC, Bellingcat.

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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Here's the video. If you only want the TL;DR and checklist, skip to 11:04 in YouTube video 🤓 🛰️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg5M...
youtube.com
The Russian Base Hidden Beneath a Fake Forest on Satellite Maps
YouTube video by Bendobrown
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Satellite maps can hide a lot. A fake forest covers a military base in Russia, another covers a government area in South Korea. So I published a video on the free tools you can use to check edits and trust satellite imagery. Link below 👇
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Here's the link to the OSINT Field Notes newsletter, where these are discussed in detail, including the analysis involved, techniques on using them and more on using technology during disasters. tinyurl.com/osfieldnotes12
tinyurl.com
OSINT Field Notes #12: Disaster Data
Nepal floods and open source analysis: finding imagery, analysing data and checking fake claims
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
10. Not necessarily a tool, but more a story from Reddit 'whereisthis', where someone posted an image of a tour guide from Nepal, trying to help their friend identify their last known whereabouts. The community identified the location shortly after. www.reddit.com/r/whereisthi...
reddit.com
From the whereisthis community on Reddit: Please help my friend find her father’s location. He was around the Tibet-Nepal border during the flood.
Explore this post and more from the whereisthis community
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
9. Google Fact Check Explorer to see indexed fact-checks by country, theme or event toolbox.google.com/factcheck/ex...
toolbox.google.com
Fact Check Tools
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
8. Copernicus Emergency Management Service for rapid flood extent and damage assessment mapping. mapping.emergency.copernicus.eu/activations/...
mapping.emergency.copernicus.eu
EMSR927 | Copernicus EMS On Demand Mapping
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
7. HOT uMap for tasked extents and focus area boundary umap.hotosm.org/en/map/nepal...
umap.hotosm.org
Nepal Floods 2026: Focus Area and Tasking Manager Project Extents
See detailed information about the coordinated mapping response on the [[https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organised_Editing/Activities/Nepal_Floods_2026|Activation Wiki Page]] To access open vecto...
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
6. Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Tasking Manager and OSM page for coordinated mapping plus access to tasked imagery. wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Organis...
wiki.openstreetmap.org
Organised Editing/Activities/Nepal Floods 2026 - OpenStreetMap Wiki
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
5. Google Lens. Never underestimate it. It can give context in seconds.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
4. Disaster Imagery Viewer (cgiovando) with commercial imagery and drone data as a multi-provider viewer, false colour and NDWI on Planet Pelican. cgiovando.github.io/disaster-ima...
cgiovando.github.io
Nepal Floods 2026 - Imagery Viewer
Bhote Koshi / Trishuli corridor, Rasuwa & Nuwakot
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
3. Radiant Earth's STAC Browser to aggregate available imagery. browser.moregeo.it/external/van...
browser.moregeo.it
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
2. Developmentseed STAC map for open data imagery developmentseed.org/stac-map/?hr...
developmentseed.org
stac-map
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
1. Vantor open data program vantor.com/company/open...
vantor.com
Vantor Open Data Program – Disaster Response Satellite Imagery
Vantor’s Open Data Program provides free satellite imagery and insights to aid first responders in global disaster response and recovery.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I've just published this month's edition of OSINT Field Notes. The focus is on how tech supports disaster situations, especially after the horrible Nepal floods. Here's 10 interesting links worth checking out if you're interested in open source analysis during disasters 👇
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
OSINT Field Notes #11 is out! In this edition, I dig into a deceptive network and show how to find who manages Facebook pages and where they're from. Plus disappearing aircraft, Starship found using SAR & Google Earth imagery that should never have existed. tinyurl.com/osfieldnotes11
tinyurl.com
OSINT Field Notes #11: Looking Under the Surface
A Facebook network presenting as local communities, three Boeings exposed along Sudan’s supply routes, the imagery that shouldn't be and Shahed-type drones filmed over Mali.
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Reposted by Benjamin Strick
rpwfb @rpwfb.eurosky.social · 10/08/2026
Good investigation into how easy it is to fill Facebag with fake immigration, identity and political posts with AI slop, at scale, to radicalise the audience.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Full report, with more details (benjaminstrick.com/fake-flags) For media, I am happy to talk more about the database of the pages & groups. Note in the report I mention of the wider bucket of entities, originating from Bangaldesh, Pakistan, Morocco, Vietnam & India.
benjaminstrick.com
Fake Flags: the Facebook network rebranding itself as Australian, British, French and Canadian communities
A core network of 46 Facebook assets branded as local national communities, managed from Sri Lanka, holding roughly 900,000 follower and member positions.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
One takeaway is that much of the content was AI-generated. From the groups & pages profile pictures, cover photos, to the content that was posted, including AI-generated videos and images. A lot of slop, but a lot that hit the right nerves in the current political climates.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
So what have we found? - Australian, British, French, US and Canadian identities built on recycled pages. - groups drawing huge volumes of political engagement. - admis repeatedly disclosed in Sri Lanka. - paid ads used to build audiences in countries they claim to represent.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The advertising records matter because they provide another attribution trail. I found advertiser and payer information associated with Sri Lankan locations or individuals on some of those ads.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Ads were ran to target Australian and UK audiences to build those pages.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Some of these audiences weren't just grown organically. Meta's Ad Library shows pages buying ads targeted at Australian, British and French users. Some used political or social-issue content while explicitly asking people to like or follow the page.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
In the Facebook groups, not only were the Sri Lankan-ran pages (appearing as Australian, British, Canadian, US) posting these meme questions, but also a significant number of Indonesian individuals who were making money through Meta.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A lot of the content follows the same simple formula: - Flags and national symbols - Immigration, Islam or Sharia law - AI-generated or AI-labelled images - Votes for: "👍=Yes” & "😢=No” The aim is almost always to make people react.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Australia Life is even larger, with more than 26,000 members. On 4 August, Facebook showed the group had generated 12.1k posts in the last month
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The groups add another layer. “British Lover” has more than 15,000 members. Among its administrators are British Life, UK Talks, Life in USA and AeroLens. All four display Sri Lankan managers in Meta's own transparency records.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A rename itself doesn't prove anything improper. Pages get sold, repurposed and renamed all the time. But these histories show something important: many of the apparently local identities are very recent. The audiences beneath them were built under completely different brands.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
This isn't an isolated rename. Ceylon Products → UK Pulse → Canada Pulse Nursing Life → British Life Lanka Astrology → J'aime la France Moments of Netherlands → Moments of Brazil → Moments of Australia
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The page adopted the name “Life of Australia” in November 2025. Eight months later it had 42,000+ followers and was helping administer an Australian politics group with more than 26,000 members. Meta lists managers in Australia AND Sri Lanka.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Life of Australia posts heavily about Australian politics, immigration, religion and other posts that are largely driven to get engagement from real people, thinking it's a real page.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Looking at what these pages used to be is interesting. One of the clearest examples is “Life of Australia”. Before becoming Australian, it was a Peaky Blinders page called “Thomas shelby”. Then it became “Motivate My Life”. Then “MindNug”.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I started to first pick through pages like "British Life", a page with 20k followers and the group "Australia Life" with 27k members. I was pretty shocked to see 46 of these pages/groups were ran from Sri Lanka and a lot of AI content that was getting significant traction.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Facebook groups also have features to show who has admin/moderator/expert roles under the people tab.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
First, Meta has page and group transparency features made for the purpose of keeping this stuff publicly accountable. By clicking on any Facebook page name, you can see the admin location, if it's public.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Australian and UK Facebook pages & groups are asking thousands of people about immigration, politics and national identity. But they aren't as local as they look. I found 42 pages and 4 groups whose records link them to Sri Lanka. Details 👇🧵
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Here's a link to the full newsletter. Each new edition is free for a month, the archive is paywalled. Take it easy! tinyurl.com/osintfieldno...
tinyurl.com
OSINT Field Notes #10: The Signal Isn't the Story
A heat signature that isn’t proof of a strike, two sanctioned ships that walked out of a blockade, a viral image that fooled AI detection tools, an investigation-turned game and lightning data.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
10. Investigation by FRANCE 24 on how Columbian armed groups recruit minors on TikTok. Accounts sold "dream" of money & power. "Hook" accounts work the comments to build trust & contact moves off-platform. Interesting if you're watching recruitment networks. youtube.com/watch?v=wsf4...
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
9. @osintjobs.bsky.social recently published their OSINT Jobs Assessment platform: with CTF-style scenarios instead of CVs, with ranked and verified results. A better signal of who can actually do the work. assessment.osint-jobs.com
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
8. After some chaotic weather over the past month in the UK, I spotted lightningmaps.org a free real-time lightning-strike map fusing multiple sensor networks, with a historical view for cross-referencing strikes against other events. Where there is data, there are maps.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
7. An AI detector flagged a still of a Moscow refinery strike as generated. BBC Verify found three separate videos of the same strike, geolocated and synced them. The event was real, but images appear to flag as 'generated with OpenAI tools'.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
6. In an investigation by @asia.nikkei.com, journalists tracked a 13-year-old from occupied Makiivka 9,000km to a re-education camp in Wonsan, North Korea. The 165th known site in the network, verified through social media, documents and satellite imagery. asia.nikkei.com/static/vdata...
asia.nikkei.com
A Ukrainian boy sent to North Korea
Published Apr. 27, 2026 | A boy living in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine was found to have spent part of last summer in North Korea as a "representative of Russia." The prolonged occupation has ens...
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
5. Center 795, a Russian military intelligence unit built to be undetectable, exposed by @christogrozev.bsky.social Der Spiegel and @theins.press It came apart because an operative planned a hit over Google Translate, whose servers sit in the US. youtube.com/watch?v=JsdS...
youtube.com
How Google Translate Exposed Russia's Secret Army
YouTube video by The Christo Files
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
4. Two sanctioned IRISL container ships, BARZIN and HAMOUNA, anchored off Bandar Abbas inside a de facto blockade. By 21 June both had cleared Hormuz with AIS on, bound for China. I broke down how to track them with four free tools.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
3. A geolocation case study from Colesto pins the coordinates of a One Piece anime ocean scene using bathymetry, Copernicus wave data, Himawari cloud-matching, AIS and a Blender sun-angle reconstruction. Fictional subject, entirely real method. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY-W...
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
2. After an acid attack on Indonesian rights defender Andrie Yunus ended in a military court and light sentences, journalist Aqwam Fiazmi Hanifan turned the CCTV trail into a public news game, so readers could reconstruct the routes the court didn't. jaring.id/interaktif-a...
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
1. NASA FIRMS showed heat at Russia's Orenburg gas plant after reported drone strikes. But gas plants flare around the clock, and the same pixel lights up every month. The five-minute baseline check that separates a strike from a flare stack is this month's technical teardown.
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Hi! I run a monthly newsletter on digital investigations: techniques, developments in the field, and OSINT case studies. I've just published the 10th edition which I am stoked about, and it's a good one. Here are 10 links and helpful hints featured this month 👇🧵
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
In this tutorial I followed the BARZIN (IMO: 9820269) and HAMOUNA (IMO: 9820271), both under OFAC sanctions. In May they were anchored off the coast of Bandar Abbas. As of yesterday, they have exited the Strait of Hormuz and are in the Arabian Sea on their way to China
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Benjamin Strick @bendobrown.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Some people have asked me about the basics of ship tracking, so in this open source investigations tutorial, we look at two sanctioned Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and find where they are and who owns them, all with the power of #OSINT at home. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-xi...
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Reposted by Benjamin Strick
Nathan Patin @nathanpatin.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
One of the featured tools in Ben's newsletter lets you estimate the heights of structures using satellite imagery. Had a flashback to one of the OG @bellingcat.com tutorials on the same subject www.bellingcat.com/resources/ho...
bellingcat.com
How Tall is That Gantry? - bellingcat
Translations:English (UK)Русский (Россия)This article was originally posted on Arms Control Wonk.  A little how-to guide to measure the height of any most structures on Google Earth.  As you click thr...
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