iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 28/09/2026

Humbled and honoured to receive the University of Limerick Outstanding Achievement Alumni Award (Society) at the 2026 UL Alumni Awards on Friday night. 📸 University of Limerick

110

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

Every model-generated candidate gets graded against the cross-referencing standard we use here: Possible for model output alone, Probable with one primary-source confirmation, Corroborated with two or more.

110

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

Our new Method Tutorial documents six distinct, predictable ways these models produce confidently stated but incorrect geolocation output.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

Large vision models can now describe architectural style, vegetation, signage and road markings across hundreds of frames in the time it takes an analyst to look at one. That speed is genuinely useful. The confidence score attached to it is not.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

The BBC reproduced the finding independently with different satellite providers, and AFP confirmed the scene in person. Three separate methods converging on one answer.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

On 4 April 2022, the New York Times matched the exact street positions of bodies in Bucha, Ukraine ground video against Maxar satellite imagery dated as early as 9 March, while Russian forces still held the town.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

That gap is why we lean on the cross-referencing standard behind evidentiary-grade verification rather than a single detector's confidence score. #OSINT #factcheck

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

Worth remembering how far detection tools still have to go: the winning model in the 2020 Deepfake Detection Challenge, tested on over 100,000 videos, reached only 65.18% accuracy. #OSINT #factcheck

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

CNN and the Baltimore Sun reported the case in April 2024, one of the more widely covered instances of a criminal case built on proving synthetic audio fabrication rather than debunking a genuine leak. #OSINT #factcheck

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

The confirmation didn't rest on one tool's output. It took forensic analysis by an FBI-contracted analyst and a University of California, Berkeley examiner before police called it fabricated. #OSINT #factcheck

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/09/2026

In January 2024, an audio recording spread online appearing to capture Pikesville High School principal Eric Eiswert making racist remarks. Baltimore County Police confirmed in April 2024 it was entirely AI-generated. #OSINT #factcheck

110

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 08/09/2026

Our new capstone tutorial builds the cross-referencing standard used in cases like this, geolocation, chronolocation, source tracing and satellite corroboration, into a single sequence for new footage. #OSINT

101

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 08/09/2026

Forensic identification of weapons and uniforms confirmed the unit as Cameroonian army, and from there, the individual soldiers involved. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 08/09/2026

Terrain matching placed the killing on a road in Cameroon's Far North, close to the Nigerian border. Shadow length and direction then narrowed the time window. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 08/09/2026

What makes that investigation worth revisiting is that no single finding carried it. Location, time, source and physical evidence were checked separately, and each had to hold on its own. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 08/09/2026

In 2018, BBC Africa Eye verified crisis footage that led to the identification of Cameroonian soldiers who executed two women and two children. #OSINT

110

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 03/09/2026

Distance measurement between a claimed civilian-harm site and a stated target is standard practice in strike verification. Running it as a default first step turns an assertion into a fact a reader can check.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 03/09/2026

The named-victim count still has a live discrepancy. AP and the Washington Examiner report a fifth death, per Iranian officials and a Balochistan human rights group, attributed to a separate strike on the comms tower.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 03/09/2026

France 24 geolocated the wedding building and a nearby communications tower separately using published footage, then measured the distance between the two confirmed points: more than 135 metres.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 03/09/2026

Iranian officials say one of the strikes hit a residential building in Kuhestak, Hormozgan, where a wedding was underway. The Hormozgan governor's office named four victims by age and put the wounded above sixty.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 03/09/2026

On 1 September, US strikes hit southern Iran and Iran struck back within hours, hitting targets in four countries at once. It is the broadest single-night spread of strikes either side has launched in this war.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 28/08/2026

The same run caught the model volunteering a reference to a real documented case it was never given, while assessing the sequence as a whole.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 28/08/2026

Run against a test scenario, two of three individual changes came back routine or inconclusive on their own. The combined sequence still leaned toward preparatory activity.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 28/08/2026

AIO-008 tests a RAFT-structured prompt built to score each profile change on its own before combining them into one sequence verdict, rather than reading the whole cluster as a single judgment call.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 28/08/2026

The actual problem with pre or post incident timing is that routine LinkedIn housekeeping produces the exact same observable signal as deliberate reputation management. Proximity alone doesn't tell you which you're looking at.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 28/08/2026

New AI in OSINT field report: a softened job title, a de-emphasised employer line, a removed endorsement section. Three profile-change types clustered around an incident, and every one of them also happens for reasons that have nothing to do with it.

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 27/08/2026

PBI-Canada separately traced the helicopter in the Ecuador strike footage to an Airbus H225M and flagged Ecuador's 2023 direct purchase from Airbus as a probable but unconfirmed link, a useful model for the cross-referencing standard this next round of strikes will need. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 27/08/2026

The same administration's own civilian-casualty report to Congress this month, covering the boat-strike campaign along with Iran, Somalia and Yemen, was called a whitewash by two officials briefed on it. #OSINT

110

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 27/08/2026

A Senate letter from Peter Welch and Jeanne Shaheen, dated 11 August and made public on 17 August, documented a different sequence sourced to villagers, including a 3 March strike on a building satellite imagery reportedly shows was already abandoned. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 27/08/2026

Ecuador ran the same framework starting in March. The Pentagon said on 6 March it had hit a "narco-terrorist supply complex" near San Martin village, with U.S. forces confirmed as partners on 9 March. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 27/08/2026

Pete Hegseth told a Panama security conference on 12 August that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras have joined a ground-strikes framework against cartels. Guatemala's president says there's no deal. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 26/08/2026

Getting that match wrong, using the wrong tool for the wrong platform, is often where evidence gets lost a second time, after an investigator thought it was already secure. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 26/08/2026

The fix is procedural: capture at the point of discovery, using a source matched to the platform and content type in front of you. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 26/08/2026

That is a live evidentiary record eroding in real time, not a historical archiving problem. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 26/08/2026

By April 2020, 619 of them, 11 per cent, were gone from the platforms, some removed by moderators, some deleted by whoever posted them. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 26/08/2026

Human Rights Watch reviewed 5,396 Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts it had cited in its own reports since 2007 to support abuse and war crimes allegations. #OSINT

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 08/08/2026

Small feature, big signal. Samsung's Galaxy AI tools apply a visible watermark to any image the phone generates or substantially edits with generative AI. 🧵

310

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 07/08/2026

This week on Signal & Shadow: 9 pieces on OSINT methodology, digital forensics and disinformation analysis. Starting with the big one. 🧵

100

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 16/10/2025

30 years ago today @smashingpumpkins.bsky.social released “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”. This was at @MontreuxJazz in 2024. Great gig. Iconic song. Incredible album. Apologies for the backing vocals. 🦋 #smashingpumpkins

010

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 05/07/2025

Join the EBU Academy & Eurovision News | SPOTLIGHT team for our FREE monthly webinar designed for fact-checkers, journalists, and media pros! We’ll equip you with the latest OSINT tools & fact-checking methodologies to identify and debunk misinformation. Register now at academy.ebu.ch

001

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 24/06/2025

Join the EBU Academy & Eurovision News | SPOTLIGHT team for our FREE monthly webinar designed for fact-checkers, journalists, and media pros! We'll equip you with the latest OSINT tools & fact-checking methodologies to identify and debunk misinformation. Register at academy.ebu.ch

000

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 20/06/2025

Foreign ministers from the UK, France, and Germany are due to meet their Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday. This was the scene this morning outside the Permanent Mission of Germany. #geneva #genève #irantalks #i̇ran

000

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 09/12/2024

✈️ Geneva ➡️ 🇱🇺Luxembourg ➡️🇨🇭Lausanne. Closing out 2024 with conversations on disinformation, AI and OSINT. Last week I joined the Ministère d'État - Service des médias, de la connectivité et de la politique numérique - Luxembourg to discuss the threat of disinformation to democracy. #mediareform

110

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 22/11/2024

It was great to be back in Vilnius this week for the annual European Broadcasting Union (EBU) News Assembly, kindly hosted by our colleagues at LRT. It was an excellent opportunity for me to speak with members, update them on the latest in #AI and #OSINT, and moderate a session on the AI landscape.

010

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 19/11/2024

Operation ongoing in Vilnius after police recovered the body of a person from the river shortly before 1 p.m. local time. Police have since cordoned off a wider area near where the body was recovered. #Vilnius

000

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 17/11/2024

I'm not sure what the motive behind the decision is, but losing the ability to follow hashtags on Instagram is another example of Meta sunsetting a useful feature from one of its platforms. It may be a push toward full algorithmic control of your feed, which could render the platform unusable.

010

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 17/11/2024

Threads and Bluesky occupying the top spots on both the App and Play Stores in Switzerland. Both very different platforms, but Threads does appear to have some momentum in the country, for now.

010

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 19/09/2024

Thrilled to see my chapter in Eyewitness Textures: User-Generated Content and Journalism in the Twenty-First Century finally in print! It's been a privilege to contribute to such a valuable resource. Grateful to the editors and my fellow authors for their hard work and collaboration. #journalism

000

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 14/03/2024

Delighted to be in Florence this week to speak at the inaugural edition of Voices - European Festival of Journalism and Media Literacy (@voicesfest.bsky.social). If you are in town, please do say hello.

000

Derek Bowler @bowlerderek.com · 01/11/2023

I am delighted to announce that a book I've contributed a chapter to, Eyewitness Textures: User-Generated Content and Journalism in the Twenty-First Century, is now available for pre-order from publisher McGill-Queen's University Press.

100