When researching a person using open source intelligence, the goal is to find clues that tie information about a target into a bigger picture. Screen names are perfect for this because they are unique and link data together, as people often reuse them in accounts across the internet. With Sherlock, we can instantly hunt down social media accounts created with a unique screen name on many online platforms simultaneously.
From a single clue like an email address or screen name, Sherlock can grow what we know about a target piece by piece as we learn about their activity on the internet. Even if a person is careful, their online contacts may not be, and it's easy to slip up and leave default privacy setting enabled on apps like Venmo. A single screen name can reveal many user accounts created by the same person, potentially introducing photos, accounts of family members, and other avenues for collecting further information.
What Sherlock Can Find
Social media accounts are rich sources of clues. One social media account may contain links to others which use different screen names, giving you another round of searching to include the newly discovered leads. Images from profile photos are easy to put into a reverse image search, allowing you to find other profiles using the same image whenever the target has a preferred profile photo.
Even the description text in a profile may often be copied and pasted between profiles, allowing you to search for profiles created with identical profile text or descriptions. For our example, I'll be taking the suggestion of a fellow Null Byte writer to target the social media accounts of Neil Breen
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