{"id":4351,"date":"2022-12-31T12:19:13","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T12:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/osintme.com\/?p=4351"},"modified":"2023-01-01T16:46:55","modified_gmt":"2023-01-01T16:46:55","slug":"3-years-an-osint-blogger-a-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osintme.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/31\/3-years-an-osint-blogger-a-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"3 years an OSINT blogger – a summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The end of 2022 marks 3 full years since the Osint Me blog appeared online.<\/p>

Let me start with extending a huge thank you to every reader and fan. I want to wish everybody a great 2023 in all spheres of life and I wish you all every success in your pursuits.<\/p>

This blog post will be a synopsis of the last 3 years and the (part-time) efforts I made to develop this side project of mine.<\/p>

In 2019 I left what I previously hoped to be a lifelong career in law enforcement and entered the uncharted (at the time) waters of the private sector. I had the idea of creating a dedicated OSINT and digital privacy website and I wanted its contents to be something that I myself would enjoy reading.<\/p>

It has worked out more or less OK but I still want to improve, develop and expand on some of the things I write about.<\/p>

This is how it’s shaped up so far:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

The blog<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Before delving into the stats and figures, I want to share a quote I once got from a professor, back in my university days. This one is about the ultimate fallacy of statistics and the ambiguity of metrics:<\/p>

“If I’m brain dead and you’re a genius, statistically speaking we’re both halfwits.”<\/em><\/p>

Bear this in mind when looking at the figures below.<\/p>

WordPress enables access to a wide range of blog readership metrics – both through its internal tools or compatible plugins (I use the free version of Jetpack). I don’t want to get too granular about this, but for example there is a difference between the numbers of views vs the numbers of viewers, unique visitors, and so on. Also, some portion of the views likely belongs to bots, search engine indexers and other non-human activity.<\/p>

At the time of writing, the Osint Me blog had very close to 356,000 views in total<\/strong>. The average daily view count is approximately 500 views – this is on days when no new blog posts are published. When new content does get published, the view count increases by multiples – on occasions with close to 10x spikes in views.<\/p>

The unique visitors count is always less than that, especially if the same reader clicks on posts or pages other than the initial one. When it comes to user activity, I don’t have the knowledge of any details other than the aggregated and anonymised WordPress metrics, because as I mentioned in the Privacy Policy<\/a>, the website itself does not collect personal data of visitors or track their activity.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jetpack\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The most useful information by far is the view count of individual posts – a natural way to see what is popular and what isn’t. This is also a good indicator for me about what type of content to focus on in the future, if I want to maximise readership.<\/p>

So here come 5 all time most popular blog posts – accounting for approximately 1\/3 of the total viewership count on the whole blog:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
  1. Ultimate OSINT with Shodan: 100+ great Shodan queries<\/a><\/li>
  2. Osint Me Tricky Thursday #6 \u2013 Person Search<\/a><\/li>
  3. List of 100+ hacker, cracker, carder & cyber criminal forums for investigators<\/a><\/li>
  4. List of darknet markets for investigators<\/a><\/li>
  5. 30 best OSINT extensions for Google Chrome<\/a><\/li><\/ol>

    \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

    I also run a simple, infrequent and irregular newsletter that typically serves the last 4 posts. No spam, no clickbaits, ads, marketing offers or anything like that. You can subscribe anonymously with any email address and unsubscribe whenever you want.<\/p>

    Currently the newsletter subscriber count stands just below 500 readers<\/strong>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t

    Social media<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

    Admittedly, I’m not a big social media user and I treat social media engagement somewhat as a chore, which is evident from the fairly low message count and the (in)frequency of posts.<\/p>

    At the same time I recognise the importance of an amplified voice and online presence, which can only be achieved through social media.<\/p>

    The first and the most obvious choice for a social media platform was Twitter<\/a> – this was due to the presence of a strong, organically developed and ever growing community of open source intelligence enthusiasts and practitioners. In the last 3 years I gained a total of just over 5,400 followers on Twitter<\/strong> – some of whom actively helped me shape this site, its contents and focus.<\/p>

    The second social media platform I use is LinkedIn<\/a> – initially I had not intended to use it to amplify the blog posts reach, but turns out I found a pretty good audience there. At the time of writing this, I had just over 1,700 followers on LinkedIn<\/strong>.<\/p>

    I also experimented with posting content on Reddit<\/a>, but that didn’t really work out as expected. Multiple posts were removed by mods and admins for no apparent reasons and none of the OSINT-related posts that made it through never really gained any major traction there. You can still find me on Reddit but my presence and activity there are fairly low key – as is the follower count of 25.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t

    The costs & earnings<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

    I’ll start with the latter one because it’s pretty easy – the earnings, profits, monetisation, financial benefits of running this blog for the last 3 years have amounted to the grand total of ZERO :).<\/p>

    Don’t get me wrong, there were actually multiple opportunities to make “a quick buck” – all of which I turned down. The reason why I did turn them down was because nearly all of them appeared to be either blatantly suspicious \/ borderline illegal or they would have required entering into some affiliate copywriting deal, which would have turned this side project of mine into a paid content delivery website and me into an advertisement peddler. So – thanks, but no thanks.<\/p>

    Up to recently, I had a Bitcoin donation address (total received donations in the last 3 years – ZERO).<\/p>

    I took it down because it only seemed to have invited people asking about some of the activities I mentioned below and willing to pay with BTC to a fresh, non-public address. I don’t approve of abusing Bitcoin payments for illicit activities and don’t want to encourage people asking about it.<\/p>

    Unfortunately, I still receive offers here and there, tempting me with “great deals”, “rewarding partnerships” and various “opportunities” ranging from shady to scammy. Some of the people who contact me with these have obviously failed to read the Who am I?<\/a> page.<\/p>

    To summarise, here is a quick list of the types of activities I am NOT interested in<\/strong>:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t
    \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t