Social Links Product Updates, Q4 2023
We’re finishing the year with a serious bang. Not only have we launched our all-new, standalone OSINT solution, SL Crimewall, but we’ve also been busy bringing a bumper round of new features to SL Professional. These include three (!) completely new sources—Duolingo, Tripadvisor and WeChat—as well as updates to our Telegram Pack and DarkOwl! So, let’s jump in.
SL Crimewall Launch
The release of SL Crimewall is huge news, not just for us but the OSINT sphere at large. We believe we’ve redefined what a modern OSINT solution is, delivering a full-cycle OSINT investigation platform that simplifies the entire intelligence cycle, from data extraction across 500+ data sources, through visualization and processing, to the final report.
With a user-friendly interface developed from the ground up, our all-new OSINT platform is accessible to users of all levels, from beginners to experts. SL Crimewall delivers an incredibly smooth investigation experience while offering powerful tools for every stage of the cycle.
Features
- Data Extraction and Organization. Experience Social Links’ full suite of extraction methods across 500+ open sources and a huge range of analysis tools.
- Visualization. View the information in the way that suits you best by choosing between three types of data visualization—Graph View, Map View, and Table View.
- Automation. Speed up your workflows with next-generation data analysis tech, from ML-driven models to the script-building feature.
- Monitoring. Get notifications about a subject’s ongoing activities to stay up-to-date and not miss any details.
- Reports. Summarize all key findings and evidence in clear and simple PDF files that can be exported in a few clicks.
- (Coming Soon) Collaboration. Combine the team’s knowledge and skills by sharing and analyzing hypotheses and evidence as the case progresses.
SL Professional Updates
Duolingo
Duolingo is the world’s most popular language study app. And with more than 575M users, there is a fair chance that your person of interest has an account, it’s a truly significant resource for OSINT folk. We’re launching our Duolingo functionality with four essential transforms:
[Duolingo] Get Profile
This can be run from a username (via an alias entity). A staple transform that had to be there.
[Duolingo] Get Details
Once you’ve extracted a Duolingo profile, you can unpack the new entity with this transform. The details it retrieves include:
- The user’s current ‘Streak.’ This is the number of consecutive days a user has been studying, indicating whether they have been active in the last few days.
- The user’s mother tongue and language of study. This could give an indication of the subject’s country of origin and a potential suggestion of their current country of residence.
[Duolingo] Get Followers & [Duolingo] Get Followees
This also works from a Duolingo profile and is extremely useful because the app doesn’t just allow manual friend adds but also suggests people on the platform from the user’s Facebook friend list. This means that a subject’s social base of Duolingo often reflects their contacts across social media more broadly.
DarkOwl
DarkOwl is an essential source for investigating illicit activities that gravitate towards the Dark Web, such as illegal trade and human trafficking. But that’s only part of the picture, as it can also be remarkably effective in regular Surface Web investigations and exposure checks. So, we wanted to expand this aspect of the functionality.
For Surface Web Investigations
[DarkOwl] Leaks Search
This method now works more accurately when run from a phone number or email address.
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Even if a person of interest doesn’t use the Dark Web, their data could still have been leaked into the darknet space, potentially allowing you to connect an email address with a person’s name, phone number, or even password. Sometimes, this is the only thread through which a Surface Web investigation can be solved.
For Corporate Exposure Checks
[DarkOwl] Darknet / Forums / Leaks / Paste Sites Search Emails
DarkOwl is a great source for checking an organization for data breaches—in particular, it is often an effective way to see if any employee passwords have been leaked. With this aim in mind, we’ve introduced transforms whereby you can search all emails from a domain entity to establish whether it’s been compromised.
Tripadvisor
This is another eagerly anticipated source, with a huge number of registered users worldwide and an immense amount of open data, which is now available to SL Professional users through a suite of transforms:
[Tripadvisor] Get Profile & [Tripadvisor] Get Details
Run in succession from an alias entity (a username is required), these two transforms can yield some potentially crucial data, including the user’s name and picture, as well as data on how much they have contributed to the TripAdvisor community.
[Tripadvisor] Get Followers & [Tripadvisor] Get Followees
Run from a Tripadvisor profile, these transforms allow you to map out the online network of the subject from a fresh angle.
[Tripadvisor] Get Reviews & [Tripadvisor] Get Forum Posts
These also need to be run from a Tripadvisor profile. When combined with [Tripadvisor] Get Details, [Tripadvisor] Get Reviews can provide significant data on the subject's whereabouts at a given time. [Tripadvisor] Get Forum Posts allows you to view all messages the subject has left in various forum discussions.
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Remember that you can also apply this technique with an email input, using [Google] Get Profile followed by [Google] Get Reviews. [Google] Get Profile has also just been updated to now show links to Google Calendar (normally set to private) and Google Plus Archive (via the waybackmachine). In our experience, users tend to feel less ‘on show’ when using these platforms and, as a result, share their movements more freely.
We know—great news, isn’t it? We’ve only just started working on it though, so keep an eye out for the next quarter’s update. In the meantime, you can whet your appetite by using:
[WeChat] Search Profiles
Run from a person entity, this transform will show all WeChat profiles with this name.
Telegram Pack
While the Telegram transforms in the solution’s default functionality are very capable, the Telegram Pack is something unique that opens a whole new world of possibilities for any investigation involving the messenger. And it’s been updated to include now transforms that can be run from a newly added Telegram ID entity.
This advanced suite of methods is only available in a special version of SL Professional that’s only available for customers in government employ.
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If you’d like to learn more about SL Professional for government entities, please follow the appropriate contact below:
- for existing customers: customer.success@sociallinks.io
- for new customers: sales@sociallinks.io
- for existing customers: customer.success@sociallinks.io
- for new customers: sales@sociallinks.io
And that wraps up our SL Professional product updates for the last quarter of the year. We hope you use these in your work and experience the benefits we designed to bring you. Remember that many of the features mentioned above are requested by our customers. Feedback is always welcome—let us know what you’d like to see, and we’ll try to deliver!
