Fight revenge porn thanks to OSINT

The following lines are the result of collaborative work, under the leadership of Justin Seitz. There are many of us working together, including Heartbroken and Nanardon.

OSINT is an acronym for Open Source Intelligence. It’s a set of investigative techniques, allowing information to be retrieved from so-called open sources. Used by journalists, by police or in cybersecurity, OSINT can help to find information but it can also be used to protect yourself from malicious people.

Violences against people, especially against women increased and diversified. Harassment, raids, doxxing, revenge porn by video or by pictures, identity theft or school harassment, etc.

How to react? How to prevent them? Our goal is to give you simple resources, without the needs for special knowledge.

It doesn’t substitute support groups, law enforcement, health professionals or lawyers.

We trust you.

You are not responsible.

Facts and situations we will use to illustrate ours kits are criminally and civilly repressed.

You are not alone.

The information provided in this article does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available in this article are for general informational purposes only. Furthermore this article was written mainly in regards to French and European laws. Readers should consult their local laws and contact an attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter.

We call revenge porn sharing, without the knowledge or consent of a victim, content of a pornographic nature. There are three hypotheses:

• The case where the victim has voluntarily sent intimate contents to a person, who has distributed it without consent;

• The case where the victim was filmed or photographed without their consent, in a private and consensual moment;

• The case where the person is a victim of sexual assault and is filmed or photographed during the assault.

Technical tricks

The first hypothesis is the easiest to fight. Indeed, the victim owns the contents. They can therefore use them to check whether they have been broadcast on different channels without their knowledge. There are two limits: in some cases, the contents are only accessible after connecting to the site (Pinterest for example). You may need to create an account to access them. However, these contents can be indexed by search engines. Neither can the content be found on private channels: if the photos or videos have been broadcast on Telegram, Signal or WhatsApp, as long as it is messaging, the exchanges are not indexed by search engines or monitoring tools.

But the methodology explained in the article on photos and videos is perfectly relevant. Use Yandex and InVid to bring out possible results.

How can we find public sites where intimate content, captured without our knowledge, may have been published? If this moment was captured at home, take pictures of your home and search on Yandex or TinEye if you can find them. Try to reproduce the conditions under which this moment was captured, especially the lighting.

Another tip: special body features, such as tattoos. Take a picture of your tattoos and see what comes out when you do the analysis with Yandex and InVid. It can also be a piercing or a particular mole (shape, location, etc.) or even a piece of jewelry that is a bit original.

If you find elements, again, you will find them with the method seen in the article on digital raids, using Single File or Fireshot. 

The third hypothesis is the most painful and it is perhaps the only case where victims will be advised not to look for the contents. This curious advice has two reasons: the first is to preserve the victims and the second is to allow the police and gendarmerie to investigate. Be aware that filming a sexual assault victim can be considered an aggravating circumstance, even more so if the victim is in a state of weakness or a minor. What should you do if, as an Internet user, you find content showing sexual assault? We strongly encourage you to report the content to the police and or platforms in charge of fighting sexual violence on the Web. The details of the procedure depend on each country and state. Do not to share the content publicly. 

Likewise, don't start trying to find the abusers. This is not your role; you may complicate the work of law enforcement and harm other victims. Just report them to police platforms. You can also report to the different social networks - if you have seen the content on a social network - the content, but don't go any further. Above all, report the content to police platforms first before reporting it to social networks or platforms, so that the police authorities have a record of the report and useful information.

Legal trick

This was discussed in the article on photos and videos. It should be noted that since the beginning of 2010, American lawyers and jurists have successfully used the DMCA notice to remove revenge porn  content. The legal argumentation was the following: the persons represented are content creators and the content was shared, to the detriment of their intellectual property rights. This was deemed admissible. Even better, this argument is not specific to the United States or even to the States whose legal tradition is Anglo-Saxon. It has been used in German courts.

Can it be used elsewhere? You are encouraged to do so, but where available to you, seek advice from a lawyer. If that is unavailable to you, there may be local victim’s support groups and other resources that may have access to free legal advice.  

The special case of minors

On some social networks, such as TikTok, more and more pornographic content is being shared. On the platforms, it is necessary to report the content, specifying that the content involves minors. Content that may have been produced by underage users, if there is no age limit specified or if there is a suspicion that the user is under the age limit defined by the platforms, the user must simply be reported as a minor.