Back in 2016, someone in Minnesota really said: what if a gun looked like a smartphone. Developed by Kirk Kjellberg, this folding pistol was sold under AutoLaunce, formerly available via Ideal Conceal. When closed, it looks like a regular phone. Flip it open, and it becomes a two-barrel .380 ACP handgun. It dropped in the middle of peak smartphone culture and instantly caused chaos, some people called it genius concealment, others called it reckless as hell. Production eventually stopped, but the 2016 “phone gun” is still one of the wildest concealment designs ever put on the market.

For FREE FaceSeek lets you upload a face and find out on what websites that same person (or a very similar looking person) appears across the internet. Why it’s powerful: • Finds reused profile pics on fake accounts 👤 • Connects aliases and usernames across platforms 🔗 • Helps verify if someone is who they claim to be 🕵️ • Goes beyond reverse image search, it matches faces, not pixels 🗿 Facial Recognition is perhaps one of the most controversial tools for digital investigations. Used responsibly. FaceSeek: facial recognition Pimeyes: facial recognition for OSINT professionals Follow the Images 101 course in the classroom if you haven’t yet and visit https://www.cultrodistro.com/tools/images for more tools to use when you’re investigating an image

Scams are rising fast. Not just more scams. Smarter, AI-powered, and massively scaled scams. Add to that how accessible hardware has become: - Tools like Flipper Zero, Kode Dot, and Raspberry Pi - Cheap, portable, and increasingly powerful - Capable of probing Wi-Fi networks, IoT devices, and weak security setups If your password is easy to guess, reused, or already leaked, you’re an easy target. 👉 2026 is not a good year to have a bad password. What you should do starting NOW, if you haven’t already: - Use long, unique passwords (minimum 14–16 characters) - Never reuse passwords across services - Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) everywhere it’s available - Prefer app-based MFA or hardware keys over SMS Useful tools - 🔎 Password strength checker:https://2ip.io/passcheck/(Test strength — never reuse real passwords you still rely on) - 🔐 Password generator:https://us.norton.com/feature/password-generator(Generate strong, random passwords instantly) Strong OPSEC starts with strong credentials. Good luck with the OPSEC 101 course! and stay safe. 🛡️

What’s your favorite OSINT tool that not many people think about? I’ll go first. 📱 Snapchat Here’s a recent simple but effective example: In my first case of 2026 as an OSINT detective, I investigated a suspected infidelity case. I was provided with the phone number of the alleged cheater. I saved the number in my phone contacts. Not long after, I received a notification: “Someone from your contacts is on Snapchat.” That account turned out to be a hidden Snapchat profile, unknown to the spouse who hired me. The profile was linked to the phone number and became a key data point in my investigation. From there, I used other OSINT tools to anonymously view and archive the profile and its content, so it could be properly documented and included as evidence in my report. Last week, they broke up 🥀. Why this works, even for adults: - Many people created Snapchat accounts years ago - Phone numbers often remain linked long after active use stops - “I don’t use Snapchat” ≠ “I don’t have Snapchat” No messages sent. No interaction. No alert to the other party. 📌 OSINT lesson: Platforms remember longer than people do. Understanding how everyday apps sync contacts and combining that with proper archiving and documentation—is often what turns a signal into evidence. Now your turn 👇 What’s an OSINT tool or platform you use that doesn’t get talked about enough?

Last week Candace Owens discussed the reported Charlie Kirk assassination incident and highlighted one important digital-forensics detail: On September 10, the day of the reported event at Utah Valley University, ➡️ 12 personal cell phones registered in Israel were allegedly detected onsite. ➡️ These were real Israeli accounts, not VPN traffic. ➡️ And the presence of these devices reportedly alerted NSA officials, Kash Patel, and people inside the current administration. Whether this claim is fact or theory, the lesson for every investigator is the same: 📡 Your SIM card is a tracking beacon. Your phone’s origin will expose you before anything else.** Your SIM tells a story: - The country where it was issued - The network it belongs to - The registration metadata tied to it - The IMEI behavior patterns If you stand in a crowd of 2,000 domestic devices while carrying a foreign SIM, you stick out like a flare gun in network telemetry. That’s why governments and investigators routinely analyze: ✔️ MCC/MNC (country & carrier) ✔️ Roaming events ✔️ Tower handshakes ✔️ Device-SIM mismatches ✔️ Local vs foreign subscriber profiles 🛰️ Pro Tip: Use a local E-SIM to blend in when traveling If you care about operational privacy—whether you’re: - An OSINT researcher - A journalist - A private investigator - A risk-exposed professional - A corporate compliance analyst working abroad your phone should not betray your location or origin. 🔥 Tools like Revolut E-SIMs let you download a local profile instantly, choosing the country you’re in so you don’t stand out in cell-network metadata. Just download the app so you can set up an account to use when you go abroad. Advantages: - You appear as a local device, not a foreign visitor - No physical SIM swap required - Fast activation from your phone - Reduces metadata anomalies that draw attention - Helps avoid “Why is this device from X country here today?” problems - No need to use public WiFi. Please don’t ever.