Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua Janes Intelligence Unit © 2020 Janes TM. All Rights Reserved. What is Janes Intelligence Unit (JIU)? • Gives you open-source assessments of the global threat environment, tailored to you and your organisation’s needs • Provides an independent, unclassified perspective to increase your awareness of strategic and operational challenges • Derives information from a wide array of open sources, combining subject matter knowledge with social media fluency and language expertise Four key capabilities of Janes Intelligence Unit Threat assessments • Insight into threats including terrorism, extremism, organised crime and state-level threats Horizon scanning • Conflict analysis, security implications of tech advances, assessments of fragile states Capability innovation • Assessing military capabilities, analysing the evolution of warfare and doctrine Optimising OSINT • Improving the OSINT skills of client organisations through in-person training and e- learning, providing outsourced intelligence support This report covers • Walk through how Janes Intelligence Unit approaches open-source investigations, focusing on the topic of online separatist sentiment in Papua • Share some of the tools and methods that we both teach on our OSINT courses and use ourselves as OSINT practitioners to conduct online research • Share some of the results of our ongoing research into online separatist sentiment in Papua What research is already out there? • Has someone already answered the question you have posed? • If not, does similar research exist? • This is always a key first step to undertake because: > It could save you time, allowing you to focus your efforts elsewhere > If you find relevant research, it helps you: – Familiarise yourself with your topic – build a list of key words you can use later when conducting online searches Targeting your search • Before starting your own research, always construct a targeted search query using search operators to save you time. • We have constructed a basic targeted search query below: > Papua AND “online sentiment” OR “social media” “online separatism” filetype:PDF – This searches for a set of basic key words, and asks for results to returned in PDF, which means we will likely get reports back from NGOs, academics, or media orgs focusing on this topic This returns the following results • Firstly, this helps us build our subject matter knowledge • Secondly, by reading these reports, we can build up lists of key words to be used in future searches • Thirdly, it appears there is no up-to-date research on our research topic, so it means we must undertake our own! Know your online environmentInformation we can derive from social media • Always ask the question: What sources of online information are going to be relevant to my Individuals Networks research? • As we are tracking online Conversations sentiment, then social media intelligence (SOCMINT) is going to be a key area for our research Organisations Groups / movements Know your social media environment • The popularity of social media platforms changes by country, but having an overview of where online sentiment is likely to generated will also help you target your research more effectively • This research gives us an indication of where Indonesians are most active on social media • Provides us with a good start point for our research Source: Greenhouse.co, May 2019 Investigating Papuan separatist sentiment on Facebook • From research we did earlier using our search operators, we began to build a list of key words to help us find content linked to Papuan separatist sentiment • One of the obvious search terms to begin with is “Free Papua Movement” • Let’s start our search on one of the key platforms we’ve identified - Facebook A basic Facebook search returns these results • This indicates the existence of an international network of pro- separatist accounts • Emphasis on use of English indicates attempt to influence international opinion to support separatist cause • Gives us a good start in terms of building out potential sources of information Taking a closer look • Looking at the Australia branch as an example, we begin to open up more sources • With this Facebook post, we can see individuals are commenting, liking or sharing the post – this gives us avenues for more investigation • The post also leads to a blog that carries a statement from an armed separarist group known as the West Papua National Liberation Army, as well as images of militants of the group Taking a closer look • A larger image of the militants is found the blog • This allows us to: > Begin identifying suspected militants > Build a picture of their armed capabilities and the threat they pose Taking a closer look • The blog also carries activity reports from the militant group • This gives us names of individuals who may be key to the group’s operations • This report claims to be from an individual known as Maj. Gen. Lekagak Telenggen, who is described as the group’s “General Operations Commander” Taking a closer look • The statement also gives an indication of the group’s base of operations Taking a closer look • The blog also carries more statements from the group, which gives us more investigative leads Taking a closer look • From one Facebook post, we are beginning to build a picture of: > Identities of militant separatists > Their armed capabilities > Their geographical location > Their online support network (i.e. the blog carrying their statements) • But who is behind the Facebook network? Investigating international support for Papuan separatism on Facebook • Looking at the follower counts of the Free Papua Movement branches on Facebook, we can see they are attracting attention worldwide Follower count of Free Papua Movement branches on Facebook, February 2020 40,000 35,986 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 Followers 15,000 12,433 10,000 8,187 5,486 5,000 3,368 2,961 2,159 1,275 324 107 0 Australia PNG Vanuatu Japan US Fiji Ireland Canada Singapore Germany Investigating international support for Papuan separatism on Facebook • But if we drill down into some of these accounts, we see that they are largely run from the UK • We can drill down by using Facebook’s transparency feature, which can tells us the primary location of individuals managing specific Facebook pages Investigating international support for Papuan separatism on Facebook • The Free Papua Movement network on Facebook gives us more insight in the separatist connection in the UK • The movement’s US branch posts information of a Papuan separatist presence in Oxford, UK. • The post includes some hashtags that will we can use as search terms going forward Using Facebook’s search filters • These basic filters are a quick way of finding individuals who are associated with any organisation on Facebook • Using these filters, we’ve identified individuals associated with the West Papua National Liberation Army on Facebook Using acronyms • Always try to vary your searches to build information on your target • If we use the acronym for the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN.PB), and search Facebook, we get more leads • Using Facebook’s search, we can filter by groups to reveal some public Facebook groups linked to TPN.PB Using acronyms • These Facebook groups reveal more individuals of interest, who are posting photos of TPN.PB militants and their weapons Images appear to have been uploaded on the 7th February 2020 Verifying images • We can reverse search these images to give us an indication of their age • A useful tool for doing this is Image Search Options, a Chrome/Firefox browser plug-in that allows us to run an image through several reverse image search engines • A search on TinEye for one of the previous images indicates it is new, which gives an indication that we are looking at current militant capability Facebook chat groups • Investigations into pro-separatist chat groups on Facebook allows us to identify more pro-separatist individuals (right) • It also allows us to identify the individuals running these chat groups (below) Facebook chat groups • We can also extract all the Facebook usernames associated with separatist chat groups, by using another free Chrome/Firefox plug-in called Link Gopher • Instead of clicking through each profile and copying its username, Link Gopher extracts each profile link automatically, for your future research Hashtags: The key to searching social media • Building up knowledge of key hashtags on any specific topic is so important when trying to find relevant information on social media • To do this for our topic, we will use a free tool called PicPanzee (no log-in required) • PicPanzee is primarily a tool for investigating Instagram Finding relevant hashtags • We typed “Free West Papua” into PicPanzee, it gives us a range of pro-separatist hashtags and their popularity online • This even picks up hashtags that use emojis, which can be easy to miss if we are just searching with text Finding relevant accounts on Instagram • PicPanzee also helps us build a picture of the pro-separatist network on Instagram • Here’s we’ve typed “Free West Papua” into the search and found these results • From here, we can conduct further investigation into specific profiles Finding relevant accounts on Instagram • Investigation of one account reveals links between Indonesian anti-fascists and Papuan separatists, which gives us insight into an adversary’s alliances Using PicPanzee to conduct remote reconnaissance of targets • PicPanzee allows us to view the followers of any public Instagram account, without having to create our own Instagram profile or even access the Instagram website • To the right are the followers of a pro- separatist Instagram account, as viewed on PicPanzee • This reduces our own online footprint and also saves us time, because it means we do not have to set up fake profiles to undertake our research Searching Instagram bios • Another useful free tool for Instagram is Search My Bio, which can be accessed via its own website • The tool searches Instagram bios for mentions of key words • The following search for “Free West Papua” brought back three influencers in relation to this search.