OSINT Exercise 1: Chinese Newspaper
Using OSINT techniques to solve a challenge set by a seasoned investigator. You are to track down information using your wits and a newspaper article.
This article is a writeup of the OSINT exercise created by Sofia Santos, a senior OSINT analyst. Check out her website at https://gralhix.com/
Link to the exercise: https://gralhix.com/list-of-osint-exercises/osint-exercise-008/
Tools used:
- Google
- Search
- Translate
- Maps
- Reverse Image Search
I highly encourage trying out the exercise yourself before reading the rest of the article. Feel free to read on if you get stuck. Sofia also has a video walkthrough on her youtube.
Objective
Here you have a Chinese newspaper article from the Epoch Times.
The objective is threefold:
- What is the audience applauding?
- When was the picture taken? (Not the picture of the article, but the picture in the article of the audience.)
- Where is the venue?
Lets start with the first question.
What is the Audience Applauding?
Unless you understand Chinese, chances are you're not going to know what the article is about at first glance.
Some useful information you can gleam from image is that it takes place at some sort of theatre. Pay particular attention to the internal architecture.
Two white viewing balconies, brown walls with a segmented pattern, and light-coloured zigzag patterns on the ceiling. These characteristics are unique and will help identify the venue later.
Back to figuring out the performance, likelihood is that translating the article will reveal this information.
We can use Google translate to help us. Luckily, we don't have to type out the characters because there is a function to translate text from images.
Take a screenshot of the headline
Navigate to Google translate
Make sure to select Images and Detect language
Then drag the headline image into the left box
With this, we can answer the first question. The audience is applauding at a Shen Yun performance.
In case you were wondering, Shen Yun is an America performing arts company.
Where is the Venue?
Personally, I found that answering the 'where' is easier, and leads to finding out the 'when'.
We can use reverse image search with google and focus on the main image in the article.
There's a very convenient plugin you can use called RevEye
It's lets you do reverse image searches from your right-click options.
You can search using all the available search engines, which is a huge time-saver. I recommend installing it, and using it on the main image above.
Doing so will quickly reveal the venue: Chrysler Hall
A quick Google image search of Chrysler Hall will confirm that this is the right venue.
As you can see, Chrysler Hall has all the features we identified earlier when analysing the main image: Two white viewing balconies, brown walls with a segmented pattern, and light-coloured zigzag scaffolding on the ceiling.
Finally, a quick search on Google maps reveals the venue is located in Norfolk, Virgina, USA.
When was the Picture Taken?
If you look back at the original image of the newspaper and take a closer look, you should notice that the date is printed on the top right corner.
In Asia, the date format is given as yyyy-mm-dd, therefore, this newspaper is dated 12th of January, 2023.
Another quick Google image search of shen yu chrysler hall 2023 shows the same picture.
Following the link on the picture leads to this articles
If you scroll down you can see that photo was taken on January 7th. Only 5 day before the article was published.
And with that, we've solved the challenge. This is by no means the only way to solve it, just the means I took given my current level of investigation skills.
If you check out the solution video, you will see that I took a slightly difference approach.
One way I would improve my investigation is to check the answers using multiple sources.
It is common to find false information online so it is important to check the authenticity of information you find.