WEBVTT

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You're listening to a state talk titled Real

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-time Monitoring for Research. This week, a long

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-time contributor at Bellingcat's Aram Shumanian

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joined us. He spoke about the free -to -access

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resources you can use to keep track of live events,

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from protests to airstrikes to water levels rising,

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and gave some sound advice on how to approach

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live monitoring. You can find links to all the

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resources mentioned in the talk. in the podcast

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description. This talk was hosted by me, Charlotte

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Ma, on Thursday, the 26th of February, 2026,

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in the Bellingcat Discord server. Welcome back

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to another stage talk. We are joined today by

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seasoned open source researcher and very talented

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Bellingcat Discord moderator, Arum Shebanian.

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When most people think about breaking news today,

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they picture a live stream. Someone pulls out

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a phone, hits go live on YouTube or TikTok, and

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suddenly the world is watching an event unfold

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in real time. But often, the very first signal

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of a crisis doesn't always come from a camera.

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It comes from a voice, a dispatcher's tone dropping,

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a fire unit requesting backup, an aviation controller

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rerouting aircraft. Long before headlines form,

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and sometimes before the public even knows something

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is happening, fragments of reality are moving

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across publicly accessible emergency radio systems

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and live -streaming platforms at the same time.

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Tonight we're going to explore that edge, the

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space between first signal and confirmed event,

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and talk about what aspects you could foresee

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live monitoring full -time, for example, water

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height in your local river. How do professionals

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monitor live events without being overwhelmed?

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When do you hit record and when shouldn't you?

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And in an era of AI deepfakes and encrypted channels,

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how does this feel changing? If livestream shows

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what the public sees and radio reveals what responders

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are reacting to, then monitoring both responsibly

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and ethically becomes not just a technical challenge,

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but a societal one. So let's dive into how real

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-time monitoring actually works. Whilst we talk,

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you can place your questions in the chat accessible

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in the right -hand corner of your screen. But

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please remember that this is being audio recorded

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for the podcast. So if you don't want me to mention

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your username, please add that as a note in your

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question. We're also sharing some slides today.

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They're just contextual. They don't actually

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show any important information and any links

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mentioned will be in the description of this

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podcast. Okay, Aram, over to you. Thanks so much.

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That was a tremendous intro and I will do my

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best to live up to it. So for those who don't

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know me, I've been doing open source intelligence

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stuff on like a Legitimate basis probably since

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2014 but a less legitimate basis before that

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and by that I don't mean I was like a criminal

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or something. I'm not cool enough to do that

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What I mean is that my first Really venture into

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what we would call OSINT today. It was when I

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was probably six or seven years old and I really

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I always asked my dad what was going on when

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I would see a fire truck going somewhere a police

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car responding because that's the kind of kid

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I was I wanted to know what was happening around

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me and So my dad got me a radio shack police

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scanner and I would listen to that thing so if

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hours and hours and hours right now and listen

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to the dispatch tones and I figure out what the

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different things meant and What that did later

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in life was it kind of gave me a head start on

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listening to police and fire scanners to monitor

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breaking news events and so There are Just to

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dive into scanners as a way of monitoring Anything

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around you depending on where you live and this

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is predominantly US focused there are different

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laws and different regulations and different

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technologies in place with these different scanners,

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so I've got a slide here basically discussing

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the different types of scanners. And so I'll

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go over this for those who can't see it. There

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are three rough areas that I like to lump living

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into within the US. So there's like a metro area,

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you know, and that doesn't have to be a major

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city like Los Angeles. That can be basically

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any bigger city in a state. So if it's one of

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the top five cities in your state, probably counts

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as this. Those are they have good funding in

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those cities and so they have encrypted radio

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typically and the reason they've encrypted the

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radio in places like Salem, Oregon where I live

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where let's be honest You'd have to stretch the

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imagination to imagine like al Qaeda attacking

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the city. There's no Real security reason to

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encrypt most of the police traffic radio on the

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radio unlike DC or LA or New York But what it

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does is it allows the police to hide that activity

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because in the US we have laws that say it's

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again that they can't That they have to allow

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Citizens to scan police and fire radio frequencies

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and listen in on that In order to circumvent

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that law the a lot of police departments have

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started encrypting their radio because it is

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illegal to decrypt encrypted messages So that's

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a way to make listening to the scanner illegal.

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So there are a number of ways around that You

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can build your own decryption device basically

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out of a couple of RTL SDR dongles. Those are

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available online for like 40 or 50 bucks. There's

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a bunch of walkthroughs for those. I am not tech

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savvy enough to figure it out despite having

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all the equipment and having tried many times.

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So I'm not going to try to pretend to describe

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to you how easy it is to do, because I couldn't

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do it. That's not to say it's hard. I am kind

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of a Luddite, despite the fact that I am giving

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a talk on tech. Anywho, you can get a scanner

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online for about $400 or so that comes preloaded

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with your local frequencies that does the decryption.

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But I would not advise broadcasting that radio

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traffic back out because that's illegal. And

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then they would catch you for it. If you live

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in a smaller town, my hometown, as an example,

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you have about 20 ,000 people. The police probably

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have a trunked digital radio system, which means

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that it hops between a bunch of frequencies.

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They're not just staying on one frequency to

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talk. You can get a scanner that here's those

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for, you know, 60 to a hundred dollars. Those

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are pretty simple. And a lot of those frequencies

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are on broadcastify .com, which you can see on

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the right side of the screen here. If you have,

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if you can see the screen. And finally, there's

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rural areas and like national forests. And those

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are going to be using the traditional non -encrypted

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analog style radios that you can tune to with

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a very basic police or fire scanner. And those

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are going to be for areas that are big, big counties.

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So like Eastern Oregon has some really large

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counties, lots of flat land. The signal propagates

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easier over flat land over long distances. And

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it's, there's no real reason to encrypt fire

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traffic, you know, for like forest firefighting

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and stuff. So all of these. things are to say,

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listening to the police and fire scanner can

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help you with a number of things. We saw in Lahaina

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in Hawaii a couple years ago, a tragic fire that

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killed, you know, dozens of people. And one of

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the issues that I heard about from folks I talked

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to over there was that they weren't able to get

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any situational awareness on where the fires

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were. There weren't like traffic cameras they

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could pull up. The fire maps weren't available

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in Hawaii yet. and the satellites don't update

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that fast. So in California or in Oregon or Washington,

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what we would do is open Broadcastify or pull

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out our scanner, tune to the fire frequency and

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listen and listen to the street names they're

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giving out and listen to the areas they're giving

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out. So we know and we can warn our friends and

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our families and our communities about what's

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going on in real time. And in fact, listening

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to the scanners like this has allowed groups

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like WatchDuty to arise. And I'm a member of

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the WatchDuty community. During the summer, we

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Listen to scanners and watch fire cameras and

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things like that to provide up to As close to

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real time as we can information on fire whereabouts

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The idea being that we can't allow another line

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that happened that that that that was reprehensible

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and the fact that encrypted radios are the reason

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people weren't able to listen in and Get out

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in time To put it lightly infuriates me So What

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do you do when you get a scanner for the first

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time? Because a lot of people make a mistake

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of getting a scanner and hearing something and

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starting to panic or thinking this is really

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boring. There's no use to doing this. You kind

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of have to get used to it. You have to put it

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on a lot, especially if you're trying to learn

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your local area. Learn the rhythm for your local

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dispatch. Learn how many calls typically come

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in at night. How many typically come in during

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the day? What types of calls are they? You know,

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how do the officers respond or the firefighters

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respond to stress, things like that. All of those

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are clues that will allow you to pick up in real

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time before they even say something that a disaster

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is taking place. And so I've got a couple examples

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and I really hope that these are not too loud.

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They were very loud earlier when we tried to

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use them. So please. This first audio clip is

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from the 2018 campfire in Paradise, California.

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This is about an hour and a half into the fire.

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Up until this point, a lot of the calls that

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you could hear were stressed and urgent and talking

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about fire advancing on the town, but it couldn't

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really paint a picture in your head of how hellish

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things were until we heard this. If somebody

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could let us know if you can hear it in like

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two seconds, that'd be great So we heard there

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is a Relayed call that an engine crew was with

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civilians sheltering in a creek from the fire

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The picture that paints there right? How many

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times have you heard of the fire department saying

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hey kids family? Let's go get in this creek and

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lie down That's like not how the fire department

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handles these kind of things ever So if you hear

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that kind of call you have to realize despite

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the fact that he sounded quite calm in that call

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That's a that's a panic inducing moment. This

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next call is Same fire around the same time and

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what you're listening for here is first of all

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The word choice and the message that's put out

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but also listen for the background noises here

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And so this is you're gonna hear dispatch in

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Oroville, which was the closest to Paradise,

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California So not only are they putting out a

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call to evacuate an entire town, which is not

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typically how it's done. If you have ever seen

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an evacuation take place, if Paradise is an example,

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but think the Houston area during Hurricane Harvey,

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even with a lot of advance notice, it's very

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difficult to evacuate most major cities. This

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is made Even more difficult in paradise. I actually

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visited the city last year and saw for myself

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how difficult it is to get in and out of the

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city, especially if any of the main roads are

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blocked. There's one highway that leads up to

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the city and then it stops. It stopped at the

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end of like it went to a little town past paradise

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and then that's it. So you had to go down the

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mountain to get out of the fire and everybody

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was getting out of the fire at the same time.

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This was, you know, a town of 20 ,000 people.

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Everybody hit in the road at once. That's not

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how you do an evacuation. And the fact that they

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put that call out, despite the fact that it only

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sounded a little bit stressed, really raised

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my hair. The other thing you can hear there is

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the phones ringing off the hook in the background

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at the dispatch center. That's not typical. You

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don't normally just hear phones ringing and ringing

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and ringing in the background. That's a sign

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that something has gone wrong with the situation.

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And so you can find a lot of archives of previous

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events on Broadcastify's archive. There's a lot

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on YouTube. You can search for specific incidents

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and try to hear what fire and police personnel

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sound like in your area when there's kind of

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an unusual situation going on. You'll often hear

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when they're holding the channel, the primary

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channel for an emergency situation, you'll hear

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a beep every five or 10 seconds on the channel.

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That's something that I've learned to listen

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for, right? So if you hear that beep, you know

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that it's a priority alert. They're holding the

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channel. Nobody else should talk unless they're

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talking about the event in question, uh, the

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main event in question. So scanners are only

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useful if you contextualize them. It's like a

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lot of other OSINT. You can't just learn the

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tech and the techniques in a vacuum. That's going

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to get you a job that will suck your soul. Like.

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You don't want to do that. You really want to

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combine it with other passions. You have another

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interest to have. And so another way, uh, to

00:13:46.059 --> 00:13:49.759
gather information other than audio. So let's

00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:52.840
say you live somewhere on the West coast. It's

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summertime. It's been hot for a couple of weeks.

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The wind is coming from the mountains and there's

00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:00.700
a bunch of smoke descending on your town. You

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want to know what's going on, but. the scanners

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aren't really being helpful or there's no scanners

00:14:05.659 --> 00:14:10.320
in your area. What you can do is look up, there

00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.360
are live cameras all over the West Coast and

00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:16.639
all over the US now. It's the Alert West network

00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:21.679
and those provide fire watch capabilities from

00:14:21.679 --> 00:14:25.000
towers all around forested areas and in metro

00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.519
areas. That's an obvious one, right? But other,

00:14:30.299 --> 00:14:33.370
you have to start thinking, I guess, When I got

00:14:33.370 --> 00:14:36.370
really into the game portal like 30 or 40 years

00:14:36.370 --> 00:14:39.669
ago when that came out when I was like 42 I think

00:14:39.669 --> 00:14:42.570
at the time They're really into portal and the

00:14:42.570 --> 00:14:44.590
first couple of times I played it I started you

00:14:44.590 --> 00:14:45.990
know You start thinking in portals you start

00:14:45.990 --> 00:14:48.090
kind of imagining the world if you had a portal

00:14:48.090 --> 00:14:49.830
gun, right? You have to kind of do that with

00:14:49.830 --> 00:14:53.210
OSIN, right? So you're trying to figure out When

00:14:53.210 --> 00:14:55.330
this fire will be in the town or or the flip

00:14:55.330 --> 00:14:57.929
side It's been raining a lot and you want to

00:14:57.929 --> 00:15:00.549
know how high the rivers are in your area how

00:15:00.549 --> 00:15:03.340
high? the creeks are in your area, you have to

00:15:03.340 --> 00:15:05.379
think about is there going to be data on that?

00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:09.980
Is there a reasonable suspicion to believe that

00:15:09.980 --> 00:15:11.559
the government would put up cameras to watch

00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:15.080
fires? I would say so. Do you think that there

00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:16.980
is somebody monitoring how much water is going

00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:19.379
through the river or what quality of the water

00:15:19.379 --> 00:15:21.600
is? I mean, yeah, that's somebody's job, right?

00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:24.379
And there's no legitimate reason to keep that

00:15:24.379 --> 00:15:27.059
info secret. There's some info that should that

00:15:27.059 --> 00:15:28.740
will be secret. You know, they they don't tell

00:15:28.740 --> 00:15:30.500
you when a freight train is coming by because

00:15:30.779 --> 00:15:33.139
They're still afraid of train robbers on horseback

00:15:33.139 --> 00:15:36.460
or something, but with river gauges There's no

00:15:36.460 --> 00:15:38.559
legitimate reason to keep that information secret

00:15:38.559 --> 00:15:40.259
with fire cameras There's no legitimate reason

00:15:40.259 --> 00:15:42.440
to keep that information secret. So you really

00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:45.740
have to start thinking of what to search for

00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:47.779
on Google or wherever your preferred search engine

00:15:47.779 --> 00:15:50.460
is to find tools and techniques that I'm not

00:15:50.460 --> 00:15:52.799
even going to outline today my main point here

00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:54.840
today is to give you examples of stuff that I've

00:15:54.840 --> 00:15:59.450
done in the past that Just kind of thought of

00:15:59.450 --> 00:16:01.529
on the spot. I bet there's this and I could Google

00:16:01.529 --> 00:16:05.230
it and find it, right? And so with live cameras

00:16:05.230 --> 00:16:11.649
Most cities states counties have traffic cameras,

00:16:11.649 --> 00:16:14.549
right? I mean that's that's pretty common So

00:16:14.549 --> 00:16:16.210
what you want to look for if you're trying to

00:16:16.210 --> 00:16:19.110
find? Video of vehicles responding to a fire

00:16:19.110 --> 00:16:21.350
or maybe there's a protest or a riot in your

00:16:21.350 --> 00:16:23.970
town or something like that search typically

00:16:23.970 --> 00:16:26.830
with the city name traffic camera on Google or

00:16:26.830 --> 00:16:29.490
state name traffic camera on Google, you'll usually

00:16:29.490 --> 00:16:32.950
find results. Now, how good those cameras are

00:16:32.950 --> 00:16:36.070
is up in the air because there's no mandated

00:16:36.070 --> 00:16:39.830
quality. However, if you know where the cameras

00:16:39.830 --> 00:16:41.649
are and you know where the incident is and you

00:16:41.649 --> 00:16:43.809
know the area well, and I know Seattle well,

00:16:44.629 --> 00:16:47.629
you can rapidly watch things happening. And so

00:16:47.629 --> 00:16:50.470
a few years ago, a good friend of mine was visiting

00:16:50.470 --> 00:16:52.940
Seattle. And he texted me that there was some,

00:16:53.139 --> 00:16:54.620
like somebody was shooting a gun near them. They

00:16:54.620 --> 00:16:56.139
were at a coffee shop. They can hear gunshots.

00:16:56.480 --> 00:16:58.960
And then they had stopped. And so I looked and

00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:00.899
I saw, yeah, there are shots fired downtown Seattle.

00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:04.740
My friend evacuated the block and I tried to

00:17:04.740 --> 00:17:07.420
pull up traffic cameras to see the area. And

00:17:07.420 --> 00:17:09.839
my friend walks in a pretty particular way. It's

00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:11.900
not like a weird way. It's not goofy. It's just,

00:17:12.039 --> 00:17:14.180
I'm on the spectrum and I notice how people walk.

00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:17.680
And so I could see one guy walking that way on

00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:22.519
the camera. And so I told my friend, hey, go

00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:25.420
stand by the street and, uh, tax the traffic

00:17:25.420 --> 00:17:27.140
camera or look at the traffic camera. And so

00:17:27.140 --> 00:17:29.859
he did. And I pulled up this Seattle traffic

00:17:29.859 --> 00:17:32.180
camera that those who are watching can see and

00:17:32.180 --> 00:17:34.339
saw a fellow standing on the curb, looking at

00:17:34.339 --> 00:17:38.680
the camera and knew that was my friend. Um, and

00:17:38.680 --> 00:17:40.480
so you can, you can not only be creepy to your

00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:42.220
friends, but you can see in real time, oh, there's

00:17:42.220 --> 00:17:43.940
a traffic jam there because the police have closed

00:17:43.940 --> 00:17:46.829
off the road. That's some information that would

00:17:46.829 --> 00:17:48.289
have been useful to me if I was really following

00:17:48.289 --> 00:17:52.990
this it wasn't that they give an incident So

00:17:52.990 --> 00:17:56.109
like I said, I started with the police scanner

00:17:56.109 --> 00:18:00.190
fast forward to The run -up to the war in Ukraine

00:18:00.190 --> 00:18:02.910
and I've started to hone this as a professional

00:18:02.910 --> 00:18:07.750
skill now I wanted to have a network of webcams

00:18:07.750 --> 00:18:10.109
to monitor for the outbreak of war in Ukraine

00:18:10.109 --> 00:18:15.789
as 2021 turned to 2022 But Googling Ukraine webcam

00:18:15.789 --> 00:18:17.849
is not really all that useful. You're going to

00:18:17.849 --> 00:18:21.390
find a fair bit of porn, but a lot of just clickbait

00:18:21.390 --> 00:18:24.150
websites and just bad websites that pull from

00:18:24.150 --> 00:18:25.950
websites that are pulling from websites that

00:18:25.950 --> 00:18:28.269
are stealing from somebody and they have watermarks

00:18:28.269 --> 00:18:31.930
and all that crap. You don't really want those

00:18:31.930 --> 00:18:34.230
kinds of streams. You want to be specific. Think

00:18:34.230 --> 00:18:37.710
about who has webcams on their buildings near

00:18:37.710 --> 00:18:41.430
you. Government buildings typically have webcams.

00:18:41.769 --> 00:18:43.450
And sometimes they're accessible, right? You

00:18:43.450 --> 00:18:45.789
can see, you know, here's our webcam from the

00:18:45.789 --> 00:18:48.390
top of the local capital building and it shows

00:18:48.390 --> 00:18:54.009
the sunrise, whatever. Um, so I looked into schools

00:18:54.009 --> 00:18:56.150
in different cities in Ukraine to see which ones

00:18:56.150 --> 00:19:00.829
had webcams available for the public. And I found

00:19:00.829 --> 00:19:05.309
in Mariupol, uh, the local ISP actually had a

00:19:05.309 --> 00:19:08.549
link to every school in the entire metro area,

00:19:08.849 --> 00:19:13.140
a camera on every school. And so I had about

00:19:13.140 --> 00:19:15.839
30 cameras of different schools around Mariupol

00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:18.279
that I was able to monitor up until the day the

00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:19.960
war started, at which point they all went down.

00:19:20.220 --> 00:19:22.339
So it never actually was useful for me, but it

00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:25.079
was a good exercise, I think, in finding cameras.

00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:28.960
The point being here, you wouldn't normally think

00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:33.819
to look at schools for monitoring a war. But

00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:35.799
if you think about buildings that might have

00:19:35.799 --> 00:19:38.700
a webcam on them, you have to think in OSINT,

00:19:38.859 --> 00:19:42.690
right? You have to think in where would this

00:19:42.690 --> 00:19:45.390
information be that's accessible? Obviously,

00:19:46.069 --> 00:19:47.849
military bases are not going to have cameras

00:19:47.849 --> 00:19:52.930
you can access, but schools probably will. To

00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:56.789
take that point to an extreme, the military academy

00:19:56.789 --> 00:20:00.930
in Harkeev actually had a webcam on it because

00:20:00.930 --> 00:20:03.329
they were building a memorial in front of the

00:20:03.329 --> 00:20:05.890
academy. And I found that camera at one point

00:20:05.890 --> 00:20:09.779
prior to the war. pulled it up during the war

00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:11.880
and it stayed up for about three months after

00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:14.140
the war started and you could see convoys of

00:20:14.140 --> 00:20:16.160
Ukrainian vehicles going down the road every

00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:18.339
single day and then coming back with wounded

00:20:18.339 --> 00:20:25.400
all over them and again you have to that one

00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:29.359
I think I had found because I had looked up the

00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:33.240
YouTube account for the Memorial Society affiliated

00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:35.339
with the building being built at the University

00:20:35.869 --> 00:20:37.890
because they had talked about on their website,

00:20:38.450 --> 00:20:40.230
the society is building something at our university

00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:42.170
and they have a live camera. And so I hopped

00:20:42.170 --> 00:20:44.150
through website to website to website to YouTube,

00:20:44.990 --> 00:20:47.809
found the live stream. It takes a bit of hunting

00:20:47.809 --> 00:20:51.390
though, but you have to again, think in OSINT.

00:20:52.329 --> 00:20:57.289
Um, the, uh, the other thing you have to, uh,

00:20:57.889 --> 00:20:59.650
adapt a lot of the techniques that you're using,

00:20:59.730 --> 00:21:01.950
a lot of the technology you're using. So if you

00:21:01.950 --> 00:21:04.410
can see the screen, you can see an arrow pointing

00:21:04.410 --> 00:21:06.750
at the top left and a little bit of light. This

00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:12.009
is a camera on a harbor near Crimea, near the

00:21:12.009 --> 00:21:15.549
Kersh Straight Bridge that I had found. If you

00:21:15.549 --> 00:21:18.170
can see it, if you're viewing, this was supposed

00:21:18.170 --> 00:21:21.190
to be a webcam to monitor the arrival of shipments

00:21:21.190 --> 00:21:23.150
at a little port near the Kersh Straight Bridge

00:21:23.150 --> 00:21:26.049
so that local companies could see when their

00:21:26.049 --> 00:21:29.000
goods had arrived. But I noticed that at night

00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:31.680
you could see a small light in the background

00:21:31.680 --> 00:21:34.200
that ended up being the arches of the Kursh straight

00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:36.940
bridge and so I saved this this link and then

00:21:36.940 --> 00:21:38.599
when there were reports that Ukraine had struck

00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:41.400
the bridge I pulled the link up and sure enough

00:21:41.400 --> 00:21:44.920
could see fire in the distance. So other types

00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:48.019
of cameras I've had luck with in this way are

00:21:48.019 --> 00:21:51.339
Surfline is a website that has surfing cameras,

00:21:51.339 --> 00:21:53.680
right? So you can check what the beach is like

00:21:53.680 --> 00:21:57.230
so you can go I don't know. I haven't watched

00:21:57.230 --> 00:21:58.829
Rocket Power in a long time, so I don't really

00:21:58.829 --> 00:22:01.690
know what they do at the beach anymore, but you

00:22:01.690 --> 00:22:04.369
need to know the conditions. The other thing

00:22:04.369 --> 00:22:06.049
that Surfline is useful for, other than being

00:22:06.049 --> 00:22:08.710
a surf bro, is monitoring the comings and goings

00:22:08.710 --> 00:22:12.589
of hurricanes and storms and Navy ships and ships

00:22:12.589 --> 00:22:15.450
of interest. If these surf cameras are anywhere

00:22:15.450 --> 00:22:19.089
near a Navy base, you can pull them up and see

00:22:19.089 --> 00:22:21.750
when an aircraft carrier leaves, see when a destroyer

00:22:21.750 --> 00:22:26.160
leaves. That's pretty useful open source information.

00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:29.559
I would say But you wouldn't think that it would

00:22:29.559 --> 00:22:32.819
be Something that you you wouldn't think surfer

00:22:32.819 --> 00:22:34.859
is when you think getting OSINT on aircraft carriers,

00:22:34.859 --> 00:22:39.579
right? But that's the way it works out So I guess

00:22:39.579 --> 00:22:42.019
that's that's kind of Those were the two big

00:22:42.019 --> 00:22:43.460
ones. I really wanted to hit on were the the

00:22:43.460 --> 00:22:45.799
scanners and the webcams there I wanted to give

00:22:45.799 --> 00:22:49.880
us plenty of time today for questions about methodology

00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:52.319
and techniques and whatnot and hopefully that

00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.880
will spark more talking on my part, but I am

00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:58.400
desperately parched and looking for a desperate

00:22:58.400 --> 00:22:59.960
and looking for a reason to take a drink while

00:22:59.960 --> 00:23:03.059
y 'all ask questions. So go for it. Awesome.

00:23:03.180 --> 00:23:05.200
Thank you so much for taking us through that.

00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:07.000
I'm gutted. I couldn't see those last images,

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:09.220
but I'm glad everybody else had the opportunity

00:23:09.220 --> 00:23:14.039
to. Please keep your questions coming through

00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:18.019
the chat. I have noted them down. BJ Mackey said,

00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:21.039
are you seeing friends on camera? Is there an

00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:23.599
easy way to tell what the lag time is between

00:23:23.599 --> 00:23:26.039
real time and what you're seeing on the broadcast?

00:23:26.839 --> 00:23:29.099
That's a pretty easy question. So a lot of times

00:23:29.099 --> 00:23:32.259
the cameras will have the timestamp physically

00:23:32.259 --> 00:23:37.200
on the video. That tells you what time the camera

00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:38.299
thinks it is. That's not really telling you how

00:23:38.299 --> 00:23:41.960
much lag time there is. But most of the streaming

00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:45.359
cameras, it's almost instantaneous. Um, but not

00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:48.019
all DOT cameras are going to be streaming. I

00:23:48.019 --> 00:23:49.779
think in Oregon, most of our cameras were put

00:23:49.779 --> 00:23:51.440
up in the eighties or something. I'm like, not

00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:54.599
even exaggerating for comedy. Um, and they update

00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:57.079
every 30 seconds or 30 minutes or something.

00:23:57.140 --> 00:23:59.400
It's 30 minutes, every 30 minutes, which is,

00:23:59.400 --> 00:24:03.559
uh, not useful. You'll see like, traffic's flowing.

00:24:03.940 --> 00:24:06.640
Something's on fire. Traffic's flowing. Oh, cool.

00:24:06.700 --> 00:24:08.579
There was something on fire for a minute. Not

00:24:08.579 --> 00:24:12.309
really good info. Um. But in somewhere like Arlington,

00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:14.089
Virginia, I know, for instance, they have high

00:24:14.089 --> 00:24:15.930
definition cameras on almost every street corners

00:24:15.930 --> 00:24:18.730
that citizens can access. So it really just depends

00:24:18.730 --> 00:24:21.769
on your local area and local laws and whatnot.

00:24:22.950 --> 00:24:27.109
If we've had a question about finding cameras,

00:24:27.349 --> 00:24:29.730
I know you mentioned briefly on just searching

00:24:29.730 --> 00:24:32.410
street cameras, but do you have any, someone

00:24:32.410 --> 00:24:34.829
else has asked, does someone or some service

00:24:34.829 --> 00:24:37.630
keep a directory of open cameras? Is there any

00:24:37.630 --> 00:24:40.009
like keywords that you usually use when looking

00:24:40.009 --> 00:24:42.549
for cameras in a specific area that you might

00:24:42.549 --> 00:24:44.990
not be as familiar with, like Seattle, like you

00:24:44.990 --> 00:24:47.329
mentioned. Yeah. So include, include the word

00:24:47.329 --> 00:24:51.450
DOT in it. DOT camera. Right. Is typically, so

00:24:51.450 --> 00:24:54.349
like Seattle DOT camera or Washington DOT camera.

00:24:54.769 --> 00:24:57.750
At the end of this talk, I will be submitting,

00:24:57.750 --> 00:25:01.789
I have a spreadsheet with a link to traffic cameras

00:25:01.789 --> 00:25:05.150
in almost all 50 states. Some states I couldn't

00:25:05.150 --> 00:25:08.049
find anything. And then in some cities and metro

00:25:08.049 --> 00:25:09.309
areas and stuff like that. So I'll be sharing

00:25:09.309 --> 00:25:12.849
that publicly. Um, if anybody is interested in

00:25:12.849 --> 00:25:15.390
gathering more links with me, uh, message me

00:25:15.390 --> 00:25:17.309
and I could add you as an editor and would gladly

00:25:17.309 --> 00:25:22.029
take the help. Amazing. Thank you. Um, someone's

00:25:22.029 --> 00:25:24.910
also asked any advice for cameras in other countries.

00:25:25.049 --> 00:25:27.170
I know obviously this is a bit US specific, but

00:25:27.170 --> 00:25:29.430
I'm guessing it's the same search terms. Is that

00:25:29.430 --> 00:25:33.910
correct? Yeah. And that's what I've found. Um,

00:25:34.109 --> 00:25:36.589
the problem is I don't speak any foreign languages,

00:25:36.589 --> 00:25:39.089
so I can't, I have to use Google translate to

00:25:39.089 --> 00:25:41.549
do this and it's not not great all the time.

00:25:42.430 --> 00:25:45.150
But if you speak a foreign language, then yeah,

00:25:45.230 --> 00:25:48.829
you just search, you know, local area DOT cameras.

00:25:49.309 --> 00:25:52.789
I know, for instance, the night or two before

00:25:52.789 --> 00:25:55.690
the war in Ukraine officially started, folks

00:25:55.690 --> 00:26:00.130
pulled up cameras on the Polish side of the Ukrainian

00:26:00.130 --> 00:26:02.750
border at the border checkpoints that updated

00:26:02.750 --> 00:26:05.349
like every two or three seconds. And all of a

00:26:05.349 --> 00:26:06.769
sudden in the middle of the night, we saw a Black

00:26:06.769 --> 00:26:09.210
Hawk helicopter land at the border. and some

00:26:09.210 --> 00:26:11.609
people got off it and like got on another helicopter.

00:26:12.650 --> 00:26:16.569
That's not normally how borders work. But again,

00:26:16.569 --> 00:26:18.809
so that was a public, you know, border camera

00:26:18.809 --> 00:26:20.410
for Poland. I don't think there are border cameras

00:26:20.410 --> 00:26:23.009
for the U .S. because our border patrol are real

00:26:23.009 --> 00:26:25.450
special here. But in a lot of countries in Europe,

00:26:25.650 --> 00:26:27.369
you're going to have cameras there just because

00:26:27.369 --> 00:26:30.609
it helps with wait times. So truckers know when

00:26:30.609 --> 00:26:34.589
the border crossing is crowded and not. And that's

00:26:34.589 --> 00:26:36.309
kind of what I mean by thinking in OSINT, right?

00:26:36.329 --> 00:26:39.069
Think about Okay, would they put border cameras

00:26:39.069 --> 00:26:41.509
on the border at the road, on the road border?

00:26:42.130 --> 00:26:45.670
Maybe. But would they do it to save truck drivers

00:26:45.670 --> 00:26:48.069
money and boost the local economy in that way?

00:26:48.509 --> 00:26:50.710
Oh, there's the financial incentive. Of course

00:26:50.710 --> 00:26:52.450
they're going to want to do that, right? If there's

00:26:52.450 --> 00:26:54.450
a financial incentive and there's nothing that

00:26:54.450 --> 00:26:57.390
hurts the public from it being known, then yeah,

00:26:57.450 --> 00:27:00.450
it's probably going to exist. Sarah, put in the

00:27:00.450 --> 00:27:04.049
chats. a link to some of the resources that we

00:27:04.049 --> 00:27:06.849
mentioned in your previous talk where we focused

00:27:06.849 --> 00:27:10.529
mainly on live streams. And so there's some really

00:27:10.529 --> 00:27:15.109
useful traffic camera links in there, including

00:27:15.109 --> 00:27:17.950
those animal webcams, which I got obsessed with

00:27:17.950 --> 00:27:20.170
after the talk last time and watching little

00:27:20.170 --> 00:27:23.690
cute animals in zoos and lots of other resources

00:27:23.690 --> 00:27:25.910
in there. So feel free to click through to that

00:27:25.910 --> 00:27:29.230
link. I'm sure it's embedded within the podcast

00:27:29.230 --> 00:27:32.660
description as well. Also, feel free to add links

00:27:32.660 --> 00:27:34.579
there as well if you're aware of things that

00:27:34.579 --> 00:27:36.720
we haven't added to that particular resource.

00:27:37.480 --> 00:27:41.799
Please do continue to add there. Lots of other

00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:44.740
questions, particularly about the scanners. Someone

00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:48.140
did ask about any recommendations on translating

00:27:48.140 --> 00:27:51.000
radio messages. Do you have any advice on that

00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.099
if you've heard something in the different, you

00:27:53.099 --> 00:27:58.450
just using... uh, audio to text models to kind

00:27:58.450 --> 00:28:01.430
of help translate those kinds of, uh, scanner,

00:28:01.930 --> 00:28:04.970
recorder. Yeah. For, for, for foreign audio,

00:28:05.309 --> 00:28:09.569
I am too poor to afford any of the translation

00:28:09.569 --> 00:28:12.049
stuff. So what I have done over the years is

00:28:12.049 --> 00:28:14.009
just, I've become friends with people who speak

00:28:14.009 --> 00:28:16.230
different languages and we'll ask them like,

00:28:16.269 --> 00:28:17.750
Hey, if I buy you lunch tomorrow, can you translate

00:28:17.750 --> 00:28:20.190
me this 10 minute, translate this 10 minute audio

00:28:20.190 --> 00:28:22.329
for me? Typically works, but on a professional

00:28:22.329 --> 00:28:23.769
basis, you probably wouldn't want to do that.

00:28:24.809 --> 00:28:26.690
I don't know of any good services. Unfortunately,

00:28:26.730 --> 00:28:31.309
I can't recommend anything on that level. Um,

00:28:31.970 --> 00:28:35.490
but bonus, since I just saw it on my other screen,

00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.250
as in I meant to talk about this during the talk

00:28:38.250 --> 00:28:44.509
and didn't, uh, here's a tip. Um, so when I talk

00:28:44.509 --> 00:28:47.829
about thinking in OSINT, the Raspberry Pi, you

00:28:47.829 --> 00:28:49.549
know, as a single board computer, a lot of people

00:28:49.549 --> 00:28:51.630
are familiar with it. Raspberry Pis can do a

00:28:51.630 --> 00:28:53.250
lot of things. They do flight tracking. You can

00:28:53.250 --> 00:28:55.619
use them as police scanners. But there's the

00:28:55.619 --> 00:28:57.619
raspberry shake is a new thing that people are

00:28:57.619 --> 00:28:59.599
working on, right? Where it's a raspberry pie

00:28:59.599 --> 00:29:02.680
that acts as a seismograph. So obviously you

00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:05.279
can detect earthquakes with that. But the other

00:29:05.279 --> 00:29:07.680
thing you can do, thinking in OSINT, right? If

00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:11.039
somebody bombs a district of Kiev heavily and

00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:13.359
there's a number of seismographs in Kiev and

00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:15.920
you know where they are in the city, depending

00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:19.140
on how large the shockwaves are at those seismographs,

00:29:19.259 --> 00:29:22.109
you can kind of... figure out where in the city

00:29:22.109 --> 00:29:24.369
the bombs were dropped, how many bombs are being

00:29:24.369 --> 00:29:26.990
dropped, how heavily they're bombing the city

00:29:26.990 --> 00:29:30.930
and whatnot. So unfortunately, there were none

00:29:30.930 --> 00:29:33.930
in Venezuela near Caracas, so we couldn't monitor

00:29:33.930 --> 00:29:37.710
when Trump did his thing last month. But they

00:29:37.710 --> 00:29:40.970
are in most countries. And so there's a number

00:29:40.970 --> 00:29:44.630
of them in Iran, for instance. So you could pull

00:29:44.630 --> 00:29:50.119
those up and watch for if the U .S. starts bombing

00:29:50.119 --> 00:29:53.299
Iran, you might see seismic activity in the area.

00:29:54.220 --> 00:29:57.980
And so tangent there, completely out of place,

00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:00.740
very ADHD, but that's how we're going to go.

00:30:02.299 --> 00:30:04.579
If you have questions on that, please do pop

00:30:04.579 --> 00:30:07.279
them in the chat. But I wanted to just quickly

00:30:07.279 --> 00:30:10.700
go back to the radio codes that you mentioned

00:30:10.700 --> 00:30:12.660
that you've kind of picked up on over the years.

00:30:13.680 --> 00:30:18.059
How steep is the learning curve in terms of interposing?

00:30:18.279 --> 00:30:21.519
radio signals, what's one phrase, a fire channel

00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:23.539
that makes you sit on a fire channel, for example,

00:30:23.559 --> 00:30:27.140
that might make you sit up immediately. How long

00:30:27.140 --> 00:30:30.460
did it take you to learn what was danger and

00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:36.500
what wasn't? So I actually have, uh, an audio

00:30:36.500 --> 00:30:42.400
file here to explain, um, how you can pick up

00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:44.240
on danger from code words. So this man is going

00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:46.619
to say, and I've read interviews with him since

00:30:46.779 --> 00:30:49.339
He said that in the moment when he keyed the

00:30:49.339 --> 00:30:52.660
mic to make this broadcast, he knew that dozens,

00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:54.859
if not hundreds of people were listening to the

00:30:54.859 --> 00:30:58.099
scanner in real time. And that if he panicked

00:30:58.099 --> 00:31:00.680
and kind of word vomited onto the scanner, what

00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:04.359
he was about to say, people would freak out and

00:31:04.359 --> 00:31:06.440
it wouldn't be good. So he had to steel himself,

00:31:06.599 --> 00:31:09.440
take a deep breath, and then say something that

00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:11.380
I will translate when the audio is done playing

00:31:11.380 --> 00:31:40.710
here. So here it is. So that first part, this

00:31:40.710 --> 00:31:44.569
is from the 2018 campfire, 30 strike teams of

00:31:44.569 --> 00:31:46.990
engines, any type, immediate need. So what he's

00:31:46.990 --> 00:31:49.089
saying is, I don't care if these fire engines

00:31:49.089 --> 00:31:50.809
are meant for wild and firefighting. I don't

00:31:50.809 --> 00:31:54.170
care if they're city engines for structural firefighting.

00:31:54.329 --> 00:31:56.829
get them together and get them out here right

00:31:56.829 --> 00:31:59.250
away. And so if you live in California, you can

00:31:59.250 --> 00:32:01.069
look up what these terms mean because California

00:32:01.069 --> 00:32:03.069
has like a glossary of these firefighting terms.

00:32:03.650 --> 00:32:05.769
A strike team in California and in most of the

00:32:05.769 --> 00:32:09.430
U .S. is five engines of the same type, each

00:32:09.430 --> 00:32:11.950
one staffed by four or five firefighters and

00:32:11.950 --> 00:32:14.990
then one like battalion chief with them to command

00:32:14.990 --> 00:32:17.509
them and they'll have common radio. So 30 strike

00:32:17.509 --> 00:32:20.190
teams, you're calling for 30 battalion chiefs

00:32:20.190 --> 00:32:24.880
and 150 engines right now. That's panic inducing.

00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:28.859
Like that is a oh no kind of statement, right?

00:32:28.859 --> 00:32:30.640
That's the kind of thing that would set the alarm

00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:32.259
bells off real quickly when you hear things like

00:32:32.259 --> 00:32:39.059
that. Another example I will play is from, you

00:32:39.059 --> 00:32:40.779
know, I apologize in advance if this is very

00:32:40.779 --> 00:32:42.539
loud. I can't really gauge how loud these things

00:32:42.539 --> 00:32:46.339
are. This is from the 2020 fires in Oregon here.

00:32:46.779 --> 00:32:49.440
I was unfortunately listening to this from far

00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:51.829
away. I was in Monterey at the time. couldn't

00:32:51.829 --> 00:32:56.210
really help folks out. But this is what's called

00:32:56.210 --> 00:32:58.950
an iPAWS message. And so it's an integrated public

00:32:58.950 --> 00:33:01.390
alert and warning system. It's something that

00:33:01.390 --> 00:33:04.829
FEMA implemented a number of years ago. And basically

00:33:04.829 --> 00:33:08.109
it streamlines the system for sending out like

00:33:08.109 --> 00:33:10.170
text alerts, digital alerts, radio alerts, and

00:33:10.170 --> 00:33:12.170
phone alerts to folks in an area that there's

00:33:12.170 --> 00:33:14.670
some kind of a major disaster taking place. So

00:33:14.670 --> 00:33:19.079
part of the iPAWS alert going off was this very

00:33:19.079 --> 00:33:21.000
calm, methodical message that went out on the

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:25.380
fire scanner, which I will play now. Whoops,

00:33:25.460 --> 00:33:30.119
I messed up audacity. Hold on a second. I had

00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:32.660
it looping because I am incompetent. Okay, here

00:33:32.660 --> 00:33:35.779
we go. No? Is it playing for everybody else?

00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:39.720
Okay. Well, I will include that in the discord

00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:42.599
later. Basically it's a very robotic voice coming

00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:45.500
out and saying, uh, attention all units, this

00:33:45.500 --> 00:33:47.940
fire is a historic event. This is a plume dominated.

00:33:48.460 --> 00:33:51.480
Fire. It's a high risk life threat, life threatening

00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:54.380
event. Disengage all firefighting activities.

00:33:55.019 --> 00:33:57.819
Find lookout, find escape zones and safety zones.

00:33:58.240 --> 00:34:00.460
Encourage citizen evacuations on the way out.

00:34:01.059 --> 00:34:02.880
So again, kind of like sheltering in a creek.

00:34:03.420 --> 00:34:05.299
You don't normally have a lot of fires that are

00:34:05.299 --> 00:34:07.480
often over the radio where the fight, where the

00:34:07.480 --> 00:34:10.440
dispatch says, Hey, run, just run. You're going

00:34:10.440 --> 00:34:12.639
to die if you stay. Like that's pretty alarming

00:34:12.639 --> 00:34:14.900
to hear, especially for the area that I grew

00:34:14.900 --> 00:34:19.429
up in. And so something like that would definitely

00:34:19.429 --> 00:34:24.510
be something to alert you. But overall, I would

00:34:24.510 --> 00:34:27.349
say, you know, just remember, you can Google

00:34:27.349 --> 00:34:30.349
a lot of these terms. So if they're using 10

00:34:30.349 --> 00:34:32.769
codes, a lot of police departments use 10 codes.

00:34:33.409 --> 00:34:36.789
You can Google 10 codes for city of blah, blah,

00:34:36.889 --> 00:34:39.510
blah. And there's usually either a Reddit page

00:34:39.510 --> 00:34:44.679
or a very specific... Geocities looking website

00:34:44.679 --> 00:34:47.659
that went up in 1998 and was crafted by a guy

00:34:47.659 --> 00:34:51.019
that died like sometime in the Bush administration

00:34:51.019 --> 00:34:53.960
But it still has the ten codes and they're all

00:34:53.960 --> 00:34:55.380
relevant and they're written in comic sans and

00:34:55.380 --> 00:34:58.300
they're all there for you That kind of website

00:34:58.300 --> 00:35:00.719
exists because there are a lot of radio nerds

00:35:00.719 --> 00:35:02.860
out there So if you don't know what the code

00:35:02.860 --> 00:35:05.039
means Google it and you'll probably figure it

00:35:05.039 --> 00:35:08.150
out that way That being said, with the codes,

00:35:08.630 --> 00:35:10.630
are different, if you hear different agencies

00:35:10.630 --> 00:35:13.369
mentioned as well, can that be a sign that things

00:35:13.369 --> 00:35:15.690
are escalating as well? Are there particular

00:35:15.690 --> 00:35:17.789
agencies that you also listen out for in terms

00:35:17.789 --> 00:35:21.309
of being called into action? Yeah. And that,

00:35:21.309 --> 00:35:23.150
that really depends on how far into this you

00:35:23.150 --> 00:35:26.230
want to get. I had put on the slide regarding

00:35:26.230 --> 00:35:29.869
the broadcastify .com access. I highly recommend

00:35:29.869 --> 00:35:31.130
if you're into this kind of thing, that you get

00:35:31.130 --> 00:35:32.769
a paid account with them. I think it's like five

00:35:32.769 --> 00:35:36.769
bucks a month. And it allows you to build. You

00:35:36.769 --> 00:35:39.489
can make basically a page with up to six scanners

00:35:39.489 --> 00:35:41.929
that go at the same time So then you can listen

00:35:41.929 --> 00:35:44.489
to your different agencies in your area and see

00:35:44.489 --> 00:35:46.710
when they're being activated And then there's

00:35:46.710 --> 00:35:49.250
also the calls platform which allows you to access

00:35:49.250 --> 00:35:53.449
some of the more the trunk systems Beyond police

00:35:53.449 --> 00:35:57.190
and fire and so I can't remember what the incident

00:35:57.190 --> 00:36:00.489
was But there was some kind of a shooting or

00:36:00.489 --> 00:36:02.909
something a number of months ago, and I was monitoring

00:36:02.909 --> 00:36:05.139
it with the scanners And one of the channels

00:36:05.139 --> 00:36:07.099
I just randomly had pulled up, and I'm not going

00:36:07.099 --> 00:36:09.599
to credit this like, I was thinking ahead. No,

00:36:09.619 --> 00:36:11.519
no, I think I forgot that I had this one up,

00:36:12.139 --> 00:36:17.139
was the local inter -hospital communication network,

00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:19.400
like a radio network that the hospitals have

00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:21.599
just for an emergency. And somebody came over

00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:24.159
and said, alert, alert, standby for mass casualties

00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:27.260
at all hospitals. And so that was like, oh, OK.

00:36:27.380 --> 00:36:30.059
That's not just trying to keep track of how many

00:36:30.059 --> 00:36:31.460
ambulances are dispatched. That's them telling

00:36:31.460 --> 00:36:36.460
every hospital to get ready. Right? The problem

00:36:36.460 --> 00:36:38.260
is with a lot of the escalation is by the time

00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:40.400
an incident starts to escalate to a situation

00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:44.940
where they would need SWAT teams or federal agents

00:36:44.940 --> 00:36:46.519
or something, they typically go to an encrypted

00:36:46.519 --> 00:36:49.199
channel and you lose the communications, which

00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:51.199
in and of itself can be a sign that things are

00:36:51.199 --> 00:36:53.400
escalating, right? Like the lack of radio traffic

00:36:53.400 --> 00:36:55.420
can tell you that there's something big happening,

00:36:55.420 --> 00:36:59.920
so... And radioreference .com is a very good

00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:03.760
resource for knowing your... radio stuff in your

00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:05.079
area. They have all the frequencies you could

00:37:05.079 --> 00:37:08.519
possibly need, like in exquisite detail, locations

00:37:08.519 --> 00:37:11.760
of the different transmitters, who, which agencies

00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:14.960
have which frequency. It's good stuff. Sorry,

00:37:14.980 --> 00:37:16.400
I think I stepped on your toes there. Go ahead.

00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:20.019
No, amazing. Thanks for giving us that URL. I've

00:37:20.019 --> 00:37:22.380
written that in the chat as well. Sorry, it's

00:37:22.380 --> 00:37:25.199
not linked, but feel free to have a little explore

00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:27.500
of that. I keep the questions going. Before we

00:37:27.500 --> 00:37:29.750
move on to, I want to... talk a little bit about

00:37:29.750 --> 00:37:31.769
the environment data that's available. But before

00:37:31.769 --> 00:37:34.750
we move on to that, just as we're talking about

00:37:34.750 --> 00:37:39.309
escalation and emerging events, how do you make

00:37:39.309 --> 00:37:42.309
sure that you're not contributing to panic when

00:37:42.309 --> 00:37:44.989
you're trying to report perhaps on your own social

00:37:44.989 --> 00:37:48.630
profiles what you're hearing? So for example,

00:37:48.630 --> 00:37:51.670
if you are witnessing something on a live stream

00:37:51.670 --> 00:37:54.329
or hearing something on a radio and you feel

00:37:54.329 --> 00:37:57.710
like this could be reportable, how do you manage

00:37:57.710 --> 00:38:03.610
that? aspect of not adding to panic and perhaps

00:38:03.610 --> 00:38:07.730
even by accident reporting something that isn't

00:38:07.730 --> 00:38:10.690
quite the level that you think it might come

00:38:10.690 --> 00:38:15.630
to on public profiles. The answer to that is

00:38:15.630 --> 00:38:17.909
you have to first of all be aware of the dangers

00:38:17.909 --> 00:38:19.610
of what you just talked about that you might

00:38:19.610 --> 00:38:22.670
cause a panic that you know gets people hurt.

00:38:23.050 --> 00:38:25.789
But I also think back to a number of terrorist

00:38:25.789 --> 00:38:29.300
incidents we had. about 10 years ago around the

00:38:29.300 --> 00:38:32.780
world wherein the terrorists learned that they

00:38:32.780 --> 00:38:34.599
can have somebody monitoring Twitter or social

00:38:34.599 --> 00:38:38.019
media and people would post what they could see

00:38:38.019 --> 00:38:41.300
on live streams or on news streams. Oh, the police

00:38:41.300 --> 00:38:43.340
are at the south side of the mall, right? Well,

00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:44.940
now the terrorists know where the police are

00:38:44.940 --> 00:38:48.760
in relation to the mall. And so after the first

00:38:48.760 --> 00:38:50.659
incident or two that I saw like that happen,

00:38:51.579 --> 00:38:55.010
I instituted like a self policy of like Is this

00:38:55.010 --> 00:38:58.550
a tactical movement of like somebody who's taking

00:38:58.550 --> 00:39:00.530
on a critical threat to public safety? If so,

00:39:00.750 --> 00:39:02.869
you don't need to talk about it in real time.

00:39:03.650 --> 00:39:06.230
Last year, there was a big protest in Seattle

00:39:06.230 --> 00:39:09.809
and I found on the traffic cameras that you could

00:39:09.809 --> 00:39:12.469
pull up one end of the protest to the other on

00:39:12.469 --> 00:39:14.849
like 12 traffic cameras. It was really impressive.

00:39:15.090 --> 00:39:17.969
And I waited about eight hours to post any screenshots

00:39:17.969 --> 00:39:20.190
of it because I didn't want to give away the

00:39:20.190 --> 00:39:23.230
idea that Hey, look, here's this crowd of soft

00:39:23.230 --> 00:39:26.329
meat bodies moving down a street. If you hate

00:39:26.329 --> 00:39:28.309
them, you could drive a truck into them. I didn't

00:39:28.309 --> 00:39:29.829
want to give that information away in real time,

00:39:29.849 --> 00:39:32.570
right? So I held off on posting that data. Some

00:39:32.570 --> 00:39:34.050
of the screenshots that I've posted here from

00:39:34.050 --> 00:39:36.730
Ukraine. Again, I held off on posting for several

00:39:36.730 --> 00:39:39.030
months until they weren't relevant anymore. And

00:39:39.030 --> 00:39:40.710
that's kind of what you have to learn to do with

00:39:40.710 --> 00:39:43.150
a lot of this is while you're up and coming and

00:39:43.150 --> 00:39:46.530
learning the ropes, basically, you need to understand

00:39:46.530 --> 00:39:49.530
that you're, tell yourself you're more of a historian.

00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:52.280
in a moment, right? You don't want to be a journalist

00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:54.119
yet, you're more of a historian, you're gathering

00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:56.460
the data, maybe it'll be relevant, maybe not.

00:39:56.739 --> 00:39:58.760
If you think it's something that's critical to

00:39:58.760 --> 00:40:00.460
life safety or critical to somebody that you

00:40:00.460 --> 00:40:03.420
know, if it's someone you know, you know, hit

00:40:03.420 --> 00:40:05.960
them up, let them know what's going on. If it's

00:40:05.960 --> 00:40:07.559
you don't know them, you don't want to post it

00:40:07.559 --> 00:40:10.320
publicly, look into communities that are already

00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:11.940
watching this kind of thing. That's how I got

00:40:11.940 --> 00:40:14.619
involved with Watch Duty. And if anybody listening

00:40:14.619 --> 00:40:17.219
is interested, we're always looking for new volunteers

00:40:17.219 --> 00:40:27.090
anywhere in the U .S. Um, and, um, you learn

00:40:27.090 --> 00:40:31.369
that you have, you have to learn to, uh, kind

00:40:31.369 --> 00:40:32.969
of take a deep breath when you see things happening.

00:40:33.110 --> 00:40:35.969
Understand that is what you're feeling when you

00:40:35.969 --> 00:40:37.869
see a crisis unfolding in front of you on the

00:40:37.869 --> 00:40:42.730
screen or over the radio is like 50 % excitement

00:40:42.730 --> 00:40:46.619
that you're witnessing something happen. 50 %

00:40:46.619 --> 00:40:49.800
you know genuine anxiety or fear or worked up

00:40:49.800 --> 00:40:53.500
in this right? But you have to differentiate

00:40:53.500 --> 00:40:54.960
between those two and kind of keep them in check

00:40:54.960 --> 00:40:57.559
Otherwise you might post something in a hyped

00:40:57.559 --> 00:41:00.340
up panic that does get people hurt and I have

00:41:00.340 --> 00:41:02.659
seen that happen in the past and it's it's upsetting

00:41:02.659 --> 00:41:05.500
Because I know the kind of people that are posting

00:41:05.500 --> 00:41:07.199
it are typically not doing it to get anybody

00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:13.489
hurt but it's It's like any any alerting system,

00:41:13.610 --> 00:41:14.730
right? The fire alarm, you don't want to pull

00:41:14.730 --> 00:41:16.210
the fire alarm in the building unless the fire

00:41:16.210 --> 00:41:18.409
is actually in the building. Not just because

00:41:18.409 --> 00:41:20.769
you're going to get in trouble, but because people

00:41:20.769 --> 00:41:23.090
will freak out and somebody could get hurt evacuating

00:41:23.090 --> 00:41:24.909
from the building, you know? So that kind of

00:41:24.909 --> 00:41:28.630
thing. Yeah, as community members have said,

00:41:29.030 --> 00:41:31.590
archivist instinct is definitely a critical skill.

00:41:31.670 --> 00:41:35.670
That being said, as we're thinking about archiving,

00:41:36.050 --> 00:41:39.010
when you are watching a live stream or when listening

00:41:39.010 --> 00:41:43.900
to radio, is it legal to record what you're listening

00:41:43.900 --> 00:41:47.760
to and how do you go about archiving these spaces

00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:53.639
in real time? So for video, I just use Open Broadcast

00:41:53.639 --> 00:41:57.340
Studio or OBS and record it that way. And in

00:41:57.340 --> 00:42:00.460
terms of audio, typically the same thing, but

00:42:00.460 --> 00:42:04.360
often Broadcastify is an example. They have archives

00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:07.460
on their website going back about 30 days. So

00:42:07.460 --> 00:42:09.380
if you're a paying member, you can... Look up

00:42:09.380 --> 00:42:11.059
the timestamp that you're looking for and pull

00:42:11.059 --> 00:42:14.000
the deck download the audio of the incident with

00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:18.159
them. I believe that the policy is that I'm not

00:42:18.159 --> 00:42:19.340
going to try to remember the policy. You're gonna

00:42:19.340 --> 00:42:20.579
have to look up their privacy policy on their

00:42:20.579 --> 00:42:23.960
own on the website In terms of recording though,

00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:26.280
my rule of thumb is basically if you're not going

00:42:26.280 --> 00:42:28.780
to rebroadcast it back out publicly and try to

00:42:28.780 --> 00:42:31.159
make money on it If it's just for your own personal

00:42:31.159 --> 00:42:34.559
record I don't see any police around so do what

00:42:34.559 --> 00:42:37.539
you want. Like I it's not really something that

00:42:37.539 --> 00:42:41.630
you're gonna get nailed for, unless you record

00:42:41.630 --> 00:42:44.210
proprietary video or audio and then try to make

00:42:44.210 --> 00:42:45.250
money off of it, then yeah, they're going to

00:42:45.250 --> 00:42:46.989
come after you. But if you're just keeping it

00:42:46.989 --> 00:42:50.949
for yourself, you should be fine. Thanks for

00:42:50.949 --> 00:42:55.269
that. Someone has put in the chat, the watchduty

00:42:55.269 --> 00:42:58.750
.org as well as the space for volunteer applications

00:42:58.750 --> 00:43:01.530
that you mentioned, which takes me nicely into

00:43:01.530 --> 00:43:05.190
the environment aside. In terms of the environment

00:43:05.190 --> 00:43:08.190
and things that you can continuously monitor

00:43:08.190 --> 00:43:12.190
live. What are some of the key environmental

00:43:12.190 --> 00:43:15.789
things that you can watch online? You mentioned

00:43:15.789 --> 00:43:19.690
water levels. We've mentioned fires. Is there

00:43:19.690 --> 00:43:22.329
anything else that is top of mind that people

00:43:22.329 --> 00:43:26.630
might be interested? Sky's the limit, you know,

00:43:26.849 --> 00:43:28.789
metaphorically and literally with this, especially

00:43:28.789 --> 00:43:31.030
with the technology that's changing. So during

00:43:31.030 --> 00:43:34.159
fire season, Um, what I'll have up on my screens,

00:43:34.159 --> 00:43:36.500
if I'm nervous about my local area, I'll have

00:43:36.500 --> 00:43:38.539
a map that shows current wind speeds, right?

00:43:38.579 --> 00:43:40.340
And all that data is coming in from wind gauges

00:43:40.340 --> 00:43:43.340
on the ground and also satellites. I think maybe

00:43:43.340 --> 00:43:45.139
you can do it. I don't know. I'm not a satelliteologist,

00:43:45.340 --> 00:43:47.719
but, uh, definitely gauges on the ground are

00:43:47.719 --> 00:43:49.760
giving that info. So if you see a lot of gusting

00:43:49.760 --> 00:43:52.059
wind during a dry season and there's a lot of

00:43:52.059 --> 00:43:54.360
fires, that's a danger sign. So that's the way

00:43:54.360 --> 00:43:57.619
to be aware of things. Um, when fire season starts.

00:43:57.929 --> 00:44:00.269
A lightning map is awesome and there's a number

00:44:00.269 --> 00:44:02.809
of websites that track lightning strikes in real

00:44:02.809 --> 00:44:05.730
time. So you can see where the lightning is hitting

00:44:05.730 --> 00:44:08.070
in the woods and know, oh, hey, we should probably

00:44:08.070 --> 00:44:11.730
keep an eye on that. When I lived down in Monterey,

00:44:11.949 --> 00:44:14.590
I was watching a live lightning map one night.

00:44:14.630 --> 00:44:17.190
There was a big storm off the coast. I went down

00:44:17.190 --> 00:44:19.710
to the beach and watched it and then came back

00:44:19.710 --> 00:44:22.369
home and saw a bunch of strikes up in the woods.

00:44:23.269 --> 00:44:25.219
Figured that's not going to be good. Went up

00:44:25.219 --> 00:44:27.360
around 8 AM the next day as the initial attack

00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:29.159
crew was going up into the woods to fight the

00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:31.500
fire. And about three hours later, a close friend

00:44:31.500 --> 00:44:34.659
of mine, his childhood house burned down. Uh,

00:44:35.059 --> 00:44:37.099
so being able to watch where the lightning strikes

00:44:37.099 --> 00:44:38.960
with these maps is actually quite helpful for

00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:43.519
pinpointing the fires. Um, in the winter, there's

00:44:43.519 --> 00:44:47.199
a number of radar apps. There's radar, uh, apps

00:44:47.199 --> 00:44:48.800
for your phone. There's some for your desktop

00:44:48.800 --> 00:44:51.380
computer that track weather patterns. So you

00:44:51.380 --> 00:44:54.460
can see if it's going to rain a lot. if it's

00:44:54.460 --> 00:44:56.099
going to hail, if it's going to snow, right?

00:44:56.340 --> 00:44:58.420
You can have a weather station, basically. You

00:44:58.420 --> 00:45:02.619
can pull the same data that the news channel

00:45:02.619 --> 00:45:05.420
pulls, for the most part, in your living room.

00:45:05.619 --> 00:45:09.940
It's pretty remarkable. And the reason is, think

00:45:09.940 --> 00:45:12.480
in OSINT here, right? Where is the news channel

00:45:12.480 --> 00:45:14.780
getting their data from? Most news channels don't

00:45:14.780 --> 00:45:17.079
have their own Doppler radar. They're getting

00:45:17.079 --> 00:45:19.619
that data from the government, from the, you

00:45:19.619 --> 00:45:23.710
know, NOAA or the USGS. They have the weather

00:45:23.710 --> 00:45:27.449
radars. Is there a legitimate reason, or can

00:45:27.449 --> 00:45:29.750
you imagine a world? I mean, I can now, but typically

00:45:29.750 --> 00:45:31.969
could you imagine a world where the US government

00:45:31.969 --> 00:45:34.909
would be like, ah, you can only get the weather

00:45:34.909 --> 00:45:37.170
data if you pay for it. Like no, weather data

00:45:37.170 --> 00:45:41.010
is pretty much a free thing. And so if you can

00:45:41.010 --> 00:45:43.070
get to the data, and that's usually the hard

00:45:43.070 --> 00:45:48.500
part, you can get it for free. typical of weather

00:45:48.500 --> 00:45:50.719
data and a lot of other data that's gathered

00:45:50.719 --> 00:45:52.500
by the government. So these river gauges, you're

00:45:52.500 --> 00:45:54.559
going to be able to find a lot of free data from

00:45:54.559 --> 00:45:59.860
the fire. The fire towers have started implementing

00:45:59.860 --> 00:46:02.340
these new, I can't remember the URL to get to

00:46:02.340 --> 00:46:04.440
it, but there's a new system that basically monitors

00:46:04.440 --> 00:46:08.440
air quality around the fires. And these are these

00:46:08.440 --> 00:46:11.860
self -contained pods that have multiple probes

00:46:11.860 --> 00:46:14.179
on them that pick up different kinds of pollutants

00:46:14.179 --> 00:46:16.800
in the air. They typically have a camera facing

00:46:16.800 --> 00:46:20.739
up and a camera facing down, a thermometer, rain

00:46:20.739 --> 00:46:23.000
gauge, all that. And they're starting to drop

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:25.480
these all over the place, all over the wilderness

00:46:25.480 --> 00:46:30.559
here. So those will become up and coming ways

00:46:30.559 --> 00:46:34.380
to monitor weather events. I talked earlier about

00:46:34.380 --> 00:46:37.619
river gauges. They've started putting cameras

00:46:37.619 --> 00:46:40.039
on some of the river gauges. So you can actually

00:46:40.039 --> 00:46:43.579
use river gauge cameras to monitor not just river

00:46:43.579 --> 00:46:47.550
levels, but uh, people in inner tubes drinking,

00:46:47.550 --> 00:46:50.829
um, or if a fire is approaching the river, you

00:46:50.829 --> 00:46:53.130
can see it in real time on a river camera where

00:46:53.130 --> 00:46:56.210
there might not be a fire camera, right? Um,

00:46:56.570 --> 00:46:59.190
a couple of days ago, I saw somebody who pulled

00:46:59.190 --> 00:47:04.130
up, uh, a bridge camera in Denmark and saw a

00:47:04.130 --> 00:47:06.789
Russian warship traveling under the bridge web

00:47:06.789 --> 00:47:11.909
camera in the distance, right? Um, yeah, so those

00:47:11.909 --> 00:47:18.000
are, uh, kind of rambling there, but yeah. Not

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:21.880
rambling at all. That's really useful notes and

00:47:21.880 --> 00:47:23.940
resources there. We've got a few in the chat

00:47:23.940 --> 00:47:29.380
as well. Someone mentioned null school. Somebody

00:47:29.380 --> 00:47:31.659
else mentioned that that is satellite modeled

00:47:31.659 --> 00:47:34.460
wind, not directly read from sensors, just as

00:47:34.460 --> 00:47:38.960
a mention. IQ air as well as another one. You

00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:40.480
have to take the monitors with a grain of salt

00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:42.219
because you don't know the environments individuals

00:47:42.219 --> 00:47:44.239
have set up their monitors, but taken as a whole

00:47:44.239 --> 00:47:47.829
can be useful. And then someone has also linked

00:47:47.829 --> 00:47:54.010
the NOAA US River Gauges website as well. Really

00:47:54.010 --> 00:47:58.369
useful. I will say the NullSchool website is

00:47:58.369 --> 00:48:02.150
the most aesthetically pleasing. We love aesthetically

00:48:02.150 --> 00:48:04.789
pleasing. And it's really neat. We love aesthetics,

00:48:04.789 --> 00:48:06.650
right? And what you can do is you can actually

00:48:06.650 --> 00:48:10.110
take screenshots of like, so I remember during

00:48:10.110 --> 00:48:11.570
some of the hurricanes, you take a screenshot

00:48:11.570 --> 00:48:14.610
every hour of the NullSchool. display and then

00:48:14.610 --> 00:48:16.769
stitch them together and you can see the hurricane

00:48:16.769 --> 00:48:18.929
advancing through an area growing stronger and

00:48:18.929 --> 00:48:21.570
weaker and whatnot. It's actually kind of a useful

00:48:21.570 --> 00:48:24.570
model for learning how these storms work. And

00:48:24.570 --> 00:48:28.050
if you're interested in kind of monitoring weather

00:48:28.050 --> 00:48:31.050
and geological phenomena, well, we actually have

00:48:31.050 --> 00:48:34.210
a channel in here and it does just that. It's

00:48:34.210 --> 00:48:36.510
called Weather and Geological Phenomena and you

00:48:36.510 --> 00:48:40.849
can pop in there. A lot of our resident weather

00:48:40.849 --> 00:48:44.039
experts live in there, particularly in hurricane

00:48:44.039 --> 00:48:48.280
season, so please do have a little look at that.

00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:50.619
Chameleon in the chat said, been finding cameras

00:48:50.619 --> 00:48:53.119
around the world found in France, Denmark, Norway,

00:48:53.119 --> 00:48:56.860
England, checking Finland now. Surfline required

00:48:56.860 --> 00:49:00.679
membership to watch some places though. Yeah,

00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:04.460
surfline has gotten kind of rough. With the cameras,

00:49:04.460 --> 00:49:06.739
I will recommend, if you want to monitor a number

00:49:06.739 --> 00:49:10.199
of cameras at once, very handy tool. And I shill

00:49:10.199 --> 00:49:11.940
this all the time and I will shill it till the

00:49:11.940 --> 00:49:15.400
day I die. It's called vidgrid. The website is

00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:19.099
vidgrid .tk .gg and it allows you to dial in

00:49:19.099 --> 00:49:22.159
between one and nine live feeds at a time. It's

00:49:22.159 --> 00:49:24.960
built in for news monitoring, but any stream

00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:28.360
that's either like a .m3u8 stream or like a YouTube

00:49:28.360 --> 00:49:30.659
stream or a Facebook stream, a lot of live streams,

00:49:31.019 --> 00:49:33.659
you just drop them into the box there and you

00:49:33.659 --> 00:49:35.260
can pull them up. So you could have nine feeds

00:49:35.260 --> 00:49:38.059
going at a time on your screen and feel like

00:49:38.059 --> 00:49:41.440
you're creeping on the world, which is fun. So

00:49:41.440 --> 00:49:43.400
it's really useful when you're monitoring, for

00:49:43.400 --> 00:49:46.360
example, airstrikes across different streams

00:49:46.360 --> 00:49:49.739
and things like that. That was useful when the

00:49:49.739 --> 00:49:52.320
airstrikes started happening in Gaza, for example,

00:49:52.699 --> 00:49:58.099
using that software. With that in mind, just

00:49:58.099 --> 00:50:01.780
going back to emerging events slightly. We only

00:50:01.780 --> 00:50:03.840
got 10 minutes left, so if you have any questions,

00:50:03.960 --> 00:50:06.639
please do pop them in the chat. I have a few

00:50:06.639 --> 00:50:08.639
from earlier as I wanted to mention, but which

00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:10.840
platforms tend to matter most during breaking

00:50:10.840 --> 00:50:14.280
events for you? Where are you keeping your eyes?

00:50:16.159 --> 00:50:19.780
That's a tough one because they've all gotten

00:50:19.780 --> 00:50:24.519
terrible lately. YouTube is a good one though.

00:50:24.539 --> 00:50:27.800
I would say One of the best things you can do

00:50:27.800 --> 00:50:30.960
on YouTube is follow both the Associated Press

00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:34.699
and Reuters and, uh, and then like maybe AFP

00:50:34.699 --> 00:50:37.079
as well. Uh, because they go live when there's

00:50:37.079 --> 00:50:38.900
a major event happening and they'll have a camera

00:50:38.900 --> 00:50:42.059
there. Uh, just a raw camera, you know, nobody's

00:50:42.059 --> 00:50:43.340
talking. I mean, there's people talking in the

00:50:43.340 --> 00:50:45.360
background, but like nobody's marrying what you're

00:50:45.360 --> 00:50:47.800
seeing. So those are pretty useful for monitoring,

00:50:47.800 --> 00:50:50.699
uh, breaking events. Um, but other than that,

00:50:50.699 --> 00:50:53.860
I use a mixture of blue sky and Twitter and I'm

00:50:53.860 --> 00:50:55.440
going to dead name Twitter until the day I die.

00:50:56.619 --> 00:50:58.940
Um, mixture blue sky and Twitter. Unfortunately,

00:50:58.940 --> 00:51:01.039
Twitter has gotten pretty difficult to use for

00:51:01.039 --> 00:51:04.019
open source monitoring. Uh, it's not really the

00:51:04.019 --> 00:51:07.260
best, but it's the only option for certain topics.

00:51:07.940 --> 00:51:13.840
Um, but it has made things difficult. Um, Facebook

00:51:13.840 --> 00:51:16.800
is sometimes useful, um, especially for small

00:51:16.800 --> 00:51:19.320
town governments. A lot of them post on Facebook

00:51:19.320 --> 00:51:21.699
before they post elsewhere. I know during the

00:51:21.699 --> 00:51:23.739
2018 campfire, some of the updates that we were

00:51:23.739 --> 00:51:26.909
getting were from Like the local community hospital

00:51:26.909 --> 00:51:28.929
posted on their Facebook page that they were

00:51:28.929 --> 00:51:31.289
evacuating the hospital. That was a pretty big

00:51:31.289 --> 00:51:34.489
sign, right? That's not something of course that

00:51:34.489 --> 00:51:37.590
I had followed ahead of time Because I you can't

00:51:37.590 --> 00:51:39.210
really guess which things to follow I tried to

00:51:39.210 --> 00:51:41.929
do that once on my old Twitter account and I

00:51:41.929 --> 00:51:43.789
followed I guess the Royal Navy did a thing where

00:51:43.789 --> 00:51:45.389
they've made a Twitter account for every boat

00:51:45.389 --> 00:51:48.110
I Followed every boat in the Royal Navy and then

00:51:48.110 --> 00:51:49.869
my Twitter feed was just boats talking to each

00:51:49.869 --> 00:51:52.750
other. So don't do that It's not really helpful

00:51:53.769 --> 00:51:57.550
I love that that exists. That's amazing. There's

00:51:57.550 --> 00:52:04.969
a few people in the chat exchanging wastewater

00:52:04.969 --> 00:52:10.269
sites. There's wastewaterscan .org for disease.

00:52:10.610 --> 00:52:12.809
I shared one in the UK that I'm particularly

00:52:12.809 --> 00:52:16.349
fond of, which is www .sewagemap .co .uk and

00:52:16.349 --> 00:52:19.429
they signify sewage with a little poo emoji.

00:52:20.730 --> 00:52:23.769
Brings me joy when I see my local area being

00:52:23.769 --> 00:52:29.130
polluted. We've had a few questions earlier when

00:52:29.130 --> 00:52:31.650
we were talking about radio channels and scanners

00:52:31.650 --> 00:52:37.530
about encryption. Have you seen an increase in

00:52:37.530 --> 00:52:40.949
agencies moving to encrypted systems? And has

00:52:40.949 --> 00:52:43.309
there been approaches of monitoring encrypted

00:52:43.309 --> 00:52:47.369
tetra signals in Europe, for example, as well?

00:52:47.489 --> 00:52:49.329
Are you aware of anything outside of the US?

00:52:50.799 --> 00:52:52.960
Don't know about the tetra signals. I know there's

00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:55.059
a lot of laws in the EU that make it more difficult

00:52:55.059 --> 00:52:57.260
I know like in Germany, you're not allowed to

00:52:57.260 --> 00:53:00.360
use scanners at all But in terms of encryption

00:53:00.360 --> 00:53:04.019
increasing absolutely I mean since 9 -eleven

00:53:04.019 --> 00:53:05.940
yeah, because when the tech started to come out,

00:53:06.119 --> 00:53:10.460
but but really the last ten years the the Militarization

00:53:10.460 --> 00:53:11.920
of all the police departments. That's one of

00:53:11.920 --> 00:53:13.239
the things they've done is encrypted all their

00:53:13.239 --> 00:53:18.869
radios In a pretty alarming way To jump back

00:53:18.869 --> 00:53:22.110
to the environmental monitoring real quick, again,

00:53:22.449 --> 00:53:25.429
think in OSIN. Is there a legitimate reason for

00:53:25.429 --> 00:53:28.670
people to be aware of when sewage might be spilling

00:53:28.670 --> 00:53:31.349
into the river? Yes, that's a health concern.

00:53:31.769 --> 00:53:33.869
In Portland, a number of years ago, we dug a

00:53:33.869 --> 00:53:35.789
hole and put a big pipe in the ground to take

00:53:35.789 --> 00:53:37.489
all of our poop because it was going into the

00:53:37.489 --> 00:53:39.110
river previously and you can't do that anymore.

00:53:39.590 --> 00:53:41.949
So when it rains too much, the pipe fills up

00:53:41.949 --> 00:53:44.750
and it flows into the river again. So there is,

00:53:44.750 --> 00:53:46.510
of course, a website that tracks how full the

00:53:46.510 --> 00:53:50.030
pipe is, right? That's an example of trying to

00:53:50.030 --> 00:53:54.190
think of what might be a public information use

00:53:54.190 --> 00:53:57.889
source that you can think of that you could use

00:53:57.889 --> 00:53:59.210
for others. I mean, there's no real way to use

00:53:59.210 --> 00:54:02.190
a poop pipe for other OSIN other than flooding,

00:54:02.449 --> 00:54:07.449
but that's just an example. We've only got five

00:54:07.449 --> 00:54:11.170
minutes left and we've had a question which I

00:54:11.170 --> 00:54:14.570
think is useful for the overview of kind of what

00:54:14.570 --> 00:54:17.690
we're... talking about here in terms of putting

00:54:17.690 --> 00:54:19.769
all these little bits together to kind of get

00:54:19.769 --> 00:54:23.050
an overall picture. Somebody asked how useful

00:54:23.050 --> 00:54:26.630
is supplementing stationary cameras traffic act

00:54:26.630 --> 00:54:28.829
with live streams on social media during ongoing

00:54:28.829 --> 00:54:33.429
events? Any advice for that? So is it easy, for

00:54:33.429 --> 00:54:37.170
example, to pinpoint corresponding cameras and

00:54:37.170 --> 00:54:39.530
is it useful to kind of do that while you're

00:54:39.530 --> 00:54:43.630
live monitoring? Yeah, and so if you have a high

00:54:43.630 --> 00:54:46.010
enough resolution screen or a big enough screen

00:54:46.010 --> 00:54:50.570
and a Windows computer there's a tool built into

00:54:50.570 --> 00:54:52.809
the new Windows operating systems called fancy

00:54:52.809 --> 00:54:55.469
zones that allows you to basically divide your

00:54:55.469 --> 00:54:57.949
screen up into a number of squares that you can

00:54:57.949 --> 00:54:59.989
then click and drag a window into and it will

00:54:59.989 --> 00:55:02.650
automatically size it there. So during fires

00:55:02.650 --> 00:55:05.250
I've had a lot of luck having fire cameras in

00:55:05.250 --> 00:55:10.110
one section of the screen and then Local news

00:55:10.110 --> 00:55:13.590
is another source of live streaming video. Bookmark

00:55:13.590 --> 00:55:16.789
your local news affiliates. So there's ABC, CBS,

00:55:17.110 --> 00:55:20.090
NBC, and Fox in almost every major city in the

00:55:20.090 --> 00:55:23.170
country. So you bookmark the video pages for

00:55:23.170 --> 00:55:26.570
those affiliates near you. And when a major event

00:55:26.570 --> 00:55:28.510
happens, they'll have a live stream of the event

00:55:28.510 --> 00:55:30.809
typically that you can put on your screen. So

00:55:30.809 --> 00:55:32.869
you have news camera footage or like you had

00:55:32.869 --> 00:55:35.409
said, social media footage, and then maybe a

00:55:35.409 --> 00:55:37.880
flight tracker. to see which aircraft are over

00:55:37.880 --> 00:55:42.380
the scene or, you know, any of the other resources

00:55:42.380 --> 00:55:44.440
we've mentioned, right? But it's definitely useful.

00:55:44.619 --> 00:55:48.239
And during a number of fires I've had, it's almost

00:55:48.239 --> 00:55:49.719
overwhelming at times. You see the helicopter

00:55:49.719 --> 00:55:52.260
circling on the flight tracker and then see it

00:55:52.260 --> 00:55:54.380
come into the news camera. And then the other

00:55:54.380 --> 00:55:56.420
window is the video from the news helicopter,

00:55:56.420 --> 00:55:59.860
right? Like it's almost like you're there. It's

00:55:59.860 --> 00:56:02.559
like the worst version of SimCity ever. It's

00:56:02.559 --> 00:56:04.860
really not fun. But, you know, it's information,

00:56:05.059 --> 00:56:08.630
so. I think that's a really nice quote to end

00:56:08.630 --> 00:56:12.630
on. The worst version of SimCity ever is what

00:56:12.630 --> 00:56:17.190
we've taught you to create today. Please make

00:56:17.190 --> 00:56:19.929
use of the many resources that have been mentioned

00:56:19.929 --> 00:56:24.309
here, some really useful ones, all in the chat

00:56:24.309 --> 00:56:28.010
but they will also be put in the podcast description.

00:56:28.670 --> 00:56:30.610
Anything else you wanted to shout out or any

00:56:30.610 --> 00:56:32.449
way that people can reach out to you if they

00:56:32.449 --> 00:56:35.639
have any further questions on this topic? Yeah,

00:56:35.639 --> 00:56:38.820
I'm pretty easy to get a hold of on discord Blue

00:56:38.820 --> 00:56:40.719
sky is a little bit harder because I don't notice

00:56:40.719 --> 00:56:42.780
my inbox because it just says 10 all the time

00:56:42.780 --> 00:56:45.039
and I can't reset it Don't I know what to do

00:56:45.039 --> 00:56:48.139
about that? But I'm always willing to help people

00:56:48.139 --> 00:56:50.579
out always willing to teach people what I know

00:56:50.579 --> 00:56:54.079
and I guess my final note is Think about what

00:56:54.079 --> 00:56:55.940
you know, like what's your expertise? What's

00:56:55.940 --> 00:56:58.460
your passion and what kind of information it

00:56:58.460 --> 00:57:01.360
within that field might be publicly available?

00:57:01.840 --> 00:57:03.539
That I haven't mentioned here that you can look

00:57:03.539 --> 00:57:06.320
up And if it doesn't exist and there's no legitimate

00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:09.099
reason to keep it secret, maybe you should create

00:57:09.099 --> 00:57:11.380
it. Maybe that's your thing. Because if you're

00:57:11.380 --> 00:57:13.519
thinking that it's information that's useful,

00:57:14.340 --> 00:57:15.460
you're probably not the first person to want

00:57:15.460 --> 00:57:19.099
that info. What is really nice about this talk

00:57:19.099 --> 00:57:22.559
is Aaron's actually volunteered to spend some

00:57:22.559 --> 00:57:27.260
time next week in a session. For this, it'll

00:57:27.260 --> 00:57:29.639
be a work with me session. So if you want to

00:57:29.639 --> 00:57:32.840
come along and test out some of these tools and

00:57:32.840 --> 00:57:35.619
do some live monitoring live, you can in that

00:57:35.619 --> 00:57:38.699
session. We'll advertise that on the events page

00:57:38.699 --> 00:57:42.059
soon. And I'll talk about it in announcements

00:57:42.059 --> 00:57:46.139
on Monday as well. But for now, thank you everybody

00:57:46.139 --> 00:57:51.760
for coming and happy monitoring. Thanks for listening,

00:57:51.760 --> 00:57:54.679
everybody. Thank you for listening to the Stage

00:57:54.679 --> 00:57:57.949
Talk. If you'd like to catch a stage tour live

00:57:57.949 --> 00:58:01.010
where you can ask the guest questions, join the

00:58:01.010 --> 00:58:05.829
Bellingcat Discord server by visiting www .discord

00:58:05.829 --> 00:58:10.190
.gg slash Bellingcat. The music you've heard

00:58:10.190 --> 00:58:13.869
is titled Dawn by Newer Self and is courtesy

00:58:13.869 --> 00:58:14.769
of Artlist.