1192: Eliot Higgins | The Digital Detectives Making Dictators Sweat

Ordinary citizens are solving war crimes with Google Maps and Twitter. Here, Bellingcat's Eliot Higgins reveals how anyone can become a digital detective!

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1192

What We Discuss with Eliot Higgins:

Bellingcat, the investigative journalism group founded by Eliot Higgins, pioneered open source investigations using publicly available data • — social media posts, satellite imagery, and online databases — to uncover war crimes, assassinations, and state-level deception that traditional journalism missed.Bellingcat's techniques include geolocation • (matching video backgrounds to satellite imagery), chronolocation (using shadows to determine time), and "fingerprinting" military equipment by unique damage patterns to track movements across borders.Bellingcat's major investigations exposed Russian involvement • in MH17 downing, identified GRU agents in Skripal poisoning through passport/phone metadata, and mapped entire Russian military units from soldiers' social media posts during Ukraine operations.Bellingcat faces serious threats • — Russian surveillance, hacking attempts, disinformation campaigns, and even kidnapping plots — while being falsely labeled as CIA fronts to discredit its independent verification work.Anyone can learn open source investigation through Bellingcat's free resources • , Discord community of 40,000 members, YouTube tutorials, and volunteer programs — proving that citizen journalism can hold powerful actors accountable. • And much more...

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