---
title: From Al-Qaeda to Shia LaBeouf - How Crowdsourced Intelligence Analysis Removed
  Any Idea Of Privacy
osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2017/program/proposals/339
beginning: '2017-10-06T13:30:00.000-07:00'
end: '2017-10-06T13:50:00.000-07:00'
resources:
  internet_archive_identifier: crowdsourced-intel-analysis-seagl-2017
presenters:
- name: Omar Ravenhurst
  osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/users/614
  gravatar_id: 0f294e48b9e3cb6f8bb467103618651d
  biography: I am a self-taught Linux Systems Administrator currently living and working
    in Washington. I love teaching, learning, and Free Software. I spoke at SeaGL
    2017 and look forward to SeaGL 2018. I also enjoy exploring the worlds of cooking
    and music.
---

Individuals on various online forums have begun to realize that they can find just about anything, just about anywhere in the world using publicly-available tools. With enough digging and research, random strangers sitting in basements around the world have worked together to

 * Locate terrorist training camps inside of ISIS-controlled areas in the Syrian Civil War by making diagrams and maps based off of released training videos, and using various online, public mapping systems to pinpoint the locations.
 * Find and steal a livestreamed art installation using weather patterns, star maps, and rumors.
 * Locate and report a woman who threw puppies into a river to drown.
 * And many more such instances.

This talk will go into detail about some of the techniques used, some of the individuals doing it, and, most importantly, what this means for personal privacy. With this sort of intelligence analysis weapon in public hands, anybody can have their privacy completely compromised by a few nerds on the Internet.

Is there a picture of you on at a rooftop party? Is there a photograph of your back yard? Did you post a meme about one of your teachers to an obscure website a few years ago? Any one of these could be the single weak link that leads to the rest of your private life being open to the entire public to read.

This talk is a talk about how total privacy is really just a pipe dream, and there is no real way to ensure that you have covered every base.
