Transcription
Hello friend, in the previous video about Google, we figured out how to use search operators. If you've mastered this topic, you can already find a lot of things in many places. But the topic needs to be fully explored, because Google is not only rich in search operators. In its pursuit to expand and tie the audience to its resources and services, they create more and more new ones and increasingly expand the functionality of existing ones. And since the capabilities, functions, and services of Google are somehow related to either collecting or processing information, from the perspective of OSINT, these capabilities need to be studied and applied. Therefore, in this video, we will figure out which Google services can be used in OSINT and how to use them. I will separately note that here I will not consider things like Google Maps, Earth, and photo search, because firstly, you are probably already using them to some extent, and secondly, if they are to be considered, it will be within videos dedicated specifically to their functionality in conjunction with other things, as these services are most effective in conjunction with other elements. They themselves, as well as Pinpoint, will not be mentioned, because I talked about it in the video about searching for documents. But before we start, don't forget to subscribe to the channel. And you can also turn on notifications so you don't miss new videos. You can and should also subscribe to Telegram; it's in the description. All links from the video will be in Telegram or in an article on the website. And if what I do is useful to you or you simply like it, then via the links in the description, you can support the channel financially. But we are starting.
Programmable Search Engine. This thing was conceived by Google to give website owners the ability to create their own search engine for their site based on Google, but it doesn't necessarily have to be used exactly like that. Or rather, in our case, we won't use it like that at all. The main feature is that we can create our own search engine based on Google's capabilities, but by configuring the search for specific results or specific sites. Naturally, people actively exploit this opportunity, and therefore a whole bunch of custom search engines for various tasks have been created. A link to a detailed list will be in the article and in Telegram. Ready-made solutions are good, of course, but we will figure out how to create our own search engine and how and what can be configured there. It will be especially useful for those who need to constantly monitor certain situations or frequently search for some type of information, because in this case, the automation element is very important and allows you to save a lot of time and effort.
To start, go to the Programmable Search Engine website. All the search engines we create will be shown here. Click the "Add" button and go to the search engine creation page. This is the initial setup; then we will add additional parameters. First, we come up with a name; it doesn't affect anything, so we write what will be understandable to us. In the "What to search" section, we need to choose where we need information from. We can limit the search to specific sites, as shown in the hint, or search the entire internet. For example, we will create a search engine that will search for documents by our query on sites with the .gov.ru domain. We enter *.gov.ru and click "Add." In our situation, we don't need to include image search and safe search, so we skip the map and click "Create." After that, we will see a message that the search engine has been created, and they will give us a link for embedding on our site, which, of course, we don't need. What we need is the "Customize" button, as our search engine will currently search for something not quite what we need.
By clicking the "Customize" button, we go to our search engine's overview menu. First of all, we need the "Features" section in the search results. Here you can limit the search to a specific region, but since we specified a specific domain, there's no point in doing it in our situation. This option can be useful when we choose the "Search the entire internet" option. So, we click "All settings" in "Features in search results" and go to the "Advanced settings" menu. In this menu, we need the "Refinements" section, where, using Google's search operators, we will explain to our search engine what exactly we want. To do this, click the "Add" button, and in the opened window, enter a name, for example, PDF, or whatever is more convenient for you. Leave the "Search on sites with this refinement" checked. And in the "Attachment sites" section, check gov.ru. After that, expand the "Advanced" tab and in the opened field, enter PDF. Click "Save." We have created a rule for searching for documents in PDF format. Now, on the same principle, we will add other formats: for tables with the additional parameter XLS, XLSX, CSV, and for documents with the additional parameter DOC, DOCX, ODT, ODS, ODP. Well, if necessary, you can also add search for presentations or TXT, or other formats that you need.
Now let's configure one more useful thing. We return to the "Features in search results" window and find the "Advanced settings" section. Open the "Sorting of results" item, and where it says "Default sort order," select "Date." This is needed so that the results are sorted by date, as we need the most up-to-date documents. Now, when we open our search engine and enter a query, we can choose which document format we are interested in, and the results will be sorted by date. Well, if you want to bother, you can go to the "Appearance" section and customize all this to your liking: choose the font, color, theme, etc. It doesn't affect the result, but it's more pleasant to use. I think everything is more or less clear with the Programmable Search Engine. I showed one of the possible application options to make the meaning clear, how it works and how to apply it. Well, now, on the same principle, you can create a search engine that is more complex and more functional, that is, for any of your goals and needs. It all depends only on your imagination.
The next useful resource we will consider is Google Alerts. Its meaning is to inform you if new information appears on topics of interest to you, and all this can be quite precisely configured. And considering that search operators also work there, the search results can be configured not just precisely, but very precisely. Google Alerts will be especially useful for journalists for monitoring the most relevant events. But this is just one of the possible and obvious applications. If we don't focus on the OSINT topic, but, for example, talk about crypto, then you can create an alert that monitors the situation with airdrops and informs you if a new airdrop or information about an existing one appears. Those who are in the know and missed the airdrop-probtrum have already gone to create an alert. I understand. In general, you can come up with many application options for different tasks and situations.
Let's create an alert for protests in Moldova to see how it works. The idea will be that if news about rallies appears, we will immediately receive information. We go to the Google Alerts page and start by using a forward slash to list the keywords for our query. Since this is the first setup, we will limit ourselves to just keywords for now. But in the future, when we see how it all works, it will become clear what needs to be adjusted, and using other search operators, we will be able to configure it more precisely. Of the most relevant, it is often necessary to select sites using the site: operator or add corrective queries using quotes and asterisks. But I strongly advise against trying to create an ideal alert and a maximally precise query right away. This is exactly the situation where you need to move from general to specific. The idea is that we create a generalized alert that will give a lot of results, then we monitor what it shows us for some time and start making adjustments. In this way, we will refine our alert to the ideal result and guarantee that we won't miss anything and accidentally remove a necessary source.
After we enter the keywords, in the "Sources" field, we select what kind of results we want to receive. In our case, it will be news, blogs, videos, discussions. Then, in the "Country" field, we select Moldova, "All results" for quantity, and "RSS Feed" for delivery type. And we need to stop at this point in more detail, but first, click the "Create alert" button.
So, what about RSS? There is an opinion that this technology is a bit dead. One can argue about this for a long time, but we won't, because if you have at least a minimal need to monitor something somewhere, then I highly recommend using it. And when you try it, questions about the usefulness and relevance of RSS will definitely disappear. To start, we will need a reader, and there are quite a few of them, so the choice is a matter of taste and personal preference. I personally like Inoreader because the free version's functionality is quite enough for me, and there is a convenient mobile app. Therefore, I will show what to do using Inoreader as an example, but in any other reader, everything will be if not exactly the same, then very similar.
To begin, of course, you need to register. After that, we will see an information panel that is currently empty. Now let's add our alert here. To do this, return to Google Alerts and right-click on the RSS icon next to our alert and select "Copy link address." Return to Inoreader and in the "Feeds" menu, click and select "Feed." When we paste the link here, we will automatically see our alert. All that remains is to click "Follow," and it will appear in the "Feeds" menu.
Now, for greater convenience, we can further configure our feed. Next to the "Feeds" menu title, click the gear icon to see the settings for our feeds, or rather, for now, only one. In the window that appears, we can click on the name of our alert and edit the settings a bit: change its name to something more convenient and change the feed update time to what we need. In some cases, like ours, for example, it's worth creating additional rules. To do this, click the "Create rule" icon, and in the opened window, select the conditions and what needs to be done. For example, let's make it so that if news or a video appears, it should be assigned a corresponding tag. Given the chosen topic, this is a very useful application of rules. If the appearance of the information panel doesn't suit you, you can create your own or even several. In the upper right corner, click "Create dashboard" and add the windows you would like to see. Well, and you shouldn't limit yourself to just alerts; you can add RSS feeds from news sites or Telegram channels, and then, using rules, keywords, and filters, monitor the information you need. The advantage of this method is that everything is done in one place, and all results are collected in one selection. In general, there are a huge number of ways and application options. How to use them depends on the tasks and goals.
Well, and one more Google tool, not as universal and multifunctional as the previous ones, but in some situations, it can also be useful. I'm talking about Google News. It allows you to track news publications on given topics. The news feed itself is not particularly customizable and only allows you to select a list of topics of interest from the proposed options. This seems to correspond to the goal of this resource, which is to familiarize yourself with the list of current news. Well, for OSINT, the benefit is very mediocre, but there are useful features. In advanced search, we can quite precisely filter what news we are interested in and for what period of time, that is, essentially the same as search operators, but applied to news sites. And another useful feature is tracking news depending on location. To use it, in the "Local news" tab, in the settings, select the locations that interest us. Sometimes it can be useful, so it's worth knowing about such a possibility. In general, to summarize, this video and the video about search operators mean that by using only Google's capabilities and your brain, you can find and collect a huge amount of information about people, events, places, objects, and generally anything. And the most interesting thing in this situation is that you won't have to use any specialized Linux distributions or complicated software. This is also to the point that OSINT is not about tools, but about skill. And to acquire this skill, you need practice, which gradually transforms into experience. I showed you options for using Google services, and it's up to you to start applying these services and gain experience. And gradually, it will turn out better and higher quality. And with you, as always, was Puls. Subscribe to the channel and see you next time.