Kind: captions
Language: en
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we have this one photo no metadata and
no information about it but in this
session we're going to answer four
simple questions using open source
investigative techniques where was it
taken when was it taken what is
happening here and who are these people
let's do it hi everyone and welcome back
to this series on how to do open source
investig ations from home I'm Ben and
this is part 24 so let's get
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started first off that crucial question
where did this happen when we're
thinking about the location it's always
useful to think of starting big and
working your way down so let's think to
ourselves what object do we see in this
photo that might stand out for example
one of the biggest ones we see here is
in the middle of this photo where we see
something like a temple or a shrine it
looks like a Buddhist Shrine we see palm
trees this might be in a tropical area
we see what looks like a very Colonial
esque building on the right so we've got
a number of things to start off with
what's confusing is that we also see
all of these letters written in English
saying police so you would almost assume
that they speak English in this country
just by seeing the words police written
out but perhaps that's not right so this
could be somewhere in Southeast Asia
that's tropical given the palm trees we
have this kind of
traditional uh Buddha style Temple or
Pagoda that we see in the background we
can also do an image reverse search
which is a really good step to start
with to identify a few more details
about this photo we're going to do that
now I've ran this image into Google
image reverse search specifically Google
lens and already we can see a number of
similar photos that indicates that this
might be myamar this might be taken
during
protests and that pagota sticks out
fairly well even here we see a reference
to a name which is this Pagoda and it
seems to be in Yangon we see another one
here in Yangon and others so I'm already
going to look at Yangon as I think my
photo might have been taken there just
given some of those
references so let's go to Yangon and
that would be in myamar formerly known
as Burma Yangon is a very large city but
I'm going to zoom into one of the more
Central areas just given the fact that
this looks like maybe quite a builtup
area the road is quite large we see
we've got four four lanes quite a quite
a sizable area here and just given that
that seems to be a massive Pagoda and a
roundabout and we have some other large
buildings I'm thinking that this might
be a central area so I'm going to scout
around in some of these
areas and I might even start in downtown
yangong which is this area in here it's
starting with quite a zoomed out view
already I can see quite a large pagota
in the middle of the screen which is
located here this actually already makes
sense for me this location because we've
got quite a large Road and we have that
Colonial building what we can also see
is this radio tower right here and this
building that we see at the back here
with this little one in front of it we
also see a little chalk a little kind of
square coming up in in in the middle of
it I can see that coming up there and a
little building right there so I feel
like almost The View that I am looking
at is something that looks like this now
we see uh the sidewalk here it bends
around and then we have a kind of zebra
Crossing with yellow in amongst the
White Middle Lane
markers I can see a yellow zebra
Crossing quite clear there and I can see
that red and white we also see those
trees along there and then that building
uh a little bit closer and so now I'm
able to line up my map to match that
quite well so we've identified the first
question where was this filmed now that
we've identified the location we're
going to move on to the second question
which is when was this taken my first
look is going to be going back to some
of the alternative images that were
taken at the same time I think there's
quite a few photos uh that appear to
narrow down a window of time for us
apparently this photo of uh a different
police officer but what appears to be
the same location was taken on the 16th
of February 20121 there appears to be
another website which also has a photo
maybe taken at a different time of the
day on 8th of February so it seems
around February that many of these
photos were taken these are all in 2021
so what I'm going to do is take my
Google Earth back to
2021 and see if perhap perap we can see
a recreation of the same image we were
looking at just before I'm now in March
2021 I'm going to click on my little
plus symbol to get my dates but I'll
take my dates from down the bottom here
in the status bar which says I'm on the
16th of March
20121 on February 13 2021 there's a
Congregation of vehicles in the middle
here and on the side there there's a lot
of people over here what appears to be a
protest perhaps and there's also people
over here and then there's some objects
actually located right here going back
to my image I'm going to zoom in a bit
what I can see in the background of the
image is lots of people behind these
vehicles there seems to be some sort of
a stand or barricade and a collection of
colors in the backgrounds there and what
on this side I think are probably people
and then we have these police vehicles
note also with the makeup of the police
vehicles we have three with the kind of
funny tops two on this side and then one
big one and a kind of whitish one here
we also have vehicles behind them as
well perhaps we can see that on
satellite imagery so if we look we have
the three the one big the one white two
three one big one white two we also have
vehicles behind them I can make out
clearly at least this large police white
white police vehicle
we seem to have that there just parked
on an angle as well so that we can see
the back of it and then we have those
people over there so I can see these
figures here too which is quite
interesting because that seems to be
representative of what I'm seeing in the
image here as well now this doesn't
indicate that the this photo was taken
on February 13 but at least we can get
very down into the detail of a window of
time as when this was taken I can also
go back to my Google lens and there's an
option here to click find image source
and perhaps I can even look at where
this image source might be I might go to
the Human Rights Watch article we can
see gety images with a photographer name
there and I can also run a Google search
with the text as well I can maybe select
a specific date now that I've identified
that around that date around February
2021 seems like quite a few photos here
so we have 161
images and we have the original image
here it's on February
13 same date as our image here we might
also have some metad data here February
13 now that's really helpful that we
have the date because now we can even do
something more specific that we have the
location and the date I'm going to exact
with my location and say that this was
here and I'm going to go over to an
application called sun. org Sun cal.org
allows me to basically recreate the same
Shadow I'm going to look at the same
location so we're going to go to Yangon
in my I'll zoom in so that we can
identify the exact same spot that we're
looking at so over here and we're
looking for placing this on just next to
that white bar and we're going back to
our image of February 13 2021 I'm going
to make my object uh a little bit higher
but just so that you can see it clearly
now the shadow that we have here appears
to be pointing
across to the insection that we have
here so it appears to be pointing over
to almost these yellow lines that we
have here if we were to recreate this
same image it appears to be pointing
over to that second line after the
yellow line this line over
here so we might be able to recreate the
same thing that we're looking at by
pointing the shadow to that second line
right there it indicates to me and I've
dragged this timer this slider that you
can see along the top here over to show
the shadow as pointing in the same
direction as the one that we see over
here just by the shapes and the
direction that it might be traveling
that we might be looking at a time and
we can see the closer time over here of
about 10:30 a.m. by using this we've
cross verified by using both satellite
imagery to show the same circumstance of
what we see at that time of that
satellite image we've looked at the
verification of the actual original
image source to see the date that it was
taken and we've also confirmed that with
the Shadows here I think we've
sufficiently answered the question of
when that happened now we can Source a
lot of our information together and look
at what was happening now of course we
can't replace being on the ground but we
can use some of the digital information
we've collected so far to identify what
was happening for example now that we
have a satellite image from that day
we're able to look around the area and
so we can see track was stopped over
here and we can see groups of people
over here lining up around the Pagoda
over here this Central kind of
roundabout here the traffic seems to be
stored we can see lots of people all the
way along here at what appears to be
quite a large protest we can see more
groups over here now we go back to our
location we can also see people along
here if we have a look inside the tree
area and in here we can actually see a
little bit more detail than what the
photo gives us for example we were able
to see the vehicles here but we can
actually count significantly how many
vehicles were here from that view above
in comparison to what we see on the
ground this is why satellite imagery
helps because it gives us a situational
awareness and overview so we can
actually count how many vehicles are
there behind the trees we actually
couldn't see those before even if we
zoom in but now we can see them quite
clearly just how many vehicles are there
so by fusing what we see on the ground
with the satellite imagery we're able to
tell so much more about what's happening
rather than just relying on a single
image but also remember what we did
before we did an image reverse search by
using Google Lens we're able to see so
many more images on the ground for
example that previous image that we saw
we also have that alternative angle of
imagery here where we could actually go
in and inspect this a little bit further
as an alternative angle uh to see the
photo that that photographer took so
it's a fair indication that we've
identified using some of the available
photos the satellite imagery as well and
that situational awareness and overview
as to what was going on now obviously
that doesn't replace being on the ground
but at least it gives a very helpful
indication as to other things happening
in the area so I think it's fair to say
we've identified remotely at least what
was happen happening in this image we're
now going to move on to the next one
which is who are these people or where
are they from I'm not going to identify
their individual names but what we can
do at least is Identify some of the
unique markers that they have so it's
fairly clear that they are part of the
police as it's written almost everywhere
in this image we have a number of
patches here that we could maybe dig
into as well as some things around the
uniforms such as the Red Scarf the
helmet and the riot shield might
indicate that these are Riot police we
could start with the patch for example
and you would have noticed that when I
did my image reverse search previously a
number of other photos were popping up
what we can actually do is narrow down
our image RSE search to one of these
individuals and that might just show us
more of these uh individuals with closer
uh images of the patches as well right
we can see the symbol quite clear there
and there seem to be a number of
Articles at least referencing them as as
uh police or even going down uh more
specific into Riot police we've got
another article here it gives us a bit
more detail on the patch so where we
could only see before a kind of darker
side view we have a more clear one with
the righting as well um so we could
download this image open it up and just
zoom in on that a little bit more to
clearly indicate that these are myamar
police and what we could do is even just
do a simple Google search for Myanmar
Riot police see the kind of images that
pop up uh whether the red scarf is
indeed an indication of that if we type
in the red scar just to go a little bit
more distinct into what we're actually
searching for these red scarves are are
quite interesting uh they seem to
indicate an affiliation with Riot police
release which we can see in some of
these reports from my my witness here
Red Scarf States the Battalion number
and tied around their necks it appears
to be lonan Personnel so that allows us
to sufficiently in in some level of
detail identify who this group might be
that this individual is affiliated with
as well as what these people are doing
here at what time at what location all
through the power of publicly available
information
I hope you find this session useful as a
all-encompassing session to answer those
four important questions when looking at
an image that doesn't have any other
available data sent with it that doesn't
have metad dat really starting from
scratch with analizing what is in a
photo thank you so much and I'll see you
in the next session
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