Contents
hide
You need accurate data on a company’s state of affairs to cooperate with a foreign business, and several services provide such data for free. Or you can use another type of search that allows you to find information about those people who avoid publicity as much as possible.
To make your life easier, we have collected the most common search engines providing publicly available data about certain people: businessmen, athletes, and even artists.
Why Do You Need to Use People Search Engines?
OSINT (open-source intelligence) is a process of collecting information from public databases and its further analysis to determine the operational situation. One might think that OSINT would only be helpful for cybersecurity, corporate protection, the military, or people in areas where information is vital.
Nevertheless, understanding how it works will be useful for almost any person. Recruiters might want to know a little more about the future employee, while the employee can find more information about the employer. Or you might want to know which of your data is in the public domain and what other people can find about you. Or, you want to make sure that your partner or company that offered you cooperation acts appropriately.
Next, we will tell you where to start and give a list of People search engines that will help you discover a person’s digital footprint and collect information. Moreover, we will provide you with a clear visual strategy for finding data based on a person’s real name.
Where to Start and What You Need: Your Steps
- Start with the information you have: the person’s real name, phone number, username, etc
- Decide what exactly you need to know
- Consolidate information and received data
- Analyze and make adjustments to the search based on the received data, if necessary.
- Summarize your findings
Now let’s clarify the details.
For example, take the most common search engine Google. You can find much more information than using a regular search by using “correctly” given queries, the so-called “Google Dorks”.
Here are some of them:
“john doe” site:instagram.com — finds an Instagram user by their name.
“john doe” -“site:instagram.com/johndoe” site:instagram.com — removes a user’s posts but shows their comments under other people’s posts.
“john” “doe” -site:instagram.com — finds a user outside of Instagram by their first and last name in different combinations.
“CV” OR “Curriculum Vitae” filetype:PDF “john” “doe” — finds CVs with a person’s first and last names in PDF format.
If you have a person’s last and first names, put them in quotes. In this case, Google doesn’t search for similar popular queries but a specific combination.
A list of other “Google Dorks” searches can be found here https://www.exploit-db.com/google-hacking-database. There are thousands of them, so you find what you need.
- Start with the information you have: the person’s real name, phone number, username, etc
- Decide what exactly you need to know
- Consolidate information and received data
- Analyze and make adjustments to the search based on the received data, if necessary.
- Summarize your findings
Now let’s clarify the details.
For example, take the most common search engine Google. You can find much more information than using a regular search by using “correctly” given queries, the so-called “Google Dorks”.
Here are some of them:
“john doe” site:instagram.com — finds an Instagram user by their name.
“john doe” -“site:instagram.com/johndoe” site:instagram.com — removes a user’s posts but shows their comments under other people’s posts.
“john” “doe” -site:instagram.com — finds a user outside of Instagram by their first and last name in different combinations.
“CV” OR “Curriculum Vitae” filetype:PDF “john” “doe” — finds CVs with a person’s first and last names in PDF format.
If you have a person’s last and first names, put them in quotes. In this case, Google doesn’t search for similar popular queries but a specific combination.
A list of other “Google Dorks” searches can be found here https://www.exploit-db.com/google-hacking-database. There are thousands of them, so you find what you need.
These web resources will help you find information about the actual name, email, or phone number of a user.
Attention! If your personal information is located on such sites, just ask to delete your data. However, this does not guarantee that your data will not appear elsewhere. This problem occurs because companies buy the same data from each other. That is why it is quite difficult to remove data from the network entirely.
Don’t limit yourself to the resources listed above, as we have prepared for you a handy list of Search Engines that you can use in your research.
A List of OSINT Sources
Most people believe that Google, Yahoo, or Bing is a great place to start your research. However, you will be surprised what can be achieved using various tools for intelligence. For your convenience, we have divided them into categories.
- General OSINT Search
- Searching People
- Searching Social Media & Profiles
- Searching Images and Video
- Online Communities and Blogs
- Specialized and Deep Web Searches
- GeoLocation Searches
The Most Popular Search Engines in the World:
Ask – https://www.ask.com/
Bing – https://www4.bing.com/
Dogpile – https://www.dogpile.com/
DuckDuckGo – https://duckduckgo.com/
Google – https://www.google.com/
Gigablast – http://gigablast.com/
Mozbot – https://www.mozbot.fr/
Oscobo (UK-based, doesn’t track users) – https://www.oscobo.com/
Qwant (doesn’t track users) – https://www.qwant.com/
StartPage (Google search, doesn’t track users) – https://search.yahoo.com/
Yahoo – https://search.yahoo.com/
Yandex – https://yandex.com/
Searching People
When using OSINT to search for a person by name, consider different spellings. We mean abbreviations, nicknames, user names, or any other naming options that the subject of research could use. You can also search for a person by phone number, email, address of residence, photo, or publications in which they could be mentioned. The following resources can help you with such an investigation:
Ancestry – https://www.ancestry.com/
AnyWho – https://www.anywho.com/
Black Book Online (public records) – https://www.blackbookonline.info/
BeenVerified – https://www.beenverified.com/
Canada 411 – https://www.canada411.ca/
InfoBel – https://www.infobel.com/
Intelius – https://www.intelius.com/
MelissaData – https://www.melissa.com/
PeekYou – https://www.peekyou.com/
Phonebook of the World – https://phonebookoftheworld.com/whitepages/
Pipl – https://pipl.com/
Public Records – https://publicrecords.searchsystems.net/
Snitch.name (username search) – http://snitch.name/
This Number – https://www.spokeo.com/
UserSearch – https://usersearch.org/index.php
Webmii – https://webmii.com/
ZabaSearch – https://www.zabasearch.com/
ZoomInfo – https://www.zoominfo.com/
Searching Social Media & Profiles
You can deepen your exploration with OSINT: to find a person and learn how they think if they speak in online conferences or express their opinion on social networks. Pay attention to finding people who are associated with this person, including friends, family, ex-partners, and co-workers.
Ashley Madison – http://www.ashleymadison.com/
Blogspot – http://www.searchblogspot.com/
Chatty Heads – https://chattyheads.com/
Classmates – http://www.classmates.com/
Facebook – http://facebook.com/
Flickr – http://flickr.com/
hi5 – http://www.hi5.com/
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/
LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/
Match – http://www.match.com/
Meetup – http://www.meetup.com/
MyLife – https://www.mylife.com/
MySpace – http://myspace.com/
OurTime – http://www.ourtime.com/
Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com/
ReverbNation – http://www.reverbnation.com/
Sportstats – https://www.sportstats.ca/
Tagged – http://www.tagged.com/
Trendsmap – http://trendsmap.com/
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/
YouNow – https://www.younow.com/
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/
Searching Images and Video
If you need to find an image or video related to the subject of your research, the following search resources can be useful to you:
Bing Image Search https://www.bing.com/images/
Flickr – https://www.flickr.com/
Instagram – http://instagram.com/
Photobucket – http://photobucket.com/
SmugMug – http://www.smugmug.com/
TinEye – http://www.tineye.com/
Webshots – http://webshots.com/
Yandex Image Search – https://yandex.com/images/
Google – https://images.google.com/
Specialized and Deep Web Searches
There are many sites that cannot be called traditional resources for OSINT. Some of them are not popular. However, when you know what you need exactly and what you are looking for, these resources can help deepen your research.
CourtReference – http://www.courtreference.com/
dnsLytics – https://dnslytics.com/
DomainTools – https://www.domaintools.com/
EarthCam – https://www.earthcam.com/
Free Public Records Directory – http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/
Fold3 (military records) – https://www.fold3.com/
Global Terrorism Database – http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/
Human Trafficking – http://www.humantraffickingsearch.net/
Internet Archive (same as Wayback Machine) – https://archive.org/
National Sex Offender Registry – https://www.nsopw.gov/
Public Records – https://publicrecords.searchsystems.net/
What Is My IP Address – https://whatismyipaddress.com/
Webboar – http://webboar.com.w3snoop.com/Whoisology – https://whoisology.com
GeoLocation Searches
The search engines below will help you search by geolocation. You can determine the location of the car if it is connected to (APRS), the point of activity in social networks, or the physical location of the IP address:
Creepy – https://www.geocreepy.com/
Echosec (social media search by location) – https://www.echosec.net/
Google Maps APRS – https://aprs.fi/#!lat=43.64250&lng=-79.38720
IP Address Locator – https://www.ipaddresslocation.org/
IP Location – https://www.iplocation.net/
The Bottom Line
Internet communities, blogs, and sites with free hosting are also OSINT sources that can be valuable repositories of information. Find them by using names, usernames, email addresses, and phone numbers.
