4 min readJust now

–

OSINT at this level stops being about tools and starts becoming about critical thinking.

This room pushed me beyond surface level searches and forced me to slow down, structure my investigation, and respect how easily humans leak information without realizing it.

This level will change your judgement

• Should I follow this clue?
• Is this data credible?
• Could this hurt someone if I’m wrong?

These are the frameworks investigators trust:

• 🕵️ CRAWL(™) to structure your flow
• 🧠 SANE to assess what’s ethical
• 🧩 PIE to preserve and evaluate data
• 📚 SLOC & the 4Rs to document cleanly
• ⚖️ The Berkeley Protocol to guide your integrity

Because OSINT isn’t about being clever…. It’s about being correct, careful, and conscious.

When you follow these disciplined process the truth slowly reveal itself

The CRAWL Begins

Every OSINT investigation starts with movement not rushing, not guessing but crawling.

At this stage, the goal wasn’t to jump to conclusions. It was to:

• Collect openly available data

• Observe patterns

• Validate sources before trusting them

Instead of chasing leads emotionally, I treated each piece of information as unverified intelligence. The crawl phase reminded me that OSINT rewards patience. Miss one detail early, and everything downstream becomes noise.

This phase set the foundation for everything that followed.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

meaning of CRAWL

These are practical questions to deep understanding of CRAWL

Press enter or click to view image in full size

practice questions

SANE Investigations

OSINT can quickly spiral into chaos if you don’t stay SANE Structured, Analytical, Neutral, and Ethical.

This room reinforced the importance of:

• Staying objective even when the data seems convincing

• Avoiding confirmation bias

• Documenting findings instead of relying on memory

A SANE investigation doesn’t chase excitement it chases accuracy.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

meaning of SANE

I learned to pause, reassess assumptions, and constantly ask: Does this evidence actually support the claim?

That mindset alone separates hobby OSINT from professional grade investigations.

These are practical questions to deep understanding of SANE

Press enter or click to view image in full size

practice questions

“PIE”cing the Truth Together

No single data point told the full story. The truth only emerged when I applied the PIE method:

• Pieces of information
• Independent sources
• Evidence correlation

Press enter or click to view image in full size

meaning of PIE

Each clue by itself felt incomplete. But when cross referenced with others, patterns started forming timelines aligned, identities overlapped, and inconsistencies surfaced.

This was the moment OSINT stopped feeling like searching and started feeling like analysis.

These are practical questions to deep understanding of PIE

Press enter or click to view image in full size

practice question

SLOC & the 4Rs

Understanding where information originates is just as important as the information itself.

SLOC (Source Location) forced me to consider:

• Who published the data
• Why it exists
• How reliable it actually is

Press enter or click to view image in full size

SLOC meaning

The 4Rs helped filter intelligence properly:

• Right source
• Right time
• Right context
• Right reason

Press enter or click to view image in full size

4Rs meaning

These are practical questions to deep understanding of SLOC &4Rs

Press enter or click to view image in full size

SLOC & 4Rs practice questions

Applying this framework prevented me from trusting outdated, manipulated, or context less data a mistake many beginners make without realizing it.

Human Error: The Biggest Vulnerability

If this room taught me one thing clearly, it’s this:

Humans are the weakest link in security.

Most of the useful intelligence wasn’t leaked through advanced exploits it came from:

• Oversharing

• Poor privacy habits

• Reused usernames

• Forgotten metadata

• Casual posts with unintended details

Human error consistently turned private information into public intelligence.

OSINT doesn’t break systems, it observes behavior.

Final Thoughts

OSINT Level 2 wasn’t about being fast.

It was about being methodical, ethical, and precise.

This room sharpened how I think, not just what I search for. It reinforced that real world OSINT is less about tools and more about discipline, skepticism, and human psychology.

The deeper you crawl, the clearer the truth becomes.