Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit

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Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
Using OSINT to track online separatist
sentiment in Papua
Janes Intelligence Unit

© 2020 Janes TM. All Rights Reserved.
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
What is Janes Intelligence Unit (JIU)?
• Gives you open-source assessments of the global threat environment, tailored to you and your
  organisation’s needs

• Provides an independent, unclassified perspective to increase your awareness of strategic and
  operational challenges

• Derives information from a wide array of open sources, combining subject matter knowledge with
  social media fluency and language expertise
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
Four key capabilities of Janes Intelligence Unit
       Threat assessments

       • Insight into threats including terrorism, extremism, organised crime and state-level
         threats

       Horizon scanning

       • Conflict analysis, security implications of tech advances, assessments of fragile
         states

       Capability innovation

       • Assessing military capabilities, analysing the evolution of warfare and doctrine

       Optimising OSINT

       • Improving the OSINT skills of client organisations through in-person training and e-
         learning, providing outsourced intelligence support
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
This report covers
• Walk through how Janes Intelligence Unit approaches open-source investigations, focusing on the
  topic of online separatist sentiment in Papua

• Share some of the tools and methods that we both teach on our OSINT courses and use ourselves
  as OSINT practitioners to conduct online research

• Share some of the results of our ongoing research into online separatist sentiment in Papua
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
What research is already out there?
• Has someone already answered the question you have posed?

• If not, does similar research exist?

• This is always a key first step to undertake because:

 > It could save you time, allowing you to focus your efforts elsewhere

 > If you find relevant research, it helps you:
   – Familiarise yourself with your topic
   – build a list of key words you can use later when conducting online searches
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
Targeting your search
• Before starting your own research, always construct a targeted search query using search
  operators to save you time.

• We have constructed a basic targeted search query below:

 > Papua AND “online sentiment” OR “social media” “online separatism” filetype:PDF
   – This searches for a set of basic key words, and asks for results to returned in PDF, which
     means we will likely get reports back from NGOs, academics, or media orgs focusing on this
     topic
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
This returns the following results

• Firstly, this helps us build our subject matter knowledge
• Secondly, by reading these reports, we can build up lists of key words to be used in future
  searches
• Thirdly, it appears there is no up-to-date research on our research topic, so it means we must
  undertake our own!
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
Know your online environmentInformation we can derive from social media
• Always ask the question: What
  sources of online information are
                                       Individuals                    Networks
  going to be relevant to my
  research?

• As we are tracking online
                                                      Conversations
  sentiment, then social media
  intelligence (SOCMINT) is going
  to be a key area for our research

                                      Organisations                    Groups /
                                                                      movements
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
Know your social media environment
• The popularity of social media platforms changes by country, but
  having an overview of where online sentiment is likely to
  generated will also help you target your research more effectively

• This research gives us an indication of where Indonesians are
  most active on social media

• Provides us with a good start point for our research

                                                                       Source: Greenhouse.co, May 2019
Using OSINT to track online separatist sentiment in Papua - Janes Intelligence Unit
Investigating Papuan separatist sentiment on Facebook
• From research we did earlier using our search operators, we began to build a list of key words to
  help us find content linked to Papuan separatist sentiment

• One of the obvious search terms to begin with is “Free Papua Movement”

• Let’s start our search on one of the key platforms we’ve identified - Facebook
A basic Facebook search returns these results
• This indicates the existence of an international network of pro-
  separatist accounts

• Emphasis on use of English indicates attempt to influence
  international opinion to support separatist cause

• Gives us a good start in terms of building out potential sources of
  information
Taking a closer look
• Looking at the Australia branch as an example, we
  begin to open up more sources

• With this Facebook post, we can see individuals are
  commenting, liking or sharing the post – this gives us
  avenues for more investigation

• The post also leads to a blog that carries a statement
  from an armed separarist group known as the West
  Papua National Liberation Army, as well as images of
  militants of the group
Taking a closer look
• A larger image of the militants is
  found the blog

• This allows us to:

 > Begin identifying suspected
   militants
 > Build a picture of their armed
   capabilities and the threat
   they pose
Taking a closer look
• The blog also carries activity reports
  from the militant group

• This gives us names of individuals
  who may be key to the group’s
  operations

• This report claims to be from an
  individual known as Maj. Gen.
  Lekagak Telenggen, who is
  described as the group’s “General
  Operations Commander”
Taking a closer look
• The statement also gives an indication of the group’s base of operations
Taking a closer look
• The blog also carries more statements from the group, which gives us more investigative leads
Taking a closer look
• From one Facebook post, we are beginning to build a picture of:
 > Identities of militant separatists
 > Their armed capabilities
 > Their geographical location
 > Their online support network (i.e. the blog carrying their statements)

• But who is behind the Facebook network?
Investigating international support for Papuan separatism on
Facebook
• Looking at the follower counts of the Free Papua Movement branches on Facebook, we can see
  they are attracting attention worldwide
                           Follower count of Free Papua Movement branches on Facebook, February 2020
      40,000
               35,986
      35,000

      30,000

      25,000

      20,000
                                                                                                                     Followers

      15,000
                           12,433

      10,000                         8,187
                                               5,486
       5,000                                             3,368     2,961
                                                                             2,159
                                                                                       1,275
                                                                                                 324         107
          0
               Australia   PNG      Vanuatu    Japan      US        Fiji    Ireland   Canada   Singapore   Germany
Investigating international support for Papuan separatism on
Facebook
• But if we drill down into some of these accounts, we see that they are largely run from the UK
• We can drill down by using Facebook’s transparency feature, which can tells us the primary location
  of individuals managing specific Facebook pages
Investigating international support for Papuan separatism on
Facebook
• The Free Papua Movement network on Facebook gives us more insight
  in the separatist connection in the UK
• The movement’s US branch posts information of a Papuan separatist
  presence in Oxford, UK.
• The post includes some hashtags that will we can use as search terms
  going forward
Using Facebook’s search filters
• These basic filters are a quick way
  of finding individuals who are
  associated with any organisation
  on Facebook

• Using these filters, we’ve identified
  individuals associated with the
  West Papua National Liberation
  Army on Facebook
Using acronyms
• Always try to vary your searches to build
  information on your target

• If we use the acronym for the West Papua
  National Liberation Army (TPN.PB), and
  search Facebook, we get more leads

• Using Facebook’s search, we can filter by
  groups to reveal some public Facebook
  groups linked to TPN.PB
Using acronyms
• These Facebook groups reveal more individuals of interest, who are posting photos of TPN.PB
  militants and their weapons

                                               Images appear to have been uploaded on the 7th February 2020
Verifying images
• We can reverse search these images to give us
  an indication of their age

• A useful tool for doing this is Image Search
  Options, a Chrome/Firefox browser plug-in that
  allows us to run an image through several reverse
  image search engines

• A search on TinEye for one of the previous
  images indicates it is new, which gives an
  indication that we are looking at current militant
  capability
Facebook chat groups
• Investigations into pro-separatist chat groups on
  Facebook allows us to identify more pro-separatist
  individuals (right)

• It also allows us to identify the individuals running these
  chat groups (below)
Facebook chat groups
• We can also extract all the
  Facebook usernames
  associated with separatist chat
  groups, by using another free
  Chrome/Firefox plug-in called
  Link Gopher

• Instead of clicking through each
  profile and copying its
  username, Link Gopher
  extracts each profile link
  automatically, for your future
  research
Hashtags: The key to searching social media
• Building up knowledge of key hashtags on any specific topic is so important when trying to find
  relevant information on social media

• To do this for our topic, we will use a free tool called PicPanzee (no log-in required)

• PicPanzee is primarily a tool for investigating Instagram
Finding relevant hashtags
• We typed “Free West Papua” into
  PicPanzee, it gives us a range of
  pro-separatist hashtags and their
  popularity online

• This even picks up hashtags that
  use emojis, which can be easy to
  miss if we are just searching with
  text
Finding relevant accounts on Instagram
• PicPanzee also helps us build a
  picture of the pro-separatist network
  on Instagram

• Here’s we’ve typed “Free West
  Papua” into the search and found
  these results

• From here, we can conduct further
  investigation into specific profiles
Finding relevant accounts on Instagram
• Investigation of one account reveals links between Indonesian anti-fascists and Papuan separatists,
  which gives us insight into an adversary’s alliances
Using PicPanzee to conduct remote reconnaissance of targets
• PicPanzee allows us to view the followers
  of any public Instagram account, without
  having to create our own Instagram profile
  or even access the Instagram website

• To the right are the followers of a pro-
  separatist Instagram account, as viewed
  on PicPanzee

• This reduces our own online footprint and
  also saves us time, because it means we
  do not have to set up fake profiles to
  undertake our research
Searching Instagram bios
• Another useful free tool for Instagram is Search My Bio, which
  can be accessed via its own website

• The tool searches Instagram bios for mentions of key words

• The following search for “Free West Papua” brought back
  three influencers in relation to this search. This helps us
  identify the key cogs in the pro-separatist Instagram network
  that we can use for further investigation.
Investigations on Twitter
• We will use the hashtag search we conducted earlier with
  PicPanzee, and apply that to Twitter

• A useful tool for investigating Twitter networks is Mentionmapp

• Mentionmapp is free, but you are required to be logged in to Twitter
  for it to work
Identifying pro-separatist Twitter networks
• If we input #PapuaMerdeka into
  Mentionmapp, we get this network
  map
• This gives us a picture of accounts
  that have been most linked with this
  hashtag.
• Some of these accounts are individual
  activists associated with the “Free
  West Papua” campaign, and they are
  based outside of Indonesia in the
  Netherlands and UK.
Identifying pro-separatist Twitter networks
• We can then use Mentionmapp to dive
  deeper into the Twitter networks of these
  specific accounts
• This pro-separatist account has been
  interacting with:
 > An international legal firm in the UK
 > An anti-corruption NGO in Indonesia
 > A West Papua media organisation
 > A Papua separatist activist organisation
 > President Joko Widodo
Identifying pro-separatist Twitter networks
• Mentionmapp can be used to reveal the
  substance of interactions between users

• For example, the target account is
  attempting to build international support for
  separatism by disseminating pro-separatist
  narratives to a range of international
  accounts, including:
 > A UK-based law firm
 > The Foreign Minister of Vanuatu
Analysing an account’s followers on Twitter
• A free tool called Followerwonk allows us to analyse a specific account’s followers (Twitter log-
  in required)

• Followerwonk scans the bios of Twitter accounts to gain an indication of where that account
  may be based

• This is an indication and verification is always required, but the tool nevertheless gives us an
  overall picture of where an account’s support is coming from

• If we look at the pro-separatist account, FRI-West Papua, we can see the majority of its
  followers claim to be from Indonesia or Papua New Guinea, but there is also a global network,
  with hubs in India, the UK and the US. This gives us a good starting off point for our research
  into specific geolocations.
Analysing an account’s followers on Twitter
• If we use Followerwonk to analyse the pro-separatist account, FRI-West Papua, we can see the
  majority of its followers claim to be from Indonesia or Papua New Guinea, but there is also a global
  network, with hubs in India, the UK and the US. This gives us a good starting off point for our
  research into separatist sentiment in specific geolocations.
Reducing your footprint on Twitter
• Twitter lists are a good way of tracking sentiment on
  Twitter without revealing your presence on the platform

• Essentially, Twitter lists allow us to follow accounts,
  without us having to hit the “follow” button!
Twitter lists
• Here is a snapshot of a Twitter list of pro-separatist
  accounts focusing on Papua.

• We have not followed these accounts, instead we have
  jut added them to a Twitter list

• Our attribution is reduced – these accounts are not
  aware they are being followed

• The Twitter list will automatically update whenever a
  member of the list posts an update
Preliminary results of Janes research into online separatist sentiment
in Papua
• Using the OSINT methods and tools outline in this briefing, Janes Intelligence Unit has built up a
  picture of online separatist sentiment focused on Papua

• We were able to draw preliminary conclusions into this online sentiment, with research ongoing
Where are pro-separatist accounts located online?

• The majority of online pro-
  separatist activity was
  found on Facebook,
  followed by Twitter

• Smaller pockets of
  separatist communities
  were found on Instagram
  and YouTube
Tip: Always be on the look for the next platform!

• The fast-moving world of social media sees new
  platforms appearing regularly

• Your target community may decide to shift to a
  completely new platform, as happened recently
  with Islamic State

• It is always useful to keep a look out for what
  platform may be on the horizon for your target
  community

• We detected very small pockets of separatist
  support on Tik Tok and Telegram
What type of pro-separatist accounts are found online?

                                              • The majority of accounts
                                                were aimed at peaceful
                                                activism
• A small core of accounts
  showed support for or
  involvement in militant
  separatism, with the
  majority of these accounts
  on Facebook
Militant vs. activist accounts: Which attracts more attention?

• Across all platforms,
  accounts that were focused
  on peaceful activism
  attracted the majority of
  attention
Support for pro-separatist accounts across platforms

• In terms of interest in Papuan
  separatism across platforms,
  the majority of interest was
  found on Facebook
Leveraging Janes OSINT
How Janes tools and content can be used to assess trends, capability and equipment
identification
Leveraging Janes to track Terrorist and Insurgent Activity
                                         Janes Terrorism & Insurgency Centre
                                         covers any events, violent or non-violent,
                                         conducted by non-state armed groups
                                         with a political or ideological motivation,
                                         in addition to state actions conducted
                                         against such groups and relevant
                                         statements by both state and non-state
                                         actors. ​
Leveraging Janes to track Terrorist and Insurgent Activity
Indonesian Activity

      Non State Armed Group Attacks
      Non State Armed Group Actions
      Non State Armed Group Statements
      Counter Terror Operations
      Counter Terror Judicial
      Counter Terror Statement
Leveraging Janes to track Terrorist and Insurgent Activity
Indonesian Activity
Leveraging Janes to track Terrorist and Insurgent Activity
Indonesian Activity – Geospatially represented
Leveraging Janes to track Terrorist and Insurgent Activity
Indonesian Activity – OPM
Leveraging Janes to track Civil Unrest (Protests & Riots)
Indonesian Activity
Leveraging Janes to track Civil Unrest (Protests & Riots)
Indonesian Activity
Leveraging Janes to determine capability…
Small Arms Identification

                            •   M4 Carbine
                                 • Believed to be a copy with a custom muzzle device and handguard
                            •   M16 Clone
                                 • Similar to the M16A2 which is used by the PNG Defence Force

                            •   FN Minimi (M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) in US Service)
                                  •   Furniture matches the production models but could be a clone
                                  •   It looks like the earlier model minimi’s.
                            •   FN FNC Clones
                                  •   There is a rough assortment of FN FNC copies/derivatives, of particular note, PT Pindad (an Indonesian manufacturing
                                      company) make a locally produced set of versions of the FN FNC, which have the general prefixes of SS1 or SS2 with a
                                      suffix denoting the specific variant (changes in barrel length etc.) Therefore its fairly likely these are regionally/locally
                                      made/captured rifles.
                            •   M14 rifle
                                  •   US service rifle shortly before Vietnam - 7.62mm semi-automatic weapon
                            •   M1 carbine
                                  •   US armed forces during WW2
                            •   M1911 Pistol
                            •   Browning hi-power
Leveraging Janes to determine capability…
Small Arms Identification

                            • Browning hi-power pistols.
                            • FN FNC copies
                                 • Most likely Pindad made missing their handguards.
                            • FN FNC copy,
                                 • M203 style under barrelled grenade launcher which gives anti vehicle capabilities depending on the availability of
                                   appropriate ammunition.
                                 • The presence of the grenade launcher may be an explanation of the lack of handguards on the other rifles, and the
                                   insurgents may be removing the handguards to strap the UGL’s directly to the barrels of the weapons.

 Janes Assessment…
 Overall the variety of the build quality, the differences in ‘generations’ of weapons, and the mix of conditions
 they appear to be in suggests a multitude of sources for weapons as opposed to one single coup of a big
 seizure
Leveraging Janes to determine capability…
Small Arms Identification
Concluding points
• Janes Intelligence Unit continues to
  track a range of militancy in
  Southeast Asia, producing analysis
  on Indonesia, the Philippines and
  Thailand

• Janes Intelligence Unit can provide
  outsourced intelligence gathering and
  analysis capabilities…
 > OSINT Training
 > Janes Liason Officer
 > RFI “As a Service” (AaS)
Concluding points
• A range of OSINT courses from Janes Intelligence Unit offer a deeper dive into the methods
  and tools outlined in this presentation – please reach out to myself or a colleague to learn
  more
60

                                       Thank you

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