Bellingcat Challenge – August 2025(Hidden Hazards)

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction The August Bellingcat Challenges were all related to the identification of explosive ordinance. Key amongst the resources to consider were the article previously published on a beginners guide to the topic - https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2024/07/31/a-beginners-guide-to-identifying-explosive-ordnance-in-social-media-imagery/. The challenges were all put together by Andro Matthewson (author of the above article, currently at the … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – August 2025(Hidden Hazards) →

Bellingcat Challenge – June 2025 (Cultural Confusion)

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction June’s challenges were set by the team at the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, considering issues with provenance, sections of stolen paintings, and the property of historical figures on sale on the dark web. Let’s dive in. Funny Money I went straight to ChatGPT to see if we … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – June 2025 (Cultural Confusion) →

Bellingcat Challenge – April 2025

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction Due to the success of their challenges put out at the end of last year, Bellingcat have decided to put out more regular challenges, with a plan for there to be a set released each month. Last month this involved analysis of multispectral satellite images. This month I was thrilled … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – April 2025 →

Bellingcat Challenge – Week 4 Writeup

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction This month Bellingcat are running a series of OSINT challenges, each week a new set of five challenges is posted for that week. The “Natural Wonders” series finished on Friday. If you haven’t already been playing along (and why not?!) you can join in at challenge.bellingcat.com (Spoiler warning- the rest … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – Week 4 Writeup →

Bellingcat Challenge – Week 3 Writeup

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction This month Bellingcat are running a series of OSINT challenges, each week a new set of five challenges is posted for that week. The “Urban Exploration” series finished on Friday. If you haven’t already been playing along (and why not?!) you can join in at challenge.bellingcat.com, and you should probably … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – Week 3 Writeup →

Bellingcat Challenge – Week 2 Writeup

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction This month Bellingcat are running a series of OSINT challenges, each week a new set of five challenges is posted for that week. Last week, the “Bellingcat Globetrotter” series focused on geolocation challenges, this week the “Maritime Mysteries” series is focused on sea, ships, and similar. Knowing that Rae Baker … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – Week 2 Writeup →

Bellingcat Challenge – Week 1 Writeup

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction This week was the start of what promises to be a month of challenges from Bellingcat. Based on their posts across social media (e.g. https://bsky.app/profile/bellingcat.com/post/3lccsanaews2l), for five days a week each week in December, they are setting a new open source problem to be solved. You can solve them to … Continue reading Bellingcat Challenge – Week 1 Writeup →

Hexordia CTF – Week 2

By Dr Tristan Jenkinson Introduction Last week was week 2 of the Hexordia CTF. It was apparently “Android Week” with three challenges all focussed on the data from the Google Pixel. All three challenges were also linked to ChatGPT. Thankfully this was a better week for me, following a bad week one where unfortunately I … Continue reading Hexordia CTF – Week 2 →