A Free OSINT Lesson: You Should Sing Karaoke
Learn to thrive in the uncomfortable.
I am not an avid karaoke singer. I would say, "I dabble."
Throughout my twenties, my friends and I spent years going to this place called "Limelight" at least twice a month. It was and still is considered the best karaoke bar in the city. Younger crowd, most of them budding musicians and actors, and they've all got something to prove. I was none of those things, so I became desensitized to the art of singing poorly in front of a crowd. In my late thirties, I still don't give a fuck.
This is good.
Entire OSINT investigations I've conducted have hinged on being uncomfortable, and using the soft skills of karaoke, I have closed multiple loops on cases.
There's a lesson here.
Now, if you asked my wife, “What’s MJ’s best karaoke song/performance?”
She’d say…
Oddly enough, the vast majority of my karaoke choices are Canadian: Barenaked Ladies, Crash Test Dummies, Joel Plaskett Emergency. I’ve even been known to jam out to some Great Big Sea. And this has been the case for years, so it’s not some patriotic “elbows up” situation because the United States of America has become a feral raccoon injecting heroin into its eyeballs.
This story begins with my wife and her friend wanting to sing karaoke a couple weeks ago. There’s a long story here that I won’t bore you with. Regardless, I invited myself to come along. Generally, I don’t do this, but extenuating circumstances, the promise of some Alanis Morissette, and a cold beer were required for my sanity.
We went to a spot I had never been before—for good reason. On the outside, this place was nefarious as fuck. Rough part of town. A strip mall. You could see the 10 or 12 VLTs through the front window. Half a dozen folks smoking outside the front door. It had a vibe, and the likelihood of getting stabbed ran at a solid 25%.
So, my kind of my place.
We walked in. Strolled past the VLTs, and a 65-year-old man in a cowboy hat on the stage was giving Luke Bryan’s “Country Girl” everything he had. Could this guy sing? Fuck no. Did he have passion? Alarmingly so.
We assessed the scene, cozied up the bar, ordered a couple beers, and karaoke night was on.
It was a mixed room. Most of the crowd was between the ages of 45 and 75. Their lives were complicated, and they had crooked tails. While this wasn’t the A squad, those minutes on stage singing Elvis or Adele were essential. This wasn’t Limelight. There was no vanity here. No one needed to showcase their expensive vocal training and singing lessons. These people were here for their own well-being. They were here because karaoke is free and therapy isn’t.
There were a couple of young folks to one side who were probably from out of town and somehow, through the grace of the cosmos, ended up in this hole. One of them sang “Sabotage” by Beastie Boys, which was a bold fucking choice that we all had to sit through.
The beer was cheap. The crowd was something else. And the initial discomfort left as my name was called to sing.
I've worked a few investigations where I've been uncomfortable. The trauma of the content aside, the discomfort circles more around being in an awkward situation because the person you're confronting has done something bad, and you're just addressing it.
Phrases like, "I didn't murder her," leave their face hole, and you're sitting there, in their home, thinking, "That didn't sound very convincing."
Sometimes, it's just easier to call the son, who may know more information about a target than his mother because she has dementia, and she may have told him something once.
Calling a target's office and making chit-chat with the administrative assistant, so they eventually let slip the times the target actually comes to the office so you can have a lawyer ready to serve papers when they roll in.
One investigation we did at PRR involved a Canadian contracting company that was, let's say, involved in some shady business dealings. In simple terms, there was evidence they were playing fast and loose with rules regarding proper engineering and construction codes and generally ripping off a specific NGO on some builds they were doing in remote areas.
As part of the investigation, I began going through old lawsuits this bad actor was involved in, and found that they had a bit of a history not paying their bills, and ripping folks off. I just picked up the phone and started calling everyone who had ever sued them or had been sued by them.
This led me to an architect who had a couple of projects with them, and after providing them with the designs they asked for, they abruptly cancelled the project, ghosted the guy, and never paid their $12,000 bill. The architect sued. The bad actor counter-sued. The architect got spooked and, with the thought of legal fees, decided it wasn't worth the fight.
As part of the investigation, I managed to get my hands on a set of floor plans that this bad actor had used in a building, and I showed them to the architect. They were basically duplicates of his work.
This led me to city hall and a civil servant who not only loved his job but also loved to follow the rules. This kid didn't have a crooked tail. You wouldn't catch him near a shitty karaoke bar. He probably made his own simple syrup at home for his budding cocktail interest, and making an "Old Fashioned" was the extent of his skills.
In short, he told me I could access city records for construction permits but I could not know which engineers or architects approved the plans for the permits. I could know if a person has a permit, the address of the build, and its status, but nothing more.
"What if I have sufficient evidence that the architect who designed the build didn't stamp (stamp = approve) it, and the contracting firm simply took his design without paying for it and forged a stamp?"
There was a moment. Followed by another moment.
"I guess they'd have to call a lawyer?"
"Ok, so if the architect who supposedly designed the build came here right now, could they view any plans their name is on?"
"Well, only the owner can access the designs," this young civil servant said. "Is the architect the owner of the property?"
I spoke slowly.
"No. Ok, follow me here. If he designed the plan for this build, his stamp should be on it, right?"
The young man nodded in understanding.
"Ok, so if he designed the plan, but his stamp isn't on it, and the building was built anyway?"
"Well, it wouldn't be approved without his stamp because the permit department wouldn't clear it," the man-child said.
"And yet, the building was built and is currently occupied. Someone stamped the plan. Now, if the architect who designed it didn't stamp it…"
I was waiting for the boy to catch on. I was met with a sort of strange, dumb silence.
"…that means someone else stamped it…"
Come on, bud! Try!
"Riiiiight," the boy uttered. I had hope. Perhaps we were getting somewhere. "But only property owners can access the plans."
"Ok… I'm allowed to access permit information?"
"Yes. Those are public."
I handed him a list so long you could see I ruined his lunch plans.
The architect would have to lawyer up, and this entire process would cost more than the $12,000 he was stiffed.
Here’s a good lesson. City bureaucrats—you can rarely trust them to bend the rules.
At the end of the day, there was one property I focused on. The point was to focus on gathering evidence that this particular bad actor scoffed at municipal rules. The bad actor still had an open permit on it, meaning it hadn't been inspected by the city officials tasked with such work. That permit had been open for seven years.
I didn't love the idea of walking into this den of vipers. There were risks. And, honestly, like when I walk into a karaoke bar, and I know I have to sing, I get that moment of panic. It's not fear. It's unease. That feeling of, "What if I fuck this up and I look like a dumb ass?"
You get into your own head. Your brain knows that you've done this many times before, and it's gone well, so what could go wrong this time? This one is easy. This is "Ahead by Century" by The Tragically Hip. You've sung it 30 times, and you couldn't fuck this up if you tried. But you still get that feeling in your gut like you want to run away. You tell yourself that maybe you could take the long way and do this differently just to avoid the potential of an awkward moment.
I sing karaoke. Fuck it.
According to various city laws and building codes, the office location in question needed to be inspected for electrical and engineering work. In other words, it was not allowed to be used as an office space until the city inspector cleared it. That should have been done seven years ago.
I parked a block away, walked, and entered the building. I turned the corner and entered the office area that, technically and legally, should have been empty.
A pleasant person behind the front desk greeted me, “Hi!”
She was very bubbly. But to quote the eternal words of The Crash Test Dummies, “There’s a skeleton in everybody’s closet…”
I made some bullshit inquiry regarding “an online quote I had made,” and I hadn’t heard back, and I assumed they got it, but now I wasn’t sure, and time was ticking for this project my boss was working on, blah blah. It was all made up.
But she was very apologetic, and had the sales guy come out, and we walked to his little cubicle area. I counted about four cubicle sections, 3 offices with doors, a small break room, and the bathrooms. I counted about 13 different human beings working in this death trap of an uninspected fire hazard.
We sat for about 60 seconds as he tried to look up my online order under a fake name and phone number, which didn’t exist. That is when I “got a text” and said, “Sorry, it’s my wife. Give me a second.”
I stood up and made for the reception area.
“I’m just going to call her. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll try to find this order.”
After loud, “Hey! What’s up?” I walked and paused in front of the receptionist. Looked at my phone with a fairly big arm gesticulation (like I was a theatre actor performing Shakespeare), and again, quite loudly, “I don’t have any bars in here. Hold on, I’ll head outside.”
The receptionist smiled.
I mouthed, “I’ll be back.”
She mouthed, “Ok.”
I left the building and walked back to my car with the energy of Tom DeLonge in “What’s My Age Again” running naked through the street.
For a supposedly unoccupied office space that has yet to be cleared by the city, it was quite a busy little place.
Our client’s lawsuit is still ongoing.
I’ll just leave this here.