For the Weekend Warriors, Weirdos & Whackjobs - Issue #93
Morning. Good? Bad? You tell me.
I’d tell you we’ve been up to something new, but honestly? Same old.
What We Wrote
For paid subscribers this week, and going out to everyone next week, A Free OSINT Lesson: Being a Defense Attorney is Hard. Boilerplate, Fruit of the Poison Tree, a damn .AV file. Public defenders are drowning in discovery dumps full of extinct file formats and missing instructions. MJ takes you inside a recent case where the difference between justice and defeat came down to finding an old decoder in a forgotten PDF.
This one’s live for all, OSINT for an Actual Dummy: A 2024 Retrospective. OSINT tumbled into Kennedy’s life on Twitter one morning when a flood of curious followers turned into a full‑blown investigation. From being doxxed to embracing the power of curiosity and logical digging, this retrospective shows us how our mundane everyday tools can be the roots of powerful investigation.
What Justin Recommends
An Unconstitutional ‘Jim Crow Jury’ Sent Him to Prison for Life. A New Law Aims to Keep Him There. by Richard A. Webster in ProPublica. A rage-inducing article on how Louisiana is the last State to use split juries to keep people behind bars.
FOIA Inc. by Margaret B. Kwoka. From the abstract, “This Article provides the first in-depth academic study of the commercial use of FOIA, drawing on original datasets from six federal agencies.” An eye-opener for all of us who use public records in our work, and how commercial interests are polluting the process.
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons — when Stephen King says Simmons writes like a, “hot-rodding angel,” he means it. For those who loved Stephen King’s IT or the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things, you must read this rural horror-thriller. A true work of art in the genre that left a lasting impression on me.
$OrphanFiles May Not Be What You Think by Jeff Hamm — with a nod to Shafik Punja for sharing this one. We always find it maddening when esoteric pieces of digital evidence are put in front of a Court. Even more so when an “expert” can’t testify to their origin. Or they make shit up. It’s why Shafik’s post still remains our most-read. There’s a lot of bullshit out there in digital forensics, and we need to kill it with fire.
That ought to carry you through the weekend, though really, you should take a nap and rest those weary eyes. Make a cup of tea, why don’t ya. Treat yourself to something indulgent or relaxing, and meet us again when you feel like it. We’ll be here.
Until next time,
Your Bullshit Hunting Crew