INT-17 OSINT Basics for Ground-Level Collectors

INT-17: OSINT Basics for Ground-Level Collectors

Finding, collecting and judging public information about your area, without special tools.

Why This Course

BLUF: Most of what a MAG needs to know about its area is already public: road closures, outages, shortages, weather, local decisions. The gap is discipline, not access. This course teaches ground-level open-source collection with nothing more than a browser and a notebook: turning a requirement into a question, knowing where the answers live, running a short, recorded session, judging what you find before it spreads, and writing a report a decision-maker can act on. It draws on ATP 2-22.9, DoDI 3115.12 and Nico Dekens’s Thinking in OSINT. Collection stays on events and places, never on private people.

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

  • Turn one of the group’s EEIs into a written question with a definition of done.
  • Build a source register that names the few public sources most likely to answer it.
  • Run a time-boxed collection session with a record a teammate could retrace, and stop on time.
  • Judge an item’s provenance, rate it, test whether its corroboration is really independent, and check when it happened.
  • Write an open-source report: bottom line first, every line with claim, evidence and confidence.

Lessons 01–05

Lesson 01

What OSINT Is, for a MAG

The ATP 2-22.9 definition, why every search starts with a question, known, assumed and unknown, and the line.

Lesson 02

Source Identification

Six source families, the OSINT Guide’s layers, two layers per EEI, the 80/20 rule, and a source register.

Lesson 03

Collection Discipline

Question first, time box, record as you go, saving things that vanish, stop rules, and collecting without engaging.

Lesson 04

Evaluating What You Find

Provenance, the FFTP ratings, the corroboration ladder, checking dates, manipulated content, confidence language.

Lesson 05

Capstone: From Search to Report

Claim, evidence, confidence; plain verbs; one EEI end to end into a report for the SITREP or the DTR.

How This Course Works

Format Five online lessons, each with knowledge checks you must answer correctly to continue
Sequence Lessons unlock in order; progress is saved in the browser you use
Prerequisite None. INT-12 (requirements and EEIs) is recommended; INT-17 is the prerequisite for INT-18
Tools None beyond a browser and a notebook
Capstone One EEI taken from question to a one-page open-source report
Certificate Unlocks on the Course Map once all five lessons are complete

Start the Course →

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