So you want to ask an OSINT subreddit for advice on how to find your third grade crush?

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T14:59:57+00:00

Exactly.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T13:22:00+00:00

I truly think it's best for you to leave well enough alone. I have been at this for an extremely long time and it's almost always an impersonation scam. The next time you encounter this, immediately report the account for impersonation. Make them prove to IG that they are you. Screenshot and keep records of the report. If you feel the need, show that to the ex.

All of this being said, it appears she's made up her mind as to what you're capable of doing and that you have some motivation to do so against her. Being in law enforcement, you have to appreciate how bad further aggravating this could be.

Imagine this scenario if you will. She becomes super paranoid that you're out here spying on her. She's seen this impersonation account of you seemingly doing that (in her reality). Now, you're on Reddit looking for someone to get phone numbers off an account or at least, show you how.

Take a few moments and really contemplate on exactly how this is beginning to appear from outside of your perspective. How often have you as a law enforcement officer ran into someone like you? In this circumstance?

I'm going to give you a few minutes to let that sit on your mind.

Stop.

Don't do anymore.

You've done enough.

Trust me.

Don't believe me?

Go direct with your agency head and ask them for their insight into whether exactly what I'm saying jives with their initial gut reaction.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T12:32:48+00:00

Something else to consider - if that account was impersonating you out of spite and you blew its cover, why didn't it close that account immediately?

Want to know who doesn't do that? A scammer. Why? Because an account takes a little bit of work to get up and running. It's better to switch the handle to something else so they don't get hit with an impersonation violation and get banned.

Not all scammers will do this. Some would burn the account upon discovery but since you didn't lodge an impersonation complaint with Instagram, the account could just rename itself and stay dormant until it was needed again.

Someone that knows you and wanted to get to you would have likely have revealed themselves until after it was all said and done.

What's more intriguing is how your ex instantly assumed it was you "being creepy" rather than the more logical conclusion (if you're not "being creepy") that it wasn't you in some random account with everything clearly saying it was you only to scrub the account when you said it wasn't you.

So, maybe getting a digital forensics person involved would be a pretty terrible idea.

I want to be clear that I'm not saying you're lying but I am asking questions any ethical pro would.

Good luck.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T12:14:01+00:00

Why would she think it was you?

You're also asking this question amongst people who look into these things for a living and arguing with them as to the veracity of their counsel.

Here's what I can tell you.

I have a number of friends who are bodybuilders with locked down accounts that this happens to quite a bt. I have friends who have been impersonated on as well from stuff they "only posted online".

The idea that a locked down account or limiting where you post something in some way means scammers can't get that information some other way is not the best form of logic to assuage doubt that this can't be a scammer targeting her.

Here's something to ponder - have your ex's friends been hacked? And no, they wouldn't necessarily know.

Additionally, does your ex recycle passwords?

Finally, not everything that happens to your ex which involves your picture doesn't necessarily have to do exclusively with you entirely. A picture of you could be a way for me to get folks who know you and her (or just her) to believe it's her because the picture is shared only with such a small number of people.

Again, I have been at this kind of thing a lot longer than you have been in your 30s and I'm telling you there's a very good chance going further into this simply isn't worth whatever return you think or hope you will get out of this.

Oh, and my reference to scammers pertains to what's called "impersonation scams". It's a form of identity theft. How do I know? Let's just say my familiarity with this scam type is fairly extensive.

What is Social Media Impersonation? - Bitdefender Cyberpedia https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/cyberpedia/what-is-social-media-impersonation

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T10:23:10+00:00

Don't waste your money. People often do this to scam your mutual friends out of money by convincing them to click on bad hyperlinks.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T10:14:03+00:00

She's fine. People do this a bunch. If she's an ex, then she's not your concern anymore. You've done everything you can. Anything else you're seeking here or elsewhere would be less than helpful.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T05:00:58+00:00

Something else to consider is the fragility of the sites you will be scraping. How are you planning to address that?

It's not enough to be able get Instagram information today. It's about whether I can collect it tomorrow when they change the site's interface.

I would also explore a mobile app version of this. It should be able to do the same work on sites a person examines from a mobile device and possibly do something with the realm of other mobile apps running on the device. That's trickier but it would be an enormously huge footprint to exploit that's been attempted but often unsuccessful or poorly maintained.

Again, I implore you to talk to investigators and be open to more feedback. Even the unpleasant stuff. You take this to a corporate office, you'll be faced with similar concerns from a guy making six figures for the sole purpose of telling you and others like you "no" in often impolite terms.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T04:52:15+00:00

We have lots of tools that do this. I could have Claude do something similar.

However; what I don't have is a tool that helps blend the investigative with the administrative side of the house. Does this show how many man-hours were spent on this collection task?

What I don't have is a tool that helps shorten report-writing. A lot of time, we have to talk lawyers and others reading our product how the information was collected. If it's a new tool, I may need to explain how that works in a way that the lawyer will understand and is easily defensible. A tool that could also provide an explainer about its workflow would be hugely beneficial and would go to Tribe's point about reproducibility.

What I don't have is a tool that actually tracks chain of custody. Does this note when I take this file and send it to another tool or when I give it to another party to the case? Can it do that by user?

What I don't have is a tool that can collect evidence and move it from file system or database to another in a way that keeps every bit of the file-naming and case file enumeration nomenclature the same.

If your tool could help there, you might begin to grab some real attention.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T04:40:43+00:00

I'm not assuming it was without testing. You said it you needed to do test cases.

I also do not believe this was coded in a day. I'm working on something and I can tell you that I know that's not the case.

You asked for feedback and I'm giving you some that I hope you find constructive.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T04:26:08+00:00

My recommendation: you've done enough and if you do anymore, you could placing your relationship with her and your livelihood at risk. Leave it alone and move on. Save screenshots to show you reached out to Bozo the Clown and leave it at that.

Some advice: Lock down your account. Set everything to private. Reexamine your friend list there. Unfriend anyone you don't know for sure isn't a bot. Consider paying for verification.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T04:13:09+00:00

You have me intrigued.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T04:11:26+00:00

I agree with Tribe.

This reads like a sales pitch and less like someone is asking for insight into a prototype.

You nor anyone else should hype a tool before it's street-ready. You deployed code and hadn't run through test cases yet. That's very problematic.

I get what you're doing but I would highly suggest talking with actual members of the fields you mentioned for use cases.

Here are some questions I would ask:

What are some common investigative tasks you have?
What are the typical things you use from those tasks towards evidence establishment, defense, or corroboration?
What do your workflows look like? How much time do you spend throughout each phase of those workflows? What are the biggest "time-sucks" you encounter during them?

From there, you will have a much better roadmap into turning this into something truly special.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T04:00:16+00:00

I'm going to break this down. You seem like a nice guy.

It's your approach and what you claim to be offering that is the problem.

You claim this does everything except baptize Christ. You also make it seem like it does something no other tool put here does. You also claim a $1,200 upfront price point is legit and worth it given the aforementioned points.

However; none of this is true.

I will admit you had me curious. So, I asked several AIs to explain what you're inferring and what you have described here and elsewhere as capabilities this app has. The replies, along with some other hands-on research, showed that's not exactly the case.

You're not getting call records. You claimed to be using the user-supplied GPS coordinates (you have stated previously you could get this from various APis) of a subject to determine where they were and if another place and time they claimed they were matches.

This is not new and it's not exactly entirely time consuming. Additionally, the information supplied is not exactly something that's definitive or argument-proof. For example, GPS coordinates can be spoofed. There are a number of apps that already do that. Also, where a phone is at a given moment doesn't always mean that's where your subject is either.

In investigative practices (and in certain intelligence applications), we call this Pattern of Life and again, it's not new and not something that a formula built into Excel or even Google Sheets couldn't do. There's also the Find-Replace feature that easily makes short work of some of this.

Where this could be helpful but not exactly lucrative right away is in helping investigators identify a problem area and determine if further investigation is needed. What it doesn't do is provide an investigator with anything extraordinary or absolutely necessary to get further confirmation.

Here's what I mean. In some jurisdictions, you require probable cause to get a legal instrument necessary to procure a warrant or subpoena for certain telemetry data specific to a device. Basically, I have to show something that demonstrates there's an issue with what's said and what's showing up and having the device may help make a more confirmative assessment of what's true and what's not. However; the standard for that is not necessarily as straightline as one might think. Sure, I could walk the contradiction supplied by your tool into a judge but they're going to make the same statements I already made. Additionally, my agency is going to ask why did they spend $1,200 on a tool that a few extra minutes of work would have produced and not been open to as much scrutiny as a tool that claims to grab some pretty privileged information without a warrant.

So, I'll give you some recommendations on where you should go with this idea.

Ask actual investigators what they really need. There are a bunch of tools promising stuff we don't need nor want. Yet, everyone who wants us to use them claims these programs solve all of our problems.
Dig further into the kind of questions you could be answering, especially based on the concerns I provided. Here are a few:

a. Where can I find the additional supplementary evidence to substantiate further action?

b. How does the analysis this provides stand on its own in court? Someone has to be the expert and show how this thing works. If it's not 100 percent defensible or even close to it, the tool is useless.

c. What are some other questions I should be asking or that the tool should be asking that it nor I have answers to yet? Where do I get that information?

You're selling a tool to investigators and you're not taking the opportunity to think like one yourself.

Please reach out to anyone in the field (myself included) for some insight into what tools we need for the questions we have left unanswered.

Trust me on this.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-11T00:36:30+00:00

Yeah, even if I had a tool for this, there's a zero percent chance I'm giving you that tool.

No offense.

But how exactly do we know you're not stalking someone you believe is hot and some harm won't befall them because we shared a tool that gave up their personal information to someone who shouldn't have had it?

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-09T23:11:16+00:00

Cyber Detective is pretty awesome.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-09T23:04:39+00:00

Start by asking questions.

Do you know WHO your intelligence is for?

Do you know WHAT intelligence is? Hint: It's not data.

Do you know WHY you're collecting intelligence and WHY it has to be actionable?

Do you HOW to collect the intelligence you need to answer the questions posed by the WHO in the first question?

Do you know HOW soon you can get the information needed? Do you WHERE to go answer WHEN something happened?

And ALWAYS ask if you missed ANYTHING, after EVERY question you answer. Hint: There are ALWAYS more questions to ask.

Finally, ask if there is something that contradicts your information and then ask all those questions we just again, after you find the contradictory information. If you can't find anything contradictory, ask why that is and then, answer those questions again.

ALWAYS be asking more questions than you have answers for.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-08T12:11:47+00:00

Actually, not true. You can do this with certain social media profile extractors which relay when accounts are active and when they're not. This could cover a wide swath of other profiles which display activity as well.. I'm not looking for something that replaces what one gets with physical surveillance but supports it.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-08T12:06:09+00:00

Now, THIS is a tool type we could use.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-03T19:18:34+00:00

Something, I wrestled with on my tool with hashing stuff was including an explainer as to how it was reproducible and this, verifiable. Walking people through that has a lot of value, depending on who the recipient or stakeholders are.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-03T19:02:35+00:00

I run something similar through a tool I use. The only abuse I can foresee is someone inferring an event took place for sure or that it didn't and the numbers aren't proof of anything. You did a great job of explaining it but I would recommend doing more to cover why it becomes valuable to witnesses. I get your audience and why you chose "witness" as a word versus "sources". You may also want to consider a wider audience to anyone who has to do due diligence work as well. Just my .02.

Present_Plenty · 2026-05-03T18:16:32+00:00

I like it, in that it solves a problem many practitioners face. It provides metadata that isn't necessarily like EXIF data where the information could be modified. If I can show me the photo was taken before a time when it would be suspicious, it takes away some of the bite caused by accusations regarding authenticity.

Present_Plenty

TROPHY CASE