Polaris Project / Trafficking Hotline: Intelligence Source Guide
Polaris runs the US National Human Trafficking Hotline and publishes the typologies derived from it: the most detailed open account...
Phone Number
Biometric Identifier: Data Point Intelligence Guide
Biometrics are the only identifier a person cannot change after it leaks. That single property should govern every decision you...
National ID Number: Data Point Intelligence Guide
A national ID number is the closest thing that exists to a primary key for a human being. It is...
Device / Advertising ID: Data Point Intelligence Guide
An advertising identifier was designed to be a resettable, privacy-preserving marketing token. In practice it became one of the most...
Social Profile: Data Point Intelligence Guide
A social profile is a persona's self-published intelligence report. The metadata around it is usually more truthful than anything written...
Physical Address: Data Point Intelligence Guide
A physical address is where the digital investigation touches the ground. It is also where thousands of shell companies quietly...
Phone Number: Data Point Intelligence Guide
A phone number is a globally routable identifier attached to a real contract and, increasingly, to every account a person...
Username / Handle: Data Point Intelligence Guide
People change platforms, phones and email providers. They almost never change the handle they picked at fifteen. That inertia is...
Email Address: Data Point Intelligence Guide
An email address is an account key, a routing instruction and a reputation record in one string. It is also...
Person / Name: Data Point Intelligence Guide
A name is the weakest identifier in intelligence work and the one most likely to end a career when handled...
Legal Intelligence (LEGINT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
Litigation is an involuntary disclosure engine. Adversaries in court say, under oath and on the public record, what they will...
Criminal Intelligence (CRIMINT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
Criminal intelligence is not case notes with better formatting. It is the discipline that turns scattered incidents into an articulable...
Telephony Intelligence (TELINT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
A phone number is a routing address issued under a published plan, not a person. Telephony intelligence extracts everything the...
Identity Intelligence (IDENT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
Identity resolution fails in two directions and only one of them is visible. A missed link costs you the investigation;...
Email Intelligence (EMAILINT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
An email address is three things at once: an identifier, a routing instruction and a piece of infrastructure history. Email...
Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
Social platforms record behaviour, not truth: what was posted, when, by an account, to an audience. Social media intelligence keeps...
Human Intelligence (HUMINT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
Human intelligence is the only discipline where the source can be harmed by your success. Every rule in the tradecraft...
Financial Intelligence (FININT): Intelligence Discipline Guide
Follow the money is a cliche because it works. Financial intelligence is the discipline of following value through the institutions...
Transnational Repression: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
A dissident's family is visited at home, an INTERPOL notice appears, and a spyware link arrives by messenger, all within...
Counter-Terrorism: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
Attack planning leaves a logistics trail before it leaves an ideological one: a rented van, a chemical purchase, a reconnaissance...
Fraud & Identity: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
The synthetic identity that just passed your onboarding checks has a credit file, a utility bill and eighteen months of...
Kidnap, Hostage & Extortion: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
A kidnap-for-ransom market has a price list, a broker layer and a settlement rail. Treat it as an economy rather...
Gangs & Street Crime: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
Retaliation after a stabbing is usually measured in days, sometimes hours. The intelligence question is not who did it but...
Human Trafficking: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
Very few trafficking victims arrive at a police station and describe themselves as trafficked. What arrives first is a wage...
Organized Crime: Mission Domain Intelligence Guide
Organised crime leaves paperwork. Not confessions, but a notary who appears in eleven unrelated share transfers, a haulage firm with...
