National security, influence operations, and technology — reported from public records and OSINT.
We gather information of potential interest to the public, turn raw records into original reporting, and distribute it to our audience.
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FBI Leak Affidavit’s Dates Match Aída Chávez’s CIA-Israel Stories at Capital & Empire
An FBI affidavit against CIA contractor Ian A. Brinksman names only “Individual 1.” Its article dates match Capital & Empire, Aída Chávez’s Marxist-lens outlet.
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FOIA Request Guide: Records That Show How Federal Agencies Work
Four record types worth requesting under FOIA: Pentagon inspector general weekly reports that count 559 subpoenas in one quarter, agency-held White House email, distribution lists, and intranet pages.
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ISIS’s al-Naba Claims an Iraqi General and a Nigerian Camp Commander in Issue 570
The Islamic State’s weekly newspaper took credit for a Kirkuk bomb that Iraq blamed on leftover ISIS explosives and for a deadly Yobe ambush. Here is what it claimed, and what officials and reporters say.
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Handala’s Livni Phone “Leak” and the Signature Reduction Requirements of War
An Iran-linked persona leaked a former Israeli foreign minister’s texts and contacts. What it proved, what it spun, and what officials should strip from their digital signature.
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‘$50 Million Per Day’: Feds Say the Miami Broker Behind ‘TheAlienEx’ Worked for a Russian Laundering Network
A DEA affidavit says Pavel Kulizhnikov used the Telegram handle @TheAlienEx_manager while brokering cash-for-crypto deals for the “JUST Team.” The public TheAlienEx channel that sends customers to that handle advertises cash exchange between Moscow and Miami.
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From $10 Million Bounty to the Oval Office: The Record Behind Julani’s Rebrand
Abu Muhammad al-Julani, now Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, went from a $10 million U.S. bounty to a White House visit in less than a year. DIA files released under FOIA, geolocated Idlib photos, and human rights reports show what came before the politician.
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SOCOM Promised ‘Close Coordination’ for Its Online Psyops Hub. Pentagon Watchdogs Found the Gaps.
Records released under the Freedom of Information Act trace the Pentagon’s online influence work from theater-level web cells to SOCOM’s Joint MISO WebOps Center, and show what inspectors general found when they checked the coordination it was supposed to deliver.
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Inside Samolet, the Russian Homebuilder the EU Says Used North Korean Workers
The EU sanctioned Samolet Group and its chief executive on October 12, 2026, saying the homebuilder used North Korean workers in Vladivostok. City video, NK News, and Samolet’s own filings show the site, the workers, and what followed the listing.
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The White House Cyber Office Blacked Out Its Huawei, TikTok, and Kaspersky Slides. The Laws Behind Them Are Public.
FOIA releases from the Office of the National Cyber Director withhold 20 of 24 slides in a 2021 supply-chain briefing and most of a 2023 legislative tracker. The authorities they cover, and the classified cyber and counterterrorism memos beside them, are in the public record.
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An Iraqi Bank Sponsored Baghdad’s Anti-Money-Laundering Conference. Treasury Says It Sent Iran Dollars Every Month.
In May 2025, Baghdad’s International Development Bank was the “diamond sponsor” of a conference on fighting money laundering. On October 15, 2026, Treasury sanctioned it, saying it sends Iran its profits in U.S. dollars every month.
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The Tech-Support Scam Infoblox Exposed Is Still Running, From a Server Not on Its List
Six days after Infoblox exposed Help TDS, its Telegram channel was still announcing new addresses for fake “Microsoft” lock screens, and its redirect domain pointed to a Frankfurt server missing from the indicator list. The business traces to ROI777 in 2017.
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Panama Law Firm Was Tied to Iran’s Shadow Fleet Three Years Before Treasury Sanctioned It
Lloyd’s List tied Karnakis and Karnakis to ships carrying Iranian gas in November 2023. By the time Treasury sanctioned the Panama law firm on October 21, 2026, OFAC had already sanctioned at least seven companies tied to it. Where the allegations came from, how openly the firm operated, and its ships now.
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Treasury Sanctioned Whales Shipping Line. Its Company Profile Still Names Its Staff.
Treasury blocked the small Dubai ship agent on October 21, 2026, for supporting a Singapore port agent tied to Iran’s shadow fleet. Its own company profile lists its offices and staff contacts; its two blocked boats are harder to pin down.
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Op-Ed Pegasus Took a Phone’s Past. AI Makes It Attributable
NSO’s own Pegasus 3.0 product description, filed in the WhatsApp case, pitches pulling a phone’s full history. AI makes that past the key to attribution.
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Signal Encryption Stops at the Endpoint
sigtop unlocks Signal Desktop’s local store. E2EE is not endpoint security. Messages, media, group membership and UUIDv4 ACIs are the collection surface.
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Redacted, Not Useless: FOIA Logs as OSINT Pivots
A redacted EUCOM watch log and a DoD Inspector General case log show how FOIA records become OSINT pivot points: what a command tracked and which files to pull.
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Old Secrets, New Leads: DIA’s Islamic Jihad Files as OSINT
DIA reports on Palestinian Islamic Jihad from 2001 and 2005, once classified up to SECRET//NOFORN, map its cells, Damascus command and Iranian money.
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Hexane’s AfD Dump: Assessing the Actor, the Scope, and the Access
Three-part assessment of Hexane’s AfD dump: a privacy-focused cyber actor, a 281 GB archive of ~421,000 emails across ten mailboxes, and how deep the system access went.
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Operation Lonestar Roundup: Tracing the Gmail Accounts DOJ Tied to North Korea’s Texas Laptop Farms
The Justice Department published eleven Gmail addresses it says North Korean IT workers used after FBI searches of more than forty Texas laptop farms. The full list, traced through the court order to Google. No one has been charged in Texas yet.
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From ‘E-Commerce Agent’ to ‘Machiaveli’: Feds Say Spokane Man Mailed ‘Medallin Cartel’ Cocaine
On LinkedIn, Salim Ghulam Nabi called himself an Instagram agent and e-commerce owner. A postal inspector’s affidavit says he also ran Machiaveli, a darknet store that sold cocaine branded “Medallin cartel” through the mail.
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Sanctioned Over Hamas Fundraising, Gaza Now Is Still Collecting on Telegram
Treasury sanctioned Gaza Now in 2024. Its Telegram channel has since grown to 1.1 million subscribers and still asks for money. A San Diego charity whose chief executive is charged with aiding Hamas ran its crypto donation rail.
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‘Did Not Wish to Create Panic’: FOIA Records Rebuild the Official Story of the Kabul Evacuation
A State Department inspector general review released under FOIA, and the Navy chief’s own August 2021 emails, show what officials planned, knew, and did as Afghanistan fell. Much of it is still blacked out.
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How to FOIA the Situation Room: One Request Pried Loose Thousands of Obama-Era Photos
A Freedom of Information Act request to the Obama Presidential Library freed 3,951 Situation Room photographs and 3,851 files, with the metadata to match. How it was written, what came back and how to file your own.
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Crowdfunding’s Hamas Problem: A Gaza Fundraiser’s Telegram Badge Leads to an Al-Qassam Chat
Two Chuffed pages raised $12,948 and $6,736 for a Gaza man whose Telegram status badge traces to a chat named for al-Qassam, Hamas’s armed wing. One organizer said the money would reach him “probably via PayPal or a crypto wallet.”
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Subpoena, Order, Warrant: How the Government Gets Your Data
Two FOIA releases, one from House committees and one from the Navy’s criminal investigators, show what a subpoena can demand, what it can’t, and where a judge has to step in.
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Inside the FBI’s CAST Guide: How Carriers and Agents Pin Down a Cell Phone
A 2019 FBI field guide, a public NDCAC briefing and an FCC order show how a phone can be made to reveal where it is, how precise the answer is, and where the law steps in.
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Iran Says It Rules Hormuz. Its “Mine Strike” Stories Keep Falling Apart.
The Revolutionary Guards say a rule-breaking supertanker hit one of their mines near Hormuz on Oct. 20. They named no ship, no one outside Iran has confirmed it, and their last version of the story matched descriptions of a tanker hit by a projectile at anchor inside the Gulf.
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How to FOIA an Official’s Browser History, SharePoint Files and Teams Messages
A seven-step guide to finding an agency’s SharePoint, naming a custodian and requesting web logs, documents and Teams messages under FOIA, with Secret Service records as the worked example.
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DHS Lawyers Wrote 24 Pages on Buying Your Phone’s Location Data. They Withheld Every Page of the Analysis.
A 2020 Homeland Security legal opinion weighed whether CBP and ICE could use advertising-ID location data without a warrant. Released under the Freedom of Information Act, it comes back as a cover page and 23 pages stamped “(b)(5).”
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Jailed, Purged, Still Shipping: How ISIS Media Survives the Takedowns
A life sentence for its lead narrator and server seizures across Europe and North America have not stopped the Islamic State’s weekly newspaper. Public records show how its online tradecraft adapted: disposable domains, self-hosted chat, a privacy coin, and an archive built never to forget.
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CEFC, PLA Base 311, and the Long Gap from FBI Surveillance to Designation
FBI agents were watching a Confucius Institute in Texas by November 2008; the State Department designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center in August 2020. In between, CEFC China Energy’s own filings and outside studies tying it to PLA Base 311 were public. CEFC China Energy, Part 1.
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North Korea’s Fake IT Workers: Thin Covers, Borrowed Lives
Most of the eleven Gmail accounts DOJ tied to North Korean IT workers in Operation Lonestar Roundup had thin covers: job-tool sign-ups, empty Google Maps profiles, and new accounts. One rode what looks like a real American’s long online history.
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Op-Ed The Only Public Map of CENTCOM’s War Orders Is Dated 2022
A FOIA-released “Anvil Chart” from 2022 is the only public map of the orders behind CENTCOM’s operations, and most of it is withheld. As the Iran war runs on Article II letters, modernization has to start with the authorities.
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Your Taxes, Their Target List: Following NED Money Into Ukraine’s Online Info-Ops Web
A $100,000 NED grant went to Prometheus in 2016 for investigations published on InformNapalm, not to Myrotvorets. InformNapalm shares mail servers with Myrotvorets, a digital target list that names Americans and runs “psyops” code.
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25 Pages of Press Clips: Leak Shows How Thin White House Vetting Really Was
Leaked 2016 transition files show the White House screened top appointees with newspaper clippings. A 25-page Giuliani research file shows how thin it was, and what a real background investigation covers.
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Alleged Saudi Spy List Leaked by Houthi-Tied Group, and Their Phones Do the Rest
A hacker group allegedly tied to the Houthis dumped what it calls a roster of Saudi intelligence officers and stations. The files may be doctored, but the phone numbers in them lead to homes, cars, and app accounts in minutes.
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Whose Coffee? An Anti-Bot Developer’s Handle Turns Up on Archive.today’s Donate Link
An anti-bot developer known as glizzykingdreko runs Takion API, a commercial bot-check bypass service. His donation page appeared in Archive.today’s donate link from August 2025 to October 2026. He now disclaims any tie.
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Heather Zhang Case: OSINT Trail From a 2024 Reddit Allegation
Charged, not convicted: Wanying "Heather" Zhang is accused as an unregistered PRC agent. Reddit named Fatai Miao. CBS: Individual 1. DOJ has not accused him.
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Christopher W. Burns: Public Google Maps Activity Dated After His Last Sighting, Wayne, PA Area
A Maps account allegedly attributed to Burns shows Wayne and Wynnewood, PA activity (~2021, ~2023) after his September 24, 2020 last sighting.
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From Public Lead to Identifier Graph
Manual graphs burn hours on review and markup. Automation over-expands with false-positive nodes. Here is how to keep an identifier graph scoped, evidenced, and usable.
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About OctoProbe News
OctoProbe News is an investigative desk published by Redwing Technologies LLC. We source every claim to the public record, label what is proven and what is not, redact personal data, and correct our errors in public. Read our Editorial Standards, see the masthead, or send a tip to press@octoprobe.ai.