Echosec

Fantastic tool for investigators and researchers

Kommentare: Echosec has always worked well for me I have used the product during investigations while I was a police officer and now demonstrate it every time I conduct my OSINT training presentations. Interestingly for some reason a couple of years back I was lecturing in Australia when the product failed to work for me, after some research we put this down to the configuration of the local WIFI.

Vorteile:

I present Echosec during my training sessions as a great example of a simple tool to investigate social media posts. Echosec works easily with any of my favorite browsers and I can use it both on Windows and Apple Mac computers. Its ease of use and simple configuration options make it a perfect tool.

Nachteile:

I have found the login process previously a little confusing particularly during the period from older products to the latest version. As a trainer the old free app version giving Twitter and Flicker social media information was of particular use as I could get my delegates to log in and have a go.

I used Echosec's technology to compare a client with a competitor. Astounding additional insights!

Kommentare: This is a product which opens doors for discussions with other companies for me. Iotic Labs has a piece of middleware which forms part of a solution - providing secure interoperability - so the ability to connect with companies like Echosec is important to us as we have complementary capabilities. Any time that I am in discussion with a client and the conversation turns to accessing more diverse sources of information, I have the comfort of knowing that I can direct people to Echosec for a source of data that the client was perhaps not expecting. I'm aware that this tool could be generic, cutting across multiple sectors and situations. Therefore, in time, it will probably have different flavours for different uses. I was not aware at the time that all I would really use was the export tool to review emerging data over time. If this particular use becomes prevalent, then I expect that Echosec will create an interface that does just this, possibly with some analytics added to support this type of use. In a way I am not criticising, therefore - only saying that I am aware that there will be many more features and functionality added to this over time which will make my specific use of the product easier and enriched. Right now, however, it is perfectly functional.

Vorteile:

I was able to run comparisons on a daily basis to build up a picture over time as to how people were responding to their interactions with my client and their direct competitor. The most useful insights were actually about the different times of day that people were interacting with my client compared with the competitor. We were not expecting that at all. The ability to download and store this level of detail for analysis over time was extremely useful and very easy to use, and the ability to limit the output by location gave us great accuracy. The software is logical to use, and I can see the value of its use across multiple use cases.

Not Sure

Kommentare: Social media search to assist with threat assessments

Vorteile:

It appear to be helpful via demo, but on your own, got little too cumbersome

Nachteile:

Not being able to use functionality as demonstrated

Fantastic investigative tool

Kommentare: I've been using Echosec for a number of years as an investigator and in the classroom where I demonstrate its capabilities to delegates. It continues to develop, improve and assist me in the often complex and confidential investigations I become involved in.

Vorteile:

The graphical interface is easy to interpret and I have always found the tool intuitive.

Nachteile:

Occasional random results, but no system is infallible and a human should always verify the credibility of information anyway.

Essential for 21st century open source information and intelligence.

Kommentare: We used this to assist in initially understanding the digital information environment in a humanitarian disaster situation. Thereafter, we were able to rapidly identify those users still broadcasting, and those with "the loudest voice" through whom we could get humanitarian messages out to others. Echosec proved to be the number 1 tool during the initial stages and was vital in building a network of communicating influencers within a tightly geographically bounded environment.

Vorteile:

The extremely intuitive GUI that allows you to begin utilising the tool immediately, with minimal exposure or training.

Nachteile:

Difficult to think of anything at this stage