Investigator515 - An Introduction

1. What do you currently do, and what’s your favorite part about it?

I run the Investigator 515 blog, which posts educational and analysis content. In the background, we are also developing a scam-busting website that’s designed to put search and tracking tools into the hands of the people that need them at a reasonable price.

And, because I love being busy, I also have an ongoing development of AV, an embedded platform that’s designed from the ground up to perform electronic counter surveillance as well as detect and classify devices of interest.

I should probably mention here that I’m a career investigator who’s spent my life before this working in the field. I love working in tech because there are so many smart brains working on many different things.

It’s fascinating to see projects coming to life and people troubleshooting development issues to achieve their success.

2. How did you get started with your Tech Career?

I left college before completing my Electrical Engineering degree because even though I enjoyed what I did, I didn‘t feel the spark or passion toward it that made me think I’d enjoy it after graduation.

After facing a life crisis, I decided to put my Open Source Intelligence skills on steroids as a distraction. During this time, I came across the TryHackMe website and found myself on a road into Bug Bounty programs, and the rest is history.

By the way, I probably should blame a huge chunk of this on amateur radio.

Using Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone boards gave me my introduction to Linux, APRS on an old router was my first general introduction to hardware hacking, and SDR/Spectrum Analysis showed me how to detect and identify signals of interest around me.

It’s not all you need, but it sure is a good start.

3. If Utopia were a color what color do you think it’d be and why?

Blue. Because the ocean is blue, and that’s as close as we’ll get to utopia on Earth as far as I’m concerned.

4. If everything about HackerNoon changed drastically, what is one detail you’d like to keep exactly the same?  OR What’s your favorite thing to do with HackerNoon and why?

Browsing user-developed and submitted content. I like reading submitted pieces for the writing competitions and learning about new tools and developments. There are a lot of smart contributors writing articles for HackerNoon, and it’s a great place to find both info about technology and the latest up-and-coming hackers and creators.

It also never ceases to amaze me, the ingenuity of the hacking community. There’s a niche for everyone if you’re that way inclined.

5. Tell us more about the things you write/make/manage/build!

We write about open-source intelligence, investigative tools, and also provide training content that pairs with our search website. We also love showing others how to use the terminal and command line effectively, so much so we are writing another book about it!

And we also spoke before about AV, our electronic counter surveillance toy we are developing. He’s been nicknamed “Snoopy” because he has the ability to see the unseen. Snoopy can be used to detect tracking devices and optical surveillance devices quickly, easily, and without fuss.

As you can see, I like to be busy and working on things that interest me, and I’m not scared of being busy.

We also appreciate and draw inspiration from the work of groups like Bellingcat and share similar goals in wanting to educate and enlighten people on how to follow where the facts go rather than pushing an agenda.

6. What’s your favorite thing about the internet?

The fact that, as an OSINT investigator, I don’t need to know it all; I just need to know where to look for information. I love that I can post a picture of an unknown device and receive a breakdown of what it is and how it works.

Or that if I simply have to have an answer for that fact, I can ask a history expert or make a community post. Or maybe I’m troubleshooting a device and need some assistance.

And don’t even get me started talking about the impacts of AI and Machine Learning changing the way we view productivity and technology.

Lastly, the internet is unique in the way it can both bring people together and divide them all at the same time.

7. It’s an apocalypse of ‘walking dead’ proportions and you can only own a singular piece of technology, what would it be?

Solar Powered CyberDeck, of course. Something rugged and reliable with an offline copy of Wikipedia. And possibly all seasons of Walking Dead as my media for…survival tips. And some games because there is no life without games.

8. What is your least favorite thing about the internet?

Sockpuppets and Propaganda. We get it, it’s as old as time itself, and the cyber realm is a cheap, effective way to push soft power if you’re that way inclined. Personally, we’d like the internet a lot more if people fact-checked things before they took them as true.

9. If you were given $10 million to invest in something today what would you invest in and why?

Cryptocurrency and AI development. Both are much-needed tools for humanity. Crypto for a decentralized way of trading and using currency that isn’t linked to a traditional bank and has less of an ability to be controlled by a single person or entity.

And AI because the impact this new tech will have on humanity at large is as yet undetermined. In the right hands, AI and LLM have the power to change humanity and how we engage with the world around us.

10. What’s something you’re currently learning or excited to learn?

Without a doubt, AI. It’s exciting to watch AI tech be miniaturized and achieve the capacity to be run locally in a system similar to GPT that has legitimate network connectivity.

The effect this will have on everything from web development to pen testing/bug bounty right through to military power I think is not yet fully understood, but the ramifications of it being in the everyday world will be huge.

Cyber research and signals identification also get a nod; they are such broad fields that you could study them for years and never stop learning.

11. Would you rather travel 10 years into the past or 10 years into the future? Give reasons for your answer.

10 years into the past for sure. I think having future knowledge in 2013 would have been a wild ride. With everything that’s happened, I think anyone with that insight would have been amazed at what’s to come.

Besides, bitcoin prices were good back then; I could have done with that knowledge sooner and kept mining.

12. Tell us a little about your website project.

The website project came together after looking at two things. The seriously useful range of tools and software available, as well as a noticeable increase in generalized scams in the post covid era.

Hiring an actual investigator can be a costly leap for some people, and we didn’t want people to have to accept a lower level of security because of that.

So, Catfisher is under development. It’ll provide usable point and investigative tools streamlined for use, along with tutorials to use them where needed with the hopes it safeguards people against online scams and catfishing.

We’d like people to have the option to do things themselves so they can make their own choices rather than having to hire someone, and Catfisher is the first step for us in providing the resources to make that happen.