What is Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) - Part 5 | Sock Puppet

What is Sock Puppet in OSINT

Hi everyone. As promised, I am continuing on the OSINT topic about Sock Puppet. So what is Sock Puppet?

Definitely not this puppet

In OSINT, a sock puppet is merely a carefully crafted fictitious social media account used for covert OSINT investigation. This type of account can be utilized by investigators, detectives, hackers, police, journalists, and anyone else who wishes to impersonate another individual.

Now you're likely to believe that creating a false account is a simple task.

Well, it's not as simple as it sounds; a successful sock puppet must be credible and consistent with the online behavior of the actual person. Sock puppets have actual names, phone numbers, addresses, photographs, credit card numbers, social media profiles, friends, etc.

Let’s see what is the purpose of the sock puppets.

Purpose of Sock Puppets

Sock puppets can be used in various ways such as:

1. In some cases, investigators can use sock puppets to find out information and do research.
2. Hackers can use fake accounts to trick the target into giving them the information they want.
3. Detectives can use these kinds of accounts to find out about people involved in their cases and find out what kind of person they are.

In general, sock puppets are used to get information about someone or to check up on them without them knowing. It can be used by anyone in any way they want.

 

 

Best Practices on Creating Sock Puppets

 

A perfect sock puppet will never be traced back to the person who made it. Following are some best practices when creating sock puppets.

1. You have to use VPN or TOR to create the account so that it doesn't record your original IP address or location.
2. Creating an account is also best done by connecting to any public Wi-Fi. Make sure you always use the same network to log in to that account. Never, ever make a sock account with your own IP address. 
3. You need to create a good fictitious profile which includes name, phone number, age, credit card and email address. You can use FakeNameGenerator as example to generate a fake profile.
4. You may need a face for image verification. You can use This Person Does Not Exist by refreshing the website until you are satisfied with your face. 
5. You may need a burner phone or sim card. Burner phone or sim card refers to the use of a phone or sim card that is not connected to you and exclusively for the dummy account.