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Language: en
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hi everyone and welcome back to this
series on how to do open-source
investigations from home I'm Ben and
this is part 20 so let's get
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started in this tutorial we're going to
focus on exploring the B wide world of
image reverse search tools and we're
going to go through the practicalities
and capabilities of various tools that
have been designed to help us dive
deeper into the origins and occurrences
and context around images so whether
you're an investigative journalist a
researcher an open-source intelligence
Specialist or simply an Enthusiast just
keen on unraveling the details behind an
image
this tutorial aims to provide that
comprehensive understanding of how to
use these tools for investigations and
research
purposes in this tutorial I'm going to
use two examples one is a satellite
image from the Daily Mail so sources
like this often have to be fact checked
or or research to get a little more
context as to what's behind them but
also an image from my Twitter account
which is a face and this face is
actually artificially generated and was
used as part of a disinformation
campaign or an influence operation in
2020 that I researched so let's start
with the first one which is Google image
reverse search many of you who have been
watching my channel probably know about
this tool already you might have seen it
pop up in one or two of my videos in
order to use Google Google image reverse
search it's super simple I've taken a
screenshot of that satellite image that
I'm using as my first example and I'm
simply going to click the button on the
far right here of the Google search box
called search by image which allows me
to upload a file I've uploaded my
screenshot of the satellite image and
you can see it appear there on the left
and you can see some of those images on
the right there that look pretty pretty
close to what I'm after the first one is
the link back to the Daily Mail which is
where I took this image from but we also
have some other images even from
different angles we have this second
result which looks to be extremely
similar but we even have this one that
appears to be from NASA so I'll click on
this link because it's a bit more of a
trustworthy link and we can see that
that has has actually come up with the
exact same result that we're originally
looking at this water or body of water
that actually looks kind of like a bit
of a head with a high set of hair at the
front perhaps and we can see that same
image here which appears to be Lake NEOS
in Cameroon and this is super
interesting because we can actually see
different types of the image here and we
can also pull a Geo if which is the
satellite imagery in its raw version so
that was very easy doing that one but
what if we wanted to search for the
exact image itself so Google image
reverse search or Google Lens actually
has this function built into it which is
find image source and if we click on
this one we can see multiple copies of
the image and where else it's popped up
so say for example while the Daily Mail
posted it on one Monday we also have New
York breaking we have what appears to be
perhaps the same article with the same
images same as on the 29th of May what's
new today also has the the same one as
well so quite interesting to see that
and that really helps us search for the
source of an exact image not just images
like it if we try the same thing on
Yandex that's super easy just like
Google image of our search we have a
little icon with the camera we simply
click on that we can select the file and
upload that screenshot that we have and
again we have a number of other
examples because Yandex is actually a
Russian search engine we'll get a lot of
results in Russian but also uh
references to potential Russian websites
or Russian language Services of
different sites so we can see some of
these listed there under Yandex if we
click similar images we can go through
those and see that and it's quite
interesting because the similar images
bring up many other bodies of water that
look to be extremely similar or
similarly shaped to the one that we're
originally after another one that we can
use is called teni and this is quite a
popular image reverse search platform
and again super easy to use all we do is
is upload the image to this one it does
a search and we have a couple of results
that have popped up on Tini as well but
you can see that the results that have
popped up on both Google and Yandex are
far more in both diversity of similarity
of images but also more of the exact
same images uh than what popped up on
Tini of course Bing so Microsoft Bing
also competes in this realm and has a
image reverse search function as well so
it has a very similar aspect to how
Google and Yandex works by search using
an image that little button there and
again we can upload an image into that
search box and have a look for related
content this seems to bring up similar
results in comparison to Yandex and
Google it also breaks down a couple of
little tabs so for example we have pages
with this image and then we can also see
related content Bing is also quite
interesting because we have the function
to do uh a crop image Yandex also has
this as well and it allows us to ship
that image or search for things within
that image the next one we're going to
look at is BYU which is a Chinese search
engine and also delivers a varying
degree of results as well similarly to
Yandex this is language based and also
country specific primarily providing
Chinese results it works in the same way
that it has the little camera icon and
you can upload a image there as well as
you can see with BYU it's actually given
us some different results to what we had
on
Yandex and also what we had from Google
image reverse search and some of these
results are interesting they bring up
videos and bits of content that wasn't
necessarily popping up in Yandex or
Google as well so really helpful if
you're trying to look for different
aspects that might be coming from China
or in languages that are not necessarily
searched within the image reverse search
engines of Google or Yandex or Bing some
more smaller and less used tools are
stock image platforms so say for example
gy images uh actually has a function and
the gety image reverse search also
allows you to search for that content
obviously the Google Earth image is not
going to pop up but it does bring up a
number of satellite images as well as
aerial images and that's interesting
given the kind of wider availability of
aerial photography and satellite imagery
the same applies to shutter stock as
well which is another provider of stock
imagery you can also use this to search
for images and you you notice the
similarity between the results you would
get on gy and the results you would get
on shutter stock we also have Alami
which works in the same way as Google
and Yandex and is also a stock photo uh
provider as well as aerial photography
and satellite imagery and we can see
some different images even of this one
so it goes to show that I've kind of
ranked these in order of usefulness my
first go-to option is always Google
Google lens and find image source and
then Yandex as well to get the most
results depending on my research subject
so if I was looking at say uh China
specifically or China related issues I
would use BYO for that aspect because
you can see that we have stock image
providers specifically gy which is why
used by news outlets if you have footage
of a protest or specific events within
the news it's very useful to upload that
image into here and to reverse search
that to get more context such as
location capture time and things like
that if you wanted to cross reference
that for details so now we'll go back to
the second example which is our friendly
face over here our friendly artificially
generated face this was actually from a
platform called this person does not
exist and is the reason why chose to use
this face rather than going through all
of the platforms I'm going to stick with
the main three that I just went through
Google Yandex and BYU and I'm going to
do that by right clicking and using some
of the tools I have embedded so the
first one is search image with Google
and you can see that that image
there's a lot of similar images however
that one image pops up here as the
Belling cut article that I wrote in 2020
that research piece there that image
didn't really give us too much and just
basically took us to the source where
the link is used which is quite
interesting because it doesn't link the
Twitter source as well I've done the
same image reverse search on Yandex as
well and I think this is where it gets
to be a little bit more more interesting
so first of all instead of Google which
only showed one link we have a few
different links so we have one to
Twitter one to threader app uh and one
to another website that use the image
but what's interesting about this one is
that many of the similar images appear
to be much more different to what you
would get on Google and that's because
Yandex has a better facial recognition
system but also a better system at
bringing up similar faces or similar
images you'll notice that Google many of
the images here focus on sports hats or
what it believes to have been a sports
hat in the original image it shows
different faces in different pointing in
different directions whereas the one on
Yandex is quite interesting because it
shows other faces facing forward now
don't forget this is an artificially
generated face so I thought it might be
interesting to look at some of these
images on yendex here for example we
have a face here with what appears to be
a very odd bit of text up on here but
also appears to have long hairs coming
out of here and some warping happening
over here and oddly shaped here ear and
oddly shaped ear and even has a yellow
piece of fabric or clothing over here
but then a different color over here
personally I think this is a
artificially generated image it happens
it claims to be a 40-year-old person
from Kazakhstan on a dating website it
looks like we might have a couple of
these images floating around that might
be also artificially generated which is
a very interesting aspect of Yandex is
that some of these images have actually
during the image reverse search have
caught perhaps more artificially
generated images as a result of reverse
searching an artificially generated face
I've also done an image reverse search
on BYO which gives completely different
examples as you can see this one focuses
on the blue hat and faces working or
pointing towards the same direction so
very different from Yandex in the kind
of delivery but you can see the
difference between the recommended
images of Google
the recommended images of Yandex which
even brought up some of the fake faces
that failed to blur properly and don't
have the writing on the hats and then
BYO which brings up very different faces
as well in wrapping up this tutorial
we've gone through a number of the
prominent image reverse search tools and
having a look at each of the distinct
features and specializations and
specifically the the differing results
that each of them come up with the tools
that we've looked at are indispensable
assets for researchers across various
fields and and really help you to
uncover intricate details but also
verify the authenticity of an image or
extract more information about an image
and what's actually happening in that
event I hope that this tutorial helps
and is a valuable resource for you and
if you found it helpful please consider
leaving a comment for your favorite tool
or leaving a comment with an
investigation or research piece you may
have used it in or even simply sharing
it with a colleague that might find it
useful thank you so much for joining
this session and I'll see you in the
next
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