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Who am I?

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” 

  • Confucius

 

“Privacy is the right to a free mind.”

  • Edward Snowden

 

“My name’s Felix Leiter,’ said the American. ‘Glad to meet you.’

“Mine’s Bond— James Bond.”

  • Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

My name is Makowski. Maciej Makowski, although nearly every English speaker calls me ‘Matt’, unwilling to grapple with the ambiguity of pronouncing a Slavic name.

I was born in Poland, but some time in the past I made a life changing decision to move to Ireland.

There, in 2007, I joined An Garda Siochana, Ireland’s National Police and Security Service. I was the first foreign national ever to join the organisation, where I spent almost 13 years.

Throughout what I regarded to be a fulfilling and challenging career in law enforcement I have achieved the following:

 

At that time I also worked on a part-time basis for the International Police Association (Section Ireland) as a data protection consultant and IT security professional.

In 2019, in another life changing decision, I decided to move on.

I transitioned into the private sector and began working in information security.

A souvenir from my Garda colleagues

During my service in An Garda Siochana I acquired (mostly self learned, but also through courses) invaluable experience, skills and training in the following areas:

  • intelligence gathering and processing
  • evidence acquisition
  • international security liaison
  • digital forensic examination of computer devices
  • mobile phone forensics
  • cybercrime investigations
  • digital intelligence
  • open source intelligence (OSINT)

The last item from this list, OSINT, will be the main focus of this blog.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG?

There are a number of reasons why I decided to start it:

  1. To contribute to and link with the larger community of open source intel practitioners and investigators.
  2. To create my own space for sharing knowledge, thoughts, experiences and techniques.
  3. To practice what I preach – in other words, to keep my skill set up-to-date and relevant.
  4. To promote the awareness of digital privacy.
  5. To grow, develop and learn…

Want to contact me?