“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:
- I was an ordinary uniformed cop,
- I worked as an appointed detective,
- I served in the Security & Intelligence Section,
- I served in the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau.
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.
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:
- To contribute to and link with the larger community of open source intel practitioners and investigators.
- To create my own space for sharing knowledge, thoughts, experiences and techniques.
- To practice what I preach – in other words, to keep my skill set up-to-date and relevant.
- To promote the awareness of digital privacy.
- To grow, develop and learn…