On OSINT, compliance, and what we're building.
Tracelight is live: OSINT investigations with citation-anchored reports
Today we're launching Tracelight — a platform for private investigators, M&A diligence teams, and journalists who need OSINT work product they can defend in court.
What is OSINT? A practical primer for investigators
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is the practice of gathering and analyzing publicly available information. Here's how it actually works in modern investigations.
How to verify an expert witness in five minutes
A practical playbook for vetting an expert witness — yours or opposing — using public-records OSINT. The credentials lie, the prior-testimony record doesn't.
Skip tracing in 2026: what actually works now
Address-history databases lag the real move by a year. Here's what to use instead — and how to combine OSINT signals to find someone in under 90 seconds.
Cross-platform identity correlation: how it actually works
Resolving the @handle on Telegram to the LinkedIn profile to the GitHub repo isn't magic — it's a layered confidence model. Here's the version that survives in court.
OSINT vs. paid data brokers: when to use which
TLO, IDI, IRBsearch, and similar paid data brokers are powerful but expensive and FCRA-encumbered. OSINT is the right complement for most workflows. Here's how to pick.
Five OSINT mistakes that get investigators sued
Treating leads as conclusions, missing the FCRA notice, no chain of custody, no methodology disclosure, acting on stale data. The non-obvious ones.
Preserving social-media evidence: the snapshot-or-lose-it problem
The deleted Instagram post is gone forever. Here's how to preserve social-media evidence at discovery time so it survives litigation.
The 32 OSINT workers Tracelight runs, and what each one finds
Comprehensive list of the OSINT data sources Tracelight queries on every subject, what each one returns, and the licensing posture. Reference for buyers + integrators.
Defending an OSINT report in deposition: a 6-question playbook
Opposing counsel will ask the same 6 questions about your OSINT methodology in every deposition. Here's how to answer them — and why the answers should be in the report before you walk in.
What OSINT tooling actually saves a solo PI shop
An honest accounting of where OSINT-platform spend pays back for a 1-3 person PI shop. Numbers from the early-access cohort.
The pre-LOI OSINT checklist for M&A diligence
Twelve items every diligence team should run before signing a letter of intent. Sanctions, litigation, key-person liability, cyber exposure, IP risk, and the rest.
SOC 2 preparation for early-stage SaaS: the cheap version
What architectural choices to make at series-seed so SOC 2 Type II in 18 months is achievable without a $50k panic project. Drawn from Tracelight's own pre-audit roadmap.
OSINT in pre-employment screening: staying FCRA-compliant
When you use OSINT findings in a hiring decision, FCRA's permissible-purpose rules apply. Here's the short version of what that actually requires.