Excel and PowerPoint Tips for OSINT Investigations

Many law enforcement agencies do not have budgets for advanced tools, but access to the Microsoft Office software suite is almost universal. This session will present practical tips for how to use the common programs of Excel and PowerPoint in OSINT investigations, with Excel being used primarily for data clarity and PowerPoint for story clarity. Topics covered will include: Scraping and cleaning unstructured data from social media platforms in Excel (ie: Friends and Following lists) Using Excel functions to identify overlaps in data from different sources (ie: comparing similar but not identical usernames on different social media platforms) Converting files found during investigations into formats that can be manipulated in Excel and PowerPoint Creating image comparison slides in PowerPoint The audience will come away with practical skills that they can start implementing immediately into their OSINT investigations.