OSINT Exercise #028
In this exercise, Sofia Santos provided a photo taken by herself on September 20, 2023, at 08:11 local time.
The task was to determine:
A. The device used to take the photo.
B. The direction she was headed.
C. The distance from the entrance of her main destination.
Identifying the Device:
I right clicked on the photo and selected “Inspect” to view the EXIF data.
The camera model was identified as Camera SM-A125F, which, upon a quick Google search, was confirmed to be a Samsung Galaxy A12.
Initially, I tried to identify the location using the visual features in the photo, but this did not yield any immediate results. Recalling that the photo was taken on the same day she might have tweeted/posted about her activities online, I immediately, reviewed her Twitter (X) posts from September 20, 2023.
Sofia had posted about participating in the SIRIUS CTF Finance event focused on women’s roles in OSINT investigations at Europol in The Hague, Netherlands. She won a medal there.
Using Google Maps, I searched for the Europol location and looked for the surrounding architecture to see if they are resembling the same architecture the house seen in the photo. Therefore, I could identify a house at number 55 a few streets away from Europol. Given the time (08:11:56 AM), it is likely she was headed to the Europol building for the event kick-off.
Coordinates for the identified location of the house 55 are: 52.09186471774111, 4.280017491360759.
The identified location was approximately 291 meters away from the visitor entrance of the Europol building, her main destination.
Bonus Challenge: Identifying the Hotel, she stayed
Possible options: Based on the proximity to Europol and likely direction she took to walk toward from house number 55, I assumed she might have stayed at either the Aparthotel Kennedy the Hague (more likely) or the Hague Marriott Hotel. Both are in the vicinity.
