I'm sure many Habr readers are familiar with this method, as it's not new. To save you time, I'll just say two words: comss DNS.
Everyone else - welcome under the cut :-)
The vast majority of the OSINT community is interested in analyzing individuals. Well, so be it. I've prepared a selection of various bots and services for you (GB and others are not included in the list, as even the lazy know about them, and it's not really OSINT anyway).
In the RU segment, VK is the pioneer of social media analysis. Although Telegram has started to move away from being just a messenger, transforming into a social network and gaining more and more popularity, it still doesn't come close to the volume of potentially important information about a target.
— It's worth noting that VKontakte is already starting to die out, and in my opinion, in two or three years, analysis of it will no longer be as relevant as it once was. People are using it noticeably less often. Still, VK remains a key tool for analyzing a person's biography, interests, social circle, origin, etc.
1. 220vk — An old, good, and rather worn-out service that allows you to identify hidden friends, find out who the target has followed/unfollowed, and their interests based on subscriptions to communities and people (with a timeline), as well as what changes have been made to their profile, etc.
2. VKHistoryRobot — A Telegram bot that gives you an idea of what a profile looked like in the past(very useful if the profile is private). It provides information in the form of a brief dump: Full Name; URL; photo.
3. FindClone, search4faces — reverse image search services for VK that allow you to search for a profile using an uploaded photo. Of these two, search4faces is free.
4. Social Graph Bot — a Telegram bot that allows you to build relationship graphs among a list of friends. With this tool, you will understand how diverse the social circle is, who among the friends is a relative, etc.; whether the account is legitimate and if it has connections to any group of people. (There are many applications, here is a guide from habr for you)
You can find even more interesting and educational content on my Telegram channel — @secur_researcher
A collection for those who have tried using neural networks for their tasks but were disappointed: it's unclear how a chatbot can help with anything serious.
There are several similar articles on this topic, but while I was trying to recover my account, I never saw this solution, so I decided to post it. I hope it will help someone.
I'll say right away that this situation happened before the 'boom' in the news about Telegram hacks, so it wasn't as well-known.
The whole story began when an acquaintance of mine wrote to me and asked for help in restoring access to her Telegram account. I was immediately surprised because I didn't think Telegram accounts were hacked at all, as login is usually by phone number, and without having the phone, you can only log in with a QR code or a code from the messenger itself.
Well, what could I do? I started trying to log into the account. Naturally, the app made it clear that I wouldn't be able to do so anytime soon.
Well, there have been quite a few articles on these topics, but I want to share the tools and experience that, in my practice, have proven to be very convenient and of high quality. There will be both individual methods for specific applications and universal ones that will help solve problems all at once.
VPN server
Well, let's probably start with the simplest and most universal method that will help you with everything: setting up your own VPN server on protocols like shadowsocks, openvpn, vless, vmess, trojan. The main advantage is that with a good client, the ping will be minimal. Many use Outline, which is very laggy, or v2rayN, which works much better. Speaking of other cool and high-quality clients, you can try Hiddify. If you know of any better ones, you can write about them in the comments. The essence is simple: you can buy a server and install everything yourself; there are plenty of guides,here'sone I personally used, everything is intuitive and without any problems. It solves absolutely all blocks for YouTube, Telegram, Discord, X (Twitter), and ChatGPT.
2. Next, let's move on to a method that helps with Discord and YouTube.
The reality of today is that most people write dossiers on themselves in their social networks. In this article, you will learn about some tools that will help you find out the maximum amount of information about a person.
Many readers, especially those living in Russia, want to know the best way to use GPT chat. When I'm asked about this, I give a clear answer: if the volumes are not very large, it's better to use Telegram bots.
GPT chatbots on Telegram are analogous to applications that use GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) technology to dialogue with users. Here are the secrets to their popularity:
In the fall of 2025, many people, myself included, opened their favorite hardware store to 'quickly grab another 32–64 GB of DDR5 for games, an IDE, and a couple of Docker containers'—only to close the tab in mild culture shock. The memory that cost a 'reasonable' amount in the summer suddenly cost almost as much as a mid-range graphics card.
In short, this isn't 'greedy stores' but the consequence of a rather complex restructuring of the entire DRAM market for AI servers and HBM memory. In this article, we'll explore what's happening at memory factories, why PC modules are suffering the most, what to expect in 2026, and how to make upgrade decisions if you're a gamer, developer, or just a hardware enthusiast.
In 2025, internet censorship in Russia, China, and Iran has reached an unprecedented level. Traditional VPN protocols like OpenVPN and even WireGuard are detected and blocked by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) systems in seconds. Enter VLESS — a lightweight protocol that is becoming the last working solution for bypassing modern censorship.
This article explains how VLESS works on a technical level, why it is so effective at evading detection, and shares real-world experience of building a VPN service in Russia's hostile environment.
A VPN is a technology for a secure connection to a remote computer or network, and for most users, it's simply a safe way to use the internet in public Wi-Fi zones.
In this article, we will look at four ways to create your own VPN. Let's start with the simplest option, which is manageable even for novice PC users.
Now that Forbes Education is dispelling our fears that artificial intelligence will replace artists, and Gizmodo is exposing AI modelsfor simply copying training illustrations, we can relax and continue drawing cats riding dinosaurs. Which is what I'm going to do today!
I tested dozens of Telegram bots and chose the five best services for generating AI images. This will be useful for those who spend a lot of time in the messenger and want to create unique visual content right there.
Greetings, dear readers! Continuing the SHX article series, in this article, we decided to focus in more detail on OSINT bots in Telegram, as in many cases they are no less effective than common OSINT tools. The OSINT bots discussed in this article will mainly concern reconnaissance on Telegram users. This material has been edited and republished due to being blocked by Roskomnadzor in the Russian Federation.
Disclaimer: All data provided in this article is taken from open sources. It does not call for action and is provided for informational purposes only, and for studying the mechanisms of the technologies used.
For many, November 28, 2025, began with complaints about WhatsApp. Some users are unable to send or receive text messages and media files, and when attempting a voice or video call, the client hangs indefinitely on the 'Connecting' status before dropping the call.
Telecom operators (MegaFon, Beeline) are reporting normal network operations. And technically, they aren't lying: connectivity exists, and Meta's IP addresses are (mostly) accessible. The problem lies deeper—at the level of L7 filtering by TSPU.
In this article, we will look at 3 ways to set up a VPN connection with VLESS and Reality.
VLESS is a modern, privacy-oriented data transfer protocol, often called VLESS VPN, although strictly speaking, we will be discussing the installation of a proxy with the VLESS protocol based on an XRay server with Reality.
Let's start with the simplest and most universal option, which requires no technical knowledge.
Greetings, dear readers! In this article, we will take a detailed look at all aspects of searching for information about a person by photo, paying special attention to three main areas. We will discuss the capabilities of search engines, which many underestimate, although they can provide surprisingly accurate data when used correctly. We will analyze specialized online services based on neural networks and complex facial recognition algorithms. Special attention will be paid to Telegram bots, which combine the convenience of mobile use with powerful search technologies. These tools will help you obtain data about a person, including their name, phone number, and other useful information.
You will learn not only about the technical capabilities of each method but also about the practical nuances of their application. We will explain how to achieve maximum accuracy in data search and what photo parameters affect the result.
When OpenAI first showed Sora, the reaction was instantaneous: "that's it, the era of video production is over." But that was just a demonstration. The technology itself remained inaccessible to a wide audience — until the appearance of Sora 2, an updated version where any user can create up to 100 videos a day for free.
In short, Sora 2 is not just a "text-to-video generator." It's a full-fledged multi-agent system where several OpenAI models work under the hood: from text analysis and scene staging to motion and light synthesis. Unlike early versions of Runway or Pika, the quality here is almost cinematic: Sora understands context, follows the frame's composition, and maintains visual integrity between scenes.
Greetings, dear readers! We continue to test Telegram bots that can effectively help us with the task of finding target data in open sources, or simply put, in OSINT. In this article, we will look at more worthy candidates to become permanent search tools without leaving the well-known messenger.
Disclaimer: All data provided in this article is taken from open sources. It does not call for action and is provided for informational purposes only, and for studying the mechanisms of the technologies used.
In my previous Russian-language article on Machine Learning as Alchemy, I discussed the possibility of discovering novel solutions without relying on GPUs or expensive computing clusters. In this article, I will share my experiments with continual learning and the compositionality of thought using micro-neural networks, and explain what the philosopher Lev Vygotsky has to do with it all.
I've been practicing Zettelkasten for the past five years and still haven't found anything better than Niklas Luhmann's method. The problem is that Obsidian doesn't support it out of the box, so I had to write a plugin for organizing notes as close to Luhmann's original method as possible.
I spent a couple of weeks digging through Luhmann's original archive before I understood how it actually works. Structurally, the archive resembles a table of contents, but with the difference that a note can be inserted at any point, adding nested chapters.