Snapchat open source intelligence investigation methods (2)

Related: Snapchat open source intelligence investigation methods (1)

1. Searching for phone numbers

If you want to know if a phone number is associated with a Snapchat account, simply add the number to your phone contacts in your smartphone and then sync your contacts with Snapchat. If there is a match, you will see the username on the screen.

Next, click the outline icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Select All Contacts to see if anyone in your contacts has a Snapchat profile.

2. Extract Snapchat content

Public snaps, including those identified in Snapmap and Stories, can be downloaded manually in the browser.

To download snaps from Snapmap, proceed as follows:

1. You can open Developer Tools by clicking F12 or right-clicking on the page and selecting Inspect.

2. In the Developer Tools menu, select the Network tab, and then select the Media sub-tab.

3. If the Data section of Media is empty, you may need to refresh the page using the Refresh button or by clicking Ctrl+R.

4. Right-click on the Snapshot link and click to open it in a new tab.

Similarly, the same process can be used to download videos from a Snapchat user's Stories. To download snaps from Stories:

1. Click F12 or right-click the page and select Check to open Developer Tools.

2. In the Developer Tools menu, select the Network tab, and then select the Media sub-tab.

3. If the Data section of Media is empty, you may need to refresh the page using the Refresh button or by clicking Ctrl+R.

4. Right-click on the video link and click to open it in a new tab. Alternatively, find the video under the title, copy and paste the URL into a new tab, or in the Preview tab, right-click the video and select Open it in a new tab.

5. After opening the video in a new window, you can play the video.

6. In the bottom right corner of the video, there will be an options button with 3 dots.

7. Clicking on the "Options" button will open a list of options. Click the "Download" button to save the video to your device.

At this point, we may notice a blurry part on the screen due to the fact that the overlay tab has been removed. By default, snaps removes the user-added graphic overlay from the public story. However, this overlay layer can be re-added to snaps and displayed by manipulating the URL to allow investigators to view the original video as it is uploaded.

In the following URL https://s.sc-cdn.net//default/media.mp4, replace "media.mp4" with "embedded.mp4"

After changing the URL, the overlay will be visible on the video.