In most parts of the world, vehicles such as cars, motorcycles, planes, and ships need to be registered with one or more government offices. This can be done for purposes of tracking ownership in case they are stolen, for tax purposes, or for regulatory reasons. For consumer vehicles such as cars and trucks, registrations contain information about who owns the vehicle, and what country or region it is registered in, may contain the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), and usually will contain the make, model, and year of the vehicle. With ships and planes, there may be additional data collected.
If you come across these identifiers in your OSINT assessments, performing searches on the vehicle registration and identification data can yield excellent data that you can pivot on.
Road Vehicles
Vehicle records can be linked to two different unique numbers that exist for all vehicles on the road, VIN and VRM. Utilizing different internet systems, these unique numbers can be searched to bring back details including, vehicle make, vehicle model, the year vehicle was first registered, vehicle color, vehicle taxation status, and more.
Vehicle Registration Marks
Most of these vehicles, once registered with the local or regional government, get a unique license plate that needs to be displayed. A Vehicle Registration Mark (VRM), is the registration/ license plate that is displayed on every vehicle in the world. A VRM is usually an alphanumeric, although sometimes just numeric, ID that uniquely identifies the vehicle or vehicle owner within the issuing region's vehicle register. We can collect this data and, depending upon where the vehicle is registered, perform a reverse lookup on the plate to find the owner and additional data.
By far, the easiest place to look up license plates is on a search engine. Looking up a plate such as 6LHW149 in DuckDuckGo shows an excellent link as the top result. Without entering a country or state, DuckDuckGo found a match. Turns out that this California license plate was found on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's document as a vehicle who's owner over-paid citations.
Using search engines can yield valid results, but the best places to find valid data is, in the United States, the state level. In other countries, check who the registering authority for vehicles is and see if they allow searching of records. In the United States, some states allow for license plate look-ups, but it may cost a small fee and may require you to be a private investigator or law enforcement agent. Additionally, some of the commercial-tiered people search engines may show this data, but again there is a cost and restricted access. The following methods will display all publicly available details.
FAXVIN License Plate Look-up
The faxvin service will resolve a United States license plate to a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). The site will then allow you to perform additional paid searches based on the VIN.
In the example above, we searched for the New York license plate GWF8627 and discovered the VIN associated to it.
Autocheck
One fairly good and free license plate lookup tool for United States vehicles is at Autocheck. Visiting this page brings up search fields where you can enter in a license plate, and the search results should show up. A search for the California license plate 5HUH323 revealed that the plate is registered to a 2004 BMW Z4 car. Note that some result could display the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the vehicle, which can be used to perform additional searches.
SearchQuarry
The SearchQuarry service also allows free license plate searches. It has a paid feature where you can obtain additional data about the licenses plate or VIN. This was used in the aftermath of an attack on a crowd of protesters in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. A person drove his car into a crowd of protesters. Someone took his license plate number and used their subscription to SearchQuarry to retrieve additional details about the person.
PlatesMania
The PlatesMania service is an amazing resource for crowd-sourced license plate tracking. Its international user base takes pictures of vehicles, from buses and tractor trailer trucks to motorcycles and cars, and then posts them to the website. We can search the site data based upon make and model of the vehicle we are looking for, license plate, and location. So if you had a target that drive a recreational vehicle (RV) with a Norway license plate of ZH 50694, you could search the site and discover the VIN, where it was seen, and when it was registered.
The site allows us to search by make and model of a vehicle and see where it has been seen. Alternatively, we can look at a country and see what vehicles have been located there—possibly telling us what vehicles are popular in that country.
WorldLicensePlates
Performing OSINT on a license plate and need to understand if it is a valid format, what country it might be from, or what time frame it may have been issued from? The worldlicenseplate service will be useful. It has a historical view into international license plates.
United Kingdom Car Tax Check
The United Kingdom government has a website for retrieving information about whether vehicles have been registered and their owners have paid their taxes. Enter a license plate number of a UK-registered vehicle, and the site will show the latest tax information along with vehicle details. The results may contain maintenance history, mileage, vehicle specifications, and tax data. This site does not display owner information.
Other sites to research vehicle plate numbers include:
Records Finder - recordsfinder.com/plate
CarFax - carfax.com/ vehicle-history-reports
Search Quarry - searchquarry.com/vehicle_records
VINFree Check - https://www.vinfreecheck.com
Free Background Check - freebackgroundcheck.org
Vincheck - vincheck.info/ free-license-plate-lookup/
Vehicle History - vehiclehistory.com/license-plate-search
License Plate Mania - http://www.licenseplatemania.com/
Plate Recognizer - https://platerecognizer.com/After exhausting all of these searches, you should be able to obtain the VIN, make, model, year, engine, and style of the vehicle. These options will not typically provide the name of the owner.
O'Reilly Auto Parts
If the previous search options fail to identify the VIN, year, make, and model of a vehicle based on the license plate, try O'Reilly. As a service to potential customers, it allows you to enter your license plate in order to identify applicable parts for your vehicle. Select the "Shop by Vehicle" in the upper-right and enter the license plate and state.
Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs)
A VIN is a unique, coded string of characters that is engraved, etched, and otherwise embedded into one or more surfaces of a (usually motorized) vehicle. Each position in the string represents some facet about the vehicle, where it was manufactured, features of the vehicle, and more. Since each VIN is unique, that allows us an opportunity to investigate or track a specific vehicle through time and across owners.
Since decoding the VIN is a simple process, there are web sites that can help perform this function. This section shows several websites that will decode the VIN and show the vehicle's data (make, model, year of manufacture, etc.) and sometimes stock pictures of the vehicle. While most of the VIN decoder sites are free to use and provide this basic data, some will try to entice users into getting a more complete report that may tap into other databases holding owner information and accident/repair records. These are paid services.
Department of Transportation (DOT)
The United States DOT has a website which provides free access to vehicle identification number (VIN) data. All information on this website is public information, and the data comes from vehicle manufacturers. You can search by VIN within their database to find detailed vehicle information.
NICB VIN Check
The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) allows a search of any VIN and will display two unique pieces of information. The VIN Check Theft Record will identify vehicles that have been reported stolen, while the VINCheck Total Loss Records identifies VINs that belong to salvaged vehicles.
Cycle VIN
VINs from motorcycles may not be searchable on standard VIN engines due to the number of characters in them. Cycle VIN will display a year and make, as well as any indication that the VIN exists in its proprietary database. If it does, $25 will obtain title and mileage information. I only use this as a free resource for verifying motorcycle VIN s to the correct year and make.
Other sites to look up Vehicle Identification Numbers include:
Vehicle Identification Number - https://vehicleidentificationnumber.com
VINCheck - https://www.nicb.org/how-we-help/vincheck
VINCheck.info - http://vincheck.info
VIN decoder - https://www.vindecoderz.com
VINFree Check - https://www.vinfreecheck.com
VIN Place - http://vin.place
CarFax - https://www.carfax.com
Check That VIN - https://checkthatvin.com
FaxVIN - https://www.faxvin.com/vin-check
Search Quarry - https://www.searchquarry.com
Vehicle History - https://www.vehiclehistory.com
Saskatchewan VIN search - https://www.sgi.sk.ca/vin
Big Rig VIN - http://bigrigvin.com
Decode This - https://www.decodethis.com
Auto DNA - https://www.autodna.com
Additionally, always use a search engine (Google, DuckDuckGo) to retrieve data on a VIN as you don't know what will show up in the search results.
Aircraft Registrations
Each aircraft, whether balloon, helicopter, or airplane, should have a registration number clearly marked on its body. While it can appear in almost any place on the vehicle, on airplanes, it used to appear on the tail and, hence, is referred to as a tail number. These strings are not usually numbers but a combination of both English letters and numbers, forming a unique string.
The owners of the aircrafts, when registering their vehicles with their home governments, will receive the vehicle's registration number. Every country controls its own registrations, usually carried out by a government agency.
It is true that all aircraft should have a registered number displayed on the craft. However, certain covert government and military groups, criminals, and others may not place the correct tail numbers on their crafts, may remove the numbers entirely, or may use another plane's information in order to carry out stealthy or nefarious business. We are not covering those cases.
Tail Numbers and Registration Database
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the governing body for airplane tail numbers. Each country has one or more entries in the allocation table shown below. This is the first character of an aircraft's registration number, which must be displayed on the aircraft.
Keeping track of all the aircraft registered in a country is usually a governmental role, and many of these organizations allow people to look up tail numbers of that country's planes through a website. Links to many of the country-specific aviation websites can be found here.
Aircraft Tracking Sites
There are several free, excellent aircraft-tracking websites on the internet. The sites listed below allow users to search for specific planes using their tail numbers or airline flight numbers and will display both historical and current data about them. The historical data regarding where a plane has flown and when is an amazing resource to access. These sites show additional content, such as plane owner, images of the plane and its internal configuration, and more.
https://www.adsbexchange.com
https://opensky-network.org
https://flightaware.com
https://www.flightradar24.com
https://planefinder.net
https://uk.flightaware.com/
http://www.track-trace.com/aircargo
https://www.radarbox24.com/
www.blackbookonline.info/ Aviation-Public-Records.aspx
Each also shows planes in flight in near-real-time, so you can see where a certain plane is in the air and approximately when it will arrive at a specific airport. You might need intelligence on where a certain plane is flying. The flight-tracking websites present this data in beautiful visual interfaces.
Note: The World Aircrafts Database holds information about international airline companies along with the planes (plane type and technical information) registered to them. the same site contains detailed information about each airline company worldwide.
The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) System
The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system is newer technology aimed at increasing awareness of where aircraft are and getting more real-time data into the cockpits (such as weather). Because these aircraft radios broadcast ADS-B signals, ground stations and personal radios can receive them. Several websites aggregate this data and plot the aircraft on a map and show historical information about where a certain aircraft travelled.
You can even sign up to get a free receiver and send the received data to a website collector, or you can create your own device using a Raspberry Pi computer.
The ease with which people can use flight-tracking websites and discover government/law enforcement vehicles is empowering and frightening. When some aircraft is circling overhead, anyone can turn to these websites and potentially retrieve tail numbers, vehicle flight history, and owner information. This has happened in the United States and was publicized in several articles in 2015 when an FBI plane circled Minneapolis while performing law enforcement recon activities.
The ADS-B Exchange website shows much of the same type of data that the other sites mentioned do. However, it differs from those web applications in that all data sent in from the community is, in turn, made available back to the community through various archives and APIs. Best of all, for non-commercial use, all of this data is freely accessible to anyone.
It has customizable filters allowing the viewing of the specific Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS–B) data you wish to see. You can filter out certain types of planes or carriers, look for categories of aircraft, or watch everything. Data is sent to the site by a network of community and commercial ADS-B receivers around the world. Some of our favorite filters to use are the "Military" and "Interesting" ones that display military aircraft and other aircraft such as helicopters and fire-fighting planes.
Historical and Future Aircraft Information
The FlightAware site has an interactive slide display that allows a user to retrace where a flight was, at what velocity it was traveling, and the altitude of the plane over the course of its flight.
Additionally, FlightAware (and the other sites) has data on upcoming and previously flown flights for many planes. This might be useful if you find that a target is posting about a flight number. Visit these sites and find out where the plane will be going or go on a certain date and time. Did the plane malfunction and have to make an emergency landing somewhere other than the expected destination? Was there a storm the day of travel and the plane was delayed? These types of incidents and activities will be shown on this historical page.
Other aircraft tracking sites that you might find useful to your OSINT investigations are listed below:
ADS-B Exchange https://www.adsbexchange.com
Aeroseek - http://www.aeroseek.com
Airmap - https://developers.airmap.com
Airliners - http://www.airliners.net
Airport Webcams - http://airportwebcams.net
Aviation Edge - https://aviation-edge.com/airport-database-api
Avaiation Herald - https://www.avherald.com
Aviation Safety - https://aviation-safety.net
Bridgenet Volans Live Display - http://volans.airportnetwork.com/js3d/volanspublicsfo.html
CAA (UK) - http://www.caa.co.uk
Canadian Civil Aircraft Register - http://wwwapps.tc.gc.ca/saf-sec-sur/2/ccarcs-riacc/RchSimp.aspx
Casper Flights - http://casperflights.com
Donner Radar - http://www.donnyradar.co.uk
FlyAriana (Afghanistan) - http://www.flyariana.com
FlightAware (UK) - https://uk.flightaware.com
FlightAware (US) - https://flightaware.com
Flightradar24 - https://www.flightradar24.com
Flight Radar (EU) - https://www.flight-radar.eu
Flight Stats - https://www.flightstats.com
Flightwise - http://flightwise.com
FlightView - https://www.flightview.com
Humberside Airport - https://www.humbersideairport.com/live-flight-information
Open Flights - https://openflights.org/data.html
Opensky Network - https://opensky-network.org
Over the North East - http://www.otne.co.uk/eta
PlaneFinder - https://planefinder.net
Plane Spotters - https://www.planespotters.net
Programmable Web Transportation APIs - https://www.programmableweb.com/category/transportation/api
RadarBox - https://www.radarbox24.com
Radar Virtuel - http://www.radarvirtuel.com
Search Airfields - http://www.pilotweb.aero/airfields/search-airfields
Seatguru - https://www.seatguru.com
Stack Exchange Aviation Forum - https://aviation.stackexchange.com
Symphony Public Vue - https://secure.symphonycdm.com/publicvue/Frames.asp
WebTrak5 - http://webtrak5.bksv.com
Zhaw Radar - http://radar.zhaw.ch/AirTraffic.html
360 Radar - https://360radar.co.uk
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) or Drones are commercially available radio controlled flight devices employed by hobbyists, photographers, real estate agents, and cinematic film makers. They can also be used for intelligence collection, emergency response, search and rescue operations, crisis management, transportation of goods, and recreational use.
Unfortunately drones can also be used for nefarious activities by physical/cyber criminals. Drones can be used for targeted assassinations and killings, physical attacks, surveillance, strikes, data interception, hijacking through Wi-Fi jamming and creating online propaganda.
A recent case study revealed that OSINT investigators at Bellingcat cross referenced satellite imagery and social media posts to assess a possible link of drone software between Iran and Ethiopia. This is one of the many cases whereby drones and their software were investigated and aided in analysis.
Every drone has a unique serial number, which is good to know as an OSINT analyst. To locate a serial number for a drone, they are usually on the bottom, near the battery compartment or on the battery compartment itself. The serial number prefix actually matches with what type of drone it is, and these are listed on this website. This can assist with identifying exactly what drone it is.
If a particular drone is registered with Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), you can find the owner and other details for those residing in the United States and Canada by entering the registration number here. In the United Kingdom, there is a similar service available online, noting that registration numbers should be visible on the drone itself.
A comprehensive list of services that can be useful to your OSINT investigation of drones are listed below:
Airdata UAV - https://airdata.com
Australian Government Civil Aviation Safety Authority - https://www.casa.gov.au/aircraft/landing-page/flyingdrones-australia
Aviation Safety Network - https://aviation-safety.net/database/issue/drones.php
Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone - http://dronecenter.bard.edu/the-drone-database
Drone no-fly zones - https://kadata.kadaster.nl/dronekaart
Dronestagram - http://www.dronestagr.am
Drone Regulations - https://www.droneregulations.info
Drone Research Lab - http://droneresearchlab.com
Drone Wars UK - https://dronewars.net/drone-crash-database
DroneZon - https://www.dronezon.com
Event38 - https://event38.com
Federal Aviation Administration - https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=85548
Federal Aviation Administration UAS Data on a Map - https://faa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=9c2e4406710048e19806ebf6a06754ad Global Drone Regulations Database - https://droneregulations.info
Precision Hawk Mapper - http://www.precisionhawk.com/precisionmapper
RAND Corporation - https://www.rand.org/topics/unmanned-aerialvehicles.html
Skylark Drone Research - http://www.skylarkdroneresearch.com/skylark-droneresearch.html
Skyward - https://skyward.io/support/userguide/airspace/usa/airports
The Conversation: Drones - http://theconversation.com/us/topics/drones-2513
The Drone Database - http://drones.cnas.org/drones
Travel by Drone - http://travelbydrone.com
UAViators Humanitarian UAV Network - http://uaviators.org
United States Association Unmanned Aerial Videography - https://uavus.org
Unmanned Aerial Online - https://unmanned-aerial.com
Ships and Watercraft
There is an abundance of details available about global marine traffic within ownership records and real-time monitoring. As with aircraft, we have several free sites that track ships and watercraft across oceans and around shorelines. They mostly rely on Automatic Identification System (AIS) devices sending VHC radio signals that report the ship's location, heading, and ship name/call sign. This information can be received by other ships with these AIS devices, land-based antennas, and satellites.
Marine Traffic
This is the main marine-tracking site. Using this site, you can track any ship in the world. The site has a huge database of ship details and past tracking. To locate a ship, you can either search for its name using the site search facility or simply browse the live map to see all the available ships. To see specific ships details, click a ship on the map (ships appear as arrows on the live map). You can click the Vessel Details button to see complete information about this ship such as the name, MMSI number, IMO number, flag, weight, vessel type, dimensions, year built, latest position, vessel name history (if the ship changed its name, previous names and flags will appear here), and more. All this information is available with the free account (actually, I did not even register to view it). Paid accounts give more information, especially in relation to a customized map view, past tracking, and voyage history.
Other sites that track ships and watercraft across oceans and around shorelines are listed below:
http://shipfinder.co
http://www.myshiptracking.com
https://www.vesselfinder.com
http://www.cruisemapper.com/
https://www.vesselfinder.com/
These websites all have dynamic, beautiful maps that can be customized to show certain types of vessels (pleasure craft versus military versus cargo). OSINT analysts interested in a region can navigate on the map to that place and observe what ships are reported. Alternatively, for some vessels, we can search for a specific ship and view details about it.
Note: The following are other services that can be useful when tracking vessel information online:
Container Prefix List - http://www.prefixlist.com/
The international identification codes of container owners - https://www.bic-code.org/bic-codes/
International Port Code - http://www.infodriveindia.com/TradeResources/Port.aspxDepending upon your OSINT goals, this real-time or historical information may provide the necessary answers you are looking for. While each of the websites mentioned shows similar content, there are variations.
A complete list of services that can be beneficial to your watercraft OSINT investigations is listed below:
AIS Data Exchange Dispatcher - http://www.aishub.net/ais-dispatcher
AIS Tracker (Russia) - http://en.aistracker.ru/map7.asp
Arundale - http://arundale.com/docs/ais/sp_map.html
BoatInfoWorld - https://www.boatinfoworld.com
Boat Nerd - http://ais.boatnerd.com
Bottenviken Live AIS - http://ais.sk2hg.se
Coast Guard Vessel Search - https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/coast-guard-vesselsearch/index
Cruise Mapper - http://www.cruisemapper.com
Cruise Ship Tracker - http://www.cruisin.me/cruise-ship-tracker
Digimap Guernsey - http://www.digimap.gg/marine/ais
FleetMon - https://www.fleetmon.com
Global Fishing Watch - http://globalfishingwatch.org
Gloucester Harbour Trustees - http://gloucesterharbourtrustees.org.uk/ship-positionsmarine-traffic
Helcom AIS - http://maps.helcom.fi/website/AISexplorer
ICC Piracy Map - http://www.icc-ccs.org/piracy-reporting-centre/livepiracy-map
Infomarine - http://www.infomarine24.com
International Registries Inc. - https://www.registeriri.com/index.cfm?action=page&page=53
Krooz Cams - http://www.kroooz-cams.com
Landsort AIS - http://www.landsort-ais.se/aism.html
Live Cruise Ship Tracker - https://www.livecruiseshiptracker.com
Live Cruise Ship Tracker - http://www.thecruisevillage.com/live-cruise-shiptracker.phtml
Maritime Connector - http://maritime-connector.com
Marine Cadastre - https://marinecadastre.gov/ais
Marine Scotland - http://marine.gov.scot/information/ais-shipping-trafficselected-ports
MarineTraffic - https://www.marinetraffic.com
MarineTraffic - http://www.marinetraffic.org
My Ship Tracking - https://www.myshiptracking.com
Naxos Island - http://www.naxosisland.eu/live_ship_data.html
Open Sea Map - http://map.openseamap.org
Pocket Mariner - http://pocketmariner.com
Port Hedland Live AIS - http://www.phseafarers.org/live-ship-map-ais.html
Rathlin Weather AIS (United Kingdom) - http://www.rathlinweather.co.uk/AIS
Sandkilen-Helmi AIS - http://www.helmi.se/en/tours-events/ais-live-trace7227149
Sandy Bay Yacht Club - http://www.sandybay.org/AIS.shtml
Scanner Net - http://www.scannernet.nl/maritiem/live-ais
SCCOOS (United States) - http://sccoos.org
Shipais - http://www.shipais.com
Ship Finder - http://shipfinder.co
Shipping Explorer - http://www.shippingexplorer.net
ShipSpotting - http://www.shipspotting.com
Ship Tracker Shodan - https://shiptracker.shodan.io
Trewillis.co.uk - http://www.trewillis.co.uk
Vessel Finder - https://www.vesselfinder.com
Vessel Tracker - https://www.vesseltracker.com
World Map - https://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/2892
World Port Index - https://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=msi_portal_page_62&pubCode=0015
2sandnessjo (Norway) - http://www.2sandnessjo.no/shipplotter/gmap/stavanger.html
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