Hi all,

Good to see you all back here for a new newsletter! This also means a new set of challenges, this time created by a guest contributor who might be a familiar face for some of you.

GeoRainbolt also makes an appearance, and we’ll discuss the challenges of February. It was great to see many of you share your methods and thoughts on these over the past few weeks!

March Challenge: Background Check

Peter Lauris, aka GeoPeter, has appeared in this newsletter many times before. We’ve often highlighted his YouTube videos where he tackles the challenges set by Bellingcat. This month, he’s launching a series of his own!

In the new series, we follow Peter on several of his recent trips. The photos he shares are a good reminder that when you post a photo on Instagram, you might not realise just how much information it reveals at first glance. Where did he travel to? Where did he stay? And how did he get there? Let’s find out at challenge.bellingcat.com 

In our investigations, it’s the small details in photos or videos that reveal crucial information. For example, the leader of the notorious Kinahan cartel accidentally captured his reflection in the photos he uploaded alongside Google reviews, which helped us verify that it was the narco kingpin using the account.

Peter is also known for his skills in GeoGuessr, the popular game widely played among many in the open-source research community. When it comes to geolocation, there are definitely skills to learn from the game — and from Peter’s YouTube channel and blog. Make sure to check it out.

As always, our Discord server is the place to find others working on the challenges. Join us in the #challenges channel!

On March 11, Peter’s challenges will be tackled by our in-house Peter. Researcher Peter Barth will try to solve the five exercises live at 5pm CET on our YouTube channel. GeoPeter will join the stream as well!

February’s Coded Landscapes

SPOILER ALERT: From this point on, we’ll be discussing last month’s challenges. If you still plan to complete them, you may want to skip this section.

Here are the answers to the “Coded Landscapes” challenges:

1. 2, 3, 6

2. 12/04/2019 Iron Guard

3. Villa Rebar

4. Fasces

5. Belgrade, Celtic cross

“Iconography of Hate” asked us to identify which of the symbols were used as hate symbols. Itraceback identified the figures by cross-checking unfamiliar symbols against databases like the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate Symbols Database and the BfV brochure on symbols of right-wing extremism. Finding the answers was straightforward, but they highlighted some other learnings from the challenges, such as that “A non-trivial share of the ‘random’ marks we see in public space aren’t random at all. They’re signals: a wink to in-groups, and warning for those they target.”

In “Fascist Echoes”, Sindre Langmoen explained they recognised the image from having researched the terrorist attack previously. But through reverse image search, you could also figure out the weapon was used in the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. There are plenty of articles about the Christchurch attack that might help you find the name of the specific symbol on the weapon. But Sindre also points out that it was featured in Bellingcat’s Monitoring Glossary. The checkered cross symbol is the insignia of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist group active prior to and during WWII. Finally, checking official sources on New Zealand’s Arms Amendment Act verified the government’s response to the attacks and confirmed the date that this new regulation came into force. 

At first glance, the “Symbolic Literacy” challenge appears to be a difficult geolocation. The symbol that’s painted on the wall, however, will be of great help. Sindre Langmoen identified the symbol as the Ustase. Because of the historical context of this symbol, it narrowed down the geographic scope to the Balkans. A prominent figure associated with the symbol is Ante Pavelic. Searching his name combined with terms like “ruins” or “residence” led to references to Villa Rebar. Photos of his former residence matched the challenged photo. Faaiz Kaleem proved that reverse image search could have also produced this answer.

For the “Far-right Fashion” challenge, Vorgex on X found their first lead by reverse image searching the symbol and learning more about the contexts where it has been used. Faaiz Kaleem used the same approach and found a blog post discussing the far-right fashion brand, where the symbol was explicitly described as a fasces. They then cross-checked the symbol against the hate-symbol database of the Anti-Defamation League. The historic symbol is a bundle of rods with an axe blade, but it has been adopted by various fascist and far-right movements. Learn more about far-right fashion brands in this Bellingcat investigation. 

“Fixed Narrative” was tackled by Luca Muscella. They first focused on identifying the sticker and learnt about the “Active Club” far-right extremist network (read more about Active Clubs here). They checked the Global Extremist Symbols Database and found that the logo includes a Celtic cross, a symbol widely adopted by white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements. For the second part of the challenge, however, the sticker turned out to be a red herring. It included the name of a French region, but a Google reverse image search of the building in the background suggested Belgrade was the right location. 

Perfectly aligned with Peter’s message for this month’s challenges, Trevor Rainbolt, also known as Georainbolt, posted a video sharing a similar warning: innocent-looking social media posts can contain more information than you might think. To illustrate this, he uses the ‘Final Approach’ challenge from Bellingcat. Check it out here:

That’s it for this month’s Bellingcat Challenge Newsletter. We’d love to hear your feedback on the challenges. You may also want to join us on Discord and let us know if you have ideas for future challenges.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like to subscribe, you can do that here.

Elsewhere on Bellingcat

Before we go, here are some links to other exciting projects from Bellingcat:

• How Russia’s War Has Devastated Civilian Life in Ukraine

• Viral Child Soldiers on TikTok: The ‘Disney Stars’ of Sudan’s Civil War

• Shipwrecks, Sham Papers and False Flags: Tracking the Company Behind It All

• Epstein Files: X Users Are Asking Grok to ‘Unblur’ Photos of Children

• Made in the USA: How American-Built Weapons Have Wrought Destruction in Gaza

See you next month!