May 6-10, 2024: Five-Day, In-Person Workshop in Washington, DC, USA

Register for this workshop here.

This workshop is a five-day in-person training that will teach digital investigation techniques and provide extensive guided, hands-on practice. The workshop will run over a full week, from May 6-10, 2024. Each day, the workshop will run for approximately eight hours (9am-5pm, including lunch and breaks) in Washington, DC, USA. All participants must attend in-person. Only 20 seats are being sold for this event.

At least two Bellingcat trainers will be present throughout the week.

Our in-person workshops are split into two segments: approximately three days (~24 hours) of hands-on training developing approaches and techniques of digital investigation and approximately two days (~16 hours) of guided project work. The content of our training is similar to that of our 16-hour webinars but is more in-depth and benefits from in-person interaction, teamwork and hands-on assistance. We also have at least one “guest appearance” of other researchers working in digital investigations, either appearing in-person or virtually.

The course’s content over the first three days will include:

Introduction to open source investigation
Creative search fundamentals
How to conduct (nearly) traceless and anonymous/pseudonymous research

Beginning to advanced verification topics, including:

Verification of user-generated materials
Intuitive reverse search techniques in digital investigations
Geolocation & chronolocation of visual materials
Using mapping and satellite services in investigations

Beginning to advanced social media topics, including:

Fundamental techniques and creative search strategies on individuals & groups
Platform-specific tutorials, including Telegram and others as time allows (e.g. 4chan/8kun, “alternative” social platforms such as Gab, etc.)
How to archive digital materials for open source investigations
Tracking transportation services (e.g. naval vessels, aircraft) for investigations

After confirmation of registration and payment, we will send the precise workshop venue location, time, and other logistical details to workshop participants in the week before the event. The venue is easily accessible within Washington. Please note that the location on the map on the Eventzilla page is not the actual venue — this is just the default location for Washington on the site. Coffee, tea and light lunches will be provided to participants at the venue.

The price for the workshop is 2,645.00 EUR per participant, including transaction costs. Please contact us at workshops@bellingcat.com if you have any questions. We are looking forward to seeing our participants in person!

We will announce an in-person workshop in Amsterdam in June 2024 soon!

Screening

We manually approve all applications after registration on Eventzilla. We do basic due diligence checks on our participants to be sure that our trainers and other participants are comfortable with their involvement.

Members of any military or intelligence service are not permitted registration at our workshops, and we allow government employees only on a case-by-case basis. For example, in past workshops, we have approved the participation of government employees working on issues around election integrity and security.

We also restrict access to our workshops from members of police forces, but have made rare exceptions in cases for individuals working to combat child exploitation and trafficking.

The vast majority of participants are approved without any issues.

Payment Note

If we approve your participation, you have to continue with your registration in Eventzilla. After you select credit card or Paypal as your payment option, you must complete payment when you start the process within 30 minutes. Otherwise, Eventzilla will lock you out, and we will have to manually delete and restart your registration. In other words, wait to open the payment tab until you have your card or PayPal information ready at hand!

Alternatively, you can choose “bank transfer” and pay later — many of our participants being sponsored by their employers choose this option.

You can find more information about our training and webinars in the event descriptions on Eventzilla, including an agenda for each workshop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I receive a certificate for the workshops?

Sure! Just email us (workshops@bellingcat.com) before or after the workshops, and we’ll send you a PDF certificate showing your participation after completing the training.

Can I receive a recording of a workshop?

We do not record our workshops or allow others to record them. However, we do provide copies of our training slides to participants after the completion of the training for their personal reference.

Who usually attends your workshops?

We have around 20-25 participants per workshop, and among those between a third to a half come from private companies or the corporate world. Among those we have plenty of information security researchers, corporate security investigators, lawyers, due diligence experts, and other professions. Journalists are the next-most popular profession for our workshops (around a fourth or third of participants), and then we have a mix of human rights/NGO researchers, academics and students, and even retirees just curious about what this whole OSINT thing is all about (although we prefer to leave the acronym at home and stick to “open source).

Can I gift a workshop seat to someone else?

Sure! We have had quite a few people buy workshop attendance for a loved one as a birthday or Christmas gift. Just let us know the name of the person who you are buying the seat for when registration so that we can do a basic due diligence check on them (see the Screening section up above). Feel free to email us at workshops@bellingcat.com to make sure we have their proper contact details so they get all of the invitation information on time.

Future workshops for spring 2024:

April 23-26, 10 am-2 pm Amsterdam time: 16-hour training, the full experience (verification course and course in social media & individual-focused research)
May 9, 2024: Command line tools for open source researchers (for absolute beginners)
May 17, 2024: Bellingcat Online Workshop on RuNet Investigations (4-hour) [Americas-friendly time]

We will announce an in-person workshop in Amsterdam in June 2024 soon!