{"id":40294,"date":"2021-01-08T13:03:32","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T12:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aware-online.com\/?p=40294"},"modified":"2021-01-10T11:39:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-10T10:39:19","slug":"importance-of-user-ids-in-social-media-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aware-online.com\/en\/importance-of-user-ids-in-social-media-investigations\/","title":{"rendered":"The importance of user ID’s in social media investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
In this blog post, we explain what user identification numbers (IDs)<\/strong> are and what the importance of user IDs are for investigations on social media.<\/span> We will show how to find IDs of users on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and we will <\/span>explain how you can convert user IDs back to user accounts.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram use user identification numbers (ID’s)<\/strong> to store user profiles in their databases.<\/span><\/span> Such identification numbers or ID’s cannot be traced back to real persons, but they are linked to profiles of users on the platforms.<\/span> In addition to profiles, pages, locations, groups and events can also have identification numbers, as is the case with Facebook.<\/span> It is important to remember that identification numbers are unique<\/strong> and cannot be changed<\/strong>.<\/span> Thus, an ID can only be associated with one user and this user cannot change his or her ID.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n In your investigations on social media, it may be important to record the ID’s of users.<\/span> We have already mentioned the main reason why user ID’s are important: <\/span>This is because user ID’s are unique and non-changeable: you can continue to track profiles based on their ID’s, which would be more difficult if you did that based on the name or username of an account.<\/span> Another reason to record user ID’s is that you can use user ID’s in law enforcement online requests, which you can read more about at the bottom of this article.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n The image above is a screenshot of Aware Online’s Twitter profile<\/a>.<\/span> On this Twitter profile you will see that the name<\/strong> of our account is “Aware Online<\/em>“.<\/span> This name has been chosen by ourselves and we can change this name if we wish.<\/span> The name of an account on Twitter therefore is changeable<\/strong>, which makes it difficult to track an account based on the name of the account.<\/span> In addition, the name of our account does not have to be unique<\/strong>: other users can use exactly the same name as our account.<\/span> This too can make tracking an account based on the name of the account difficult.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Username<\/strong>s or handles<\/strong> on social media are, unlike “names<\/em>“, unique<\/strong>.<\/span> That means there can only be one account on a social media platform that uses a specific username or handle.<\/span> For example, on Twitter there is only one user with the username “aware_online<\/em>” and that is us.<\/span> Tracking an account based on a username seems to be a better solution than following an account based on the name of an account.<\/span> There is one thing, however, and that is that users can change their username.<\/span> Usernames on social media are therefore changeable<\/strong>, which can still make it more difficult to track an account based on a username.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Where names and usernames can be hard to track on social media, identification numbers (ID’s)<\/strong> are easier to follow.<\/span> On social media, these IDs are unique<\/strong> and unchangeable<\/strong>.<\/span> There is only one user who uses the ID “804328393210822656<\/em>” (our account on Twitter) and we do not have the option to change this ID.<\/span> We could only create a new account to obtain a new ID.<\/span> For this reason, tracking an account based on an identification number (ID) is a better solution than tracking an account based on an account name or username.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Below we explain how to find out the identification numbers of users on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.<\/span> Of course there are various tools on the internet that will make the following easier for you.<\/span> However, we teach our students to be able to manually find the IDs of social media accounts.<\/span> We don’t want our students to be dependent off third-party tools, we don’t want them to leave unwanted traces and we do want them to know exactly what they are doing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 1:<\/span> log in to Facebook with your sock puppet account.<\/span> You cannot retrieve user IDs without logging in.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 2<\/span>: navtigate to the Facebook profile you wish to investigate.<\/span> In this example we use the account about our Dutch prime minister<\/span><\/span> https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/markrutte<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n Step 3:<\/span> click on an empty part of the page (not on an image or on a link) with your right mouse button on “View page source<\/em>“.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 4:<\/span> search the source code for the identification number directly after “userID:<\/em>“.<\/span> We recommend that you use the find function to search for this piece of text within the source code*.<\/span> You access the find function by typing the CTRL + F keys simultaneously on your Windows keyboard.<\/span> The number sequence that you will see next is the identification number (ID) of the user.<\/span> See below an example of the ID “100011104937891<\/em>” of the user with the username “markrutte<\/em>“.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n *: Can’t find this section?<\/span> Or are you seeing strange results?<\/span> Then this is probably because you are using the Mozilla Firefox web browser.<\/span> For example, use the web browser Google Chrome or click through the search results in Firefox a number of times until you have found the right piece of text.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Step 5:<\/span> do not retype the ID, but copy the ID to avoid errors and check that you have copied the correct ID.<\/span> To do this, open www.facebook.com and paste “\/100011104937891<\/em>” directly after the URL.<\/span> So the full URL you get is<\/span><\/span>www.facebook.com\/100011104937891<\/a>.<\/em> Does this URL lead to the profile with the username “markrutte<\/em>“?<\/span> Then you have found the right profile.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 1:<\/span> navigate to the Twitter profile you wish to investigate.<\/span> In this example we use our Twitter account<\/span><\/span> https:\/\/twitter.com\/aware_online<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n Step 2:<\/span> right click on “Inspect Element<\/em>” or click the F12 key on your keyboard.<\/span><\/span> Step 3<\/span>: make sure the “Inspector<\/em>” tab is selected as shown in the example below.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Step 4:<\/span> type the keywords “profile_banner<\/em>” as shown in the example below.<\/span> You will see that the Twitter profile cover photo is selected with this.<\/span> You will also see two series of numbers in the blue shaded area at the bottom behind the section “https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/profile_banners\/<\/em>“.<\/span> The first string of numbers, the “804328393210822656<\/em>” section, is the ID of the Twitter profile with the username “aware_online<\/em>“.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Step 5:<\/span> check that the ID is the correct ID by logging in to Twitter and navigating to the following link:<\/span><\/span> https:\/\/twitter.com\/i\/connect_people?user_id=804328393210822656<\/a> (enter the ID of the account you are investigating here).<\/span> If the account you are investigating appears at the top (see the example below), you know you have found the correct ID.<\/span> Note: Do not click the “Follow<\/em>” button as your Twitter account will start following the account you are investigating.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 1:<\/span> navigate to the Instagram account you wish to investigate. In this example we use our Instagram account https:\/\/instagramcom\/aware_online<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n Step 2:<\/span> directly after the URL “www.instagram.com<\/em>“, typ the part “\/? __ a = 1<\/em>” to get the following URL:<\/span><\/span> https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/aware_online\/?__a=1<\/a>. You will now see all kinds of data in Javascript Object Notation (JSON).<\/span> Note: if you open the page with the web browser Google Chrome, you will only see the raw data.<\/span> We therefore recommend using the Mozilla Firefox web browser because this web browser automatically converts the raw data into JSON format.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 3:<\/span> after the “logging_page_id<\/em>” or the “id<\/em>” value, read the identification number (ID) of the account you are investigating.<\/span> In the example below, this is the ID “4858438147<\/em>“.<\/span> Of course there are also other ways to find this ID!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Step 4:<\/span> check if the ID you found is correct by navigating to https:\/\/i.instagram.com\/api\/v1\/users\/4858438147<\/span><\/span>\/info\/<\/a> and by replacing the ID with your target ID. You will see the error notification “useragent mismatch<\/em>“. This means that you are not using the correct user agent to get back results from Instagram’s web server.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 5:<\/span>\u00a0install a browser extension to spoof your user agent.<\/span> In this example we use the “User-Agent Switcher and Manager<\/em>” for the web browser Mozilla Firefox.<\/span> This browser extension can be found here:<\/span><\/span> https:\/\/addons.mozilla.org\/nl\/firefox\/addon\/user-agent-string-switcher\/<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n Step 6:<\/span> look for a user agent suitable for Instagram.<\/span><\/span> On the website https:\/\/developers.whatismybrowser.com\/useragents\/explore\/software_name\/instagram\/<\/a> multiple suitable Instagram user agents are presented.\u00a0 In this example we will use the useragent string “Mozilla\/5.0 (Linux; Android 9; SM-A102U Build\/PPR1.180610.011; wv) AppleWebKit\/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version\/4.0 Chrome\/74.0.3729.136 Mobile Safari\/537.36 Instagram 155.0.0.37.107 Android (28\/9; 320dpi; 720×1468; samsung; SM-A102U; a10e; exynos7885; en_US; 239490550)<\/em>“.<\/p>\r\n Step 7:<\/span> copy the useragent string and paste it at the heading “userAgent<\/em>” in your browser extension.<\/span> Then click on “Apply (container)<\/em>“.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n Step 8<\/span>: after the heading “username<\/em>:” read the username of the profile to which the identification number is linked (ID).<\/span> Note:<\/span> Do not forget to reset the settings of your user agent spoofer!<\/span> Otherwise, your web browser will continuously use Instagram’s user agent, which can cause problems when investigating other websites and social media profiles.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n If you want to make an law enforcement online request to Facebook or Instagram, you can do so via the following link:<\/span><\/span>https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/records\/login\/<\/a>. And for Twitter use this link:\u00a0 https:\/\/legalrequests.twitter.com\/forms\/landing_disclaimer<\/a>. These procedures allow you to make online request to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in order to disclose certain information about specific users.<\/span> You can use the identification number (ID) of the relevant user for this.<\/span> Please note that you must be a law enforcement officer to initiate these procedures.<\/span> Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are also not obliged to release information, so these procedures do not concern formal claims.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n In this blog post, we have explained to you the importance of identification numbers (ID’s) in your investigations on social media.<\/span> Because identification numbers are unique and non-changeable, you can use them to track users on social media platforms.<\/span> We showed you how to find out the identification numbers of users on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and how to convert identification numbers back to user profiles.<\/span> Would you like to receive more information?<\/span> Or can we provide you<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 with support<\/a> in your investigation? Please contact us or register for one of our OSINT-training<\/a> events.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat are user identification numbers (ID’s)?<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The importance of user ID’s in investigations<\/h2>\r\n
Names on social media<\/h3>\r\n
Usernames on social media<\/h3>\r\n
Identification numbers (ID’s) on social media<\/h3>\r\n
How to find user ID’s on social media<\/h2>\r\n
How to find an user ID on Facebook<\/h3>\r\n
How to find an user ID on Twitter<\/h3>\r\n
How to find an user ID on Instagram<\/h3>\r\n
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Law enforcement online requests<\/h2>\r\n
Can we help you?<\/h2>\r\n