We Are Bellingcat
An Intelligence Agency for the People
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4.4 • 17 Ratings
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
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'John le Carré demystified the intelligence services; Higgins has demystified intelligence gathering itself' - Financial Times
'Uplifting . . . Riveting . . . What will fire people through these pages, gripped, is the focused, and extraordinary investigations that Bellingcat runs . . . Each runs as if the concluding chapter of a Holmesian whodunit' - Telegraph
'We Are Bellingcat is Higgins's gripping account of how he reinvented reporting for the internet age . . . A manifesto for optimism in a dark age' - Luke Harding, Observer
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How did a collective of self-taught internet sleuths end up solving some of the biggest crimes of our time?
Bellingcat, the home-grown investigative unit, is redefining the way we think about news, politics and the digital future. Here, their founder – a high-school dropout on a kitchen laptop – tells the story of how they created a whole new category of information-gathering, galvanising citizen journalists across the globe to expose war crimes and pick apart disinformation, using just their computers.
From the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 over the Ukraine to the sourcing of weapons in the Syrian Civil War and the identification of the Salisbury poisoners, We Are Bellingcat digs deep into some of Bellingcat's most successful investigations. It explores the most cutting-edge tools for analysing data, from virtual-reality software that can build photorealistic 3D models of a crime scene, to apps that can identify exactly what time of day a photograph was taken.
In our age of uncertain truths, Bellingcat is what the world needs right now – an intelligence agency by the people, for the people.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Eliot Higgins is the stay-at-home dad who developed a sideline in exposing state crime and misinformation from his suburban Leicestershire home. Here, he tells the fascinating story of how that interest grew to become Bellingcat, a global collective of citizen journalists and armchair intelligence-gatherers helping to expose war crimes and identify suspects in the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 missile attack and the Salisbury poisonings—among many other remarkable feats of open-source investigation. Combining cutting-edge technology with the will to pore through countless frames of online footage, these are ‘ordinary’ people holding power to account from their front rooms. While it’s sobering to consider how much misinformation and abuse of authority the group have confronted, We Are Bellingcat reminds us that the truth is out there and there will always be people determined enough to find it.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant from start to finish, inspiring.
A wonderful book. I was inspired to look for better evidence. As a scientist this book has inspired me to produce more evidence and better evidence. Wonderfully written. I would love to see a new book on current conflicts.
Typical Bellingcat - Fantastic!
Absolutely fantastic deep dive into the journey that Bellingcat and the OSINT community have taken so far.
It explores journey of how Elliot Higgins, a normal citizen stumbled into the field of open source intelligence. Slowly building a hive of like-minded individuals from the fringes of social media, into a meticulous collective that today, is Bellingcat.
If you’ve ever come across one of Bellingcat’s articles or podcasts, you’ll feel right at home here. The writing style is most similar to the podcasts.
As always, Bellingcat makes a point of verification - any points that are raised are backed up with the relevant link to the content or article that they reference.