Sock Puppet
Definition
A fictitious online identity created and controlled by an investigator to observe or interact with a target without revealing the investigation. The use of sock puppets is subject to legal and policy constraints in many jurisdictions and requires specific authorisation in covert OSINT operations.
Related terms
- Digital Footprint
- The cumulative set of data traces a person or entity leaves across internet-accessible sources, including domain registrations, social media posts, forum accounts,...
- Metadata
- Data about data. In document forensics, metadata includes file-creation timestamps, last-modified dates, author fields, revision history, and embedded GPS coordinates in images....
- NCII
- Non-consensual intimate images. The category includes revenge porn, leaked private content and morphed sexual imagery. Prosecuted in India under IT Act Section...
- OSINT
- Open-Source Intelligence. Investigation using publicly available sources: social media, satellite imagery, news archives, public databases. In deepfake casework, OSINT corroborates or contradicts...
- Passive Collection
- OSINT collection that queries third-party databases and archived sources without sending any traffic directly to the target's systems, avoiding any trace on...
- Pig Butchering
- The 'sha zhu pan' romance-investment scam. Phase 1 builds the relationship over weeks. Phase 2 introduces a fake crypto or trading platform....
- Section 79 Safe Harbour
- The IT Act 2000 provision that exempts intermediaries from liability for third-party content, conditional on observing due diligence under the Intermediary Guidelines...
- Significant Social Media Intermediary (SSMI)
- An intermediary with more than 50 lakh registered users in India. Under the Intermediary Guidelines 2021 an SSMI must appoint a Chief...
- Traceability Rule
- Rule 4(2) of the Intermediary Guidelines 2021. Requires significant social media intermediaries that provide messaging to enable identification of the first originator...
- WHOIS
- A query protocol that returns registration data for a domain, including registrant name, organisation, email, nameservers, and registration and expiry dates. Since...
Explained in these topics
- Social Media Crime: Cyberbullying, Grooming and StalkingA fake account operated by a person who already has a real account, used to amplify, harass or impersonate. Bot farms operate sock puppets at scale; coordinate...
- Web OSINT and Digital Footprint AnalysisA fictitious online identity created and controlled by an investigator to observe or interact with a target without revealing the investigation. The use of soc...