Twitter OSiNT (Ethical Hacking)

Summary

This video introduces a Python-based tool called Twint, which allows users to scrape Twitter data without an API, login, or rate limits. The host provides a step-by-step guide on setting up Twint, demonstrating its use via CLI and within Python scripts. Emphasizing ethical hacking, the host explores various commands for collecting tweets, searching by user, keyword, location, and more. The video also delves into advanced features like saving data to JSON files, and using the tool in real-world investigations, encouraging viewers to explore its potential for educational purposes.

Takeaways

• 🔒 Twint is a powerful Python hacking tool used to gather information from Twitter without API, rate limits, or login.
• 💻 The tool works via CLI and can also be imported into Python code for deeper functionality.
• ⚠️ The tool is legal, but intent matters — it should only be used for educational purposes and ethical hacking.
• ⏱️ Setup is quick and can be done in five minutes using any Linux system or the free Google Cloud Console.
• 🛠️ Essential commands for setup include installing Git, Python 3, and Pip, followed by cloning the Twint repository.
• 🔍 Twint can scrape tweets, filter results by username, keyword, date, location, popularity, and more.
• 📂 Results can be exported to JSON files for further analysis or storage.
• 👨‍💻 Twint can be used programmatically within Python scripts, allowing for advanced search and automation.
• 🌍 The tool supports searching by geolocation, helping find tweets near specific locations or within a defined radius.
• 💡 Twint is a valuable tool for Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) investigations, making information gathering easier.

Q & A

What is the purpose of the video?

The video demonstrates how to use a Python hacking tool called Twint to gather information from Twitter without the need for API access, login, or rate limits.

Is Twint an illegal tool?

No, Twint is not illegal. However, the user's intent when using the tool is important, and the video stresses the importance of using it for educational purposes only.

What does Twint stand for?

Twint stands for Twitter Intelligence, a powerful Python tool for scraping information from Twitter.

What are the main features of Twint?

Twint allows users to scrape Twitter data without using the Twitter API, login, or facing rate limits. It can gather tweets based on usernames, search terms, locations, and more. It can also output data in JSON format and be integrated into Python code.

How can Twint be installed?

Twint can be installed by cloning the tool from GitHub using 'git clone,' navigating to the Twint directory, and installing the required dependencies using 'pip3 install -r requirements.txt'.

What are some common uses of Twint via the command line?

Some common uses include searching for tweets from a specific user, limiting the number of tweets retrieved, searching by keyword, and exporting results to a file.

Can Twint be used programmatically within Python scripts?

Yes, Twint can be imported as a Python module, and its functionality can be customized in Python scripts, allowing for more complex and dynamic queries.

How can you search for tweets near a specific location using Twint?

You can use the '--near' option followed by the name of a city or '--geo' followed by latitude and longitude coordinates, along with a radius, to search for tweets near a specific location.

How can you filter tweets based on their popularity using Twint?

You can use the '--min-likes' option followed by a number to filter tweets that have received at least that number of likes.

What is one practical use case of Twint demonstrated in the video?

One practical use case is searching for tweets about coffee near a user's location or for popular tweets about Raspberry Pi in different cities. The video also demonstrates gathering tweets and exporting them to JSON files for further analysis.

Outlines

00:00

🔐 Introduction to Ethical Twitter Hacking with Twint

This paragraph introduces the topic of ethical hacking on Twitter using a Python tool called Twint. The narrator clarifies that they won’t be hacking accounts but rather using Twint to gather public information without API limits or logins. A quick disclaimer emphasizes the legal use of the tool, warning viewers to avoid unethical practices. The narrator shares their excitement about the tool's ease of setup and power, explaining that it can be run via the Google Cloud Console for free. The paragraph closes with an appeal to like, subscribe, and interact with the video.

05:00

🐍 Using Twint in Python and CLI

The narrator shifts to demonstrating Twint’s use through Python modules and CLI. They highlight the simplicity and versatility of using Twint via command line, showing how to search for specific users and limit the number of tweets returned. They also demonstrate how to search for specific keywords in tweets, output the results in JSON format, and explore the data in files. By showcasing the power of Twint in pulling data, the narrator sets the stage for more advanced use cases in Python.

10:02

⚙️ Exploring Advanced Twint Capabilities

The third paragraph delves into more advanced functionalities of Twint. The narrator explains how to search by location, find popular posts based on likes, and even retrieve tweets with images. The demonstration includes searching tweets from specific users like David Bomble and filtering them by date or popularity. These examples emphasize how Twint can be used for deeper exploration and information gathering, showing the practical applications of the tool.

Keywords

💡Twint

Twint is a Python-based tool for gathering information from Twitter without using the Twitter API or requiring login credentials. In the video, the presenter demonstrates how Twint can be used to scrape Twitter data for a variety of purposes, including searching tweets and gathering user information. The tool is central to the video’s theme of ethical data collection.

💡CLI (Command Line Interface)

CLI refers to interacting with the computer through text-based commands instead of graphical interfaces. In the video, the presenter shows how to use Twint via the CLI, making it easy to search for Twitter information. The CLI is highlighted as a simple yet powerful way to run searches and customize queries.

💡Python Modules

Python modules are libraries or collections of functions and tools that can be imported into Python scripts for various purposes. In the video, Twint is shown as a Python module, and the presenter explains how it can be integrated into scripts to make more sophisticated searches on Twitter. This concept is central to the demonstration of automated data collection.

💡Data Scraping

Data scraping refers to extracting information from websites or online platforms. In the context of the video, Twint is used to scrape data from Twitter, allowing users to gather tweets, user information, and search results without the need for API access or login credentials. This term is a key part of the video, as it relates to how Twint operates.

💡Google Cloud Console

Google Cloud Console is a web-based platform for managing and running cloud-based services. In the video, the presenter uses Google Cloud Console as the preferred environment to run Twint, praising its free availability and ease of access. The Console is presented as an ideal tool for users who may not have Linux machines locally.

💡JSON

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data format used for structuring data. In the video, the presenter uses JSON to output the results of Twint queries, making the data easy to read and store. This format is emphasized for storing Twitter data in a structured, reusable way.

💡Ethical Hacking

Ethical hacking refers to using hacking tools and techniques for legitimate purposes, such as security testing or research, rather than malicious intent. The video strongly emphasizes ethical use of Twint, warning viewers against hacking with ill intent and promoting the tool as a means for education or authorized purposes.

Highlights

Introduction to the Twint tool: a Python-based hacking tool to gather Twitter data without API or login requirements.

Twint setup is fast and easy, with no rate limits, making it a powerful tool for data scraping on Twitter.

Quick setup demonstration on Google Cloud Console, where Twint can be used in under five minutes.

Tool allows gathering tweets by username without API restrictions, demonstrating how to scrape all tweets from a specific user.

Example usage of Twint CLI (Command Line Interface), including how to limit the number of tweets retrieved.

Twint can filter tweets based on keywords, like finding all tweets mentioning 'Raspberry Pi' by a specific user.

Outputting scraped data to a JSON file for further analysis, showcasing how to save Twitter data locally.

Advanced search capabilities like filtering tweets based on minimum likes or searching tweets with images only.

Geolocation search feature allows users to search for tweets near specific cities or even based on exact geo-coordinates.

Twint’s Python module can be integrated into Python scripts for automated and customizable data collection.

Demonstration of creating an interactive Python script that searches for popular topics based on user input.

Example Python script that retrieves tweets mentioning a specific topic from a chosen location.

Showcase of a script that collects all Twitter replies to a user's tweets and retrieves recent activity from those users.

Emphasis on the ethical usage of Twint, highlighting the importance of educational and responsible hacking practices.

Encouragement for viewers to explore Twint’s functionalities further by building their own Python scripts.

Transcripts

twitter hacking

kind of because if you think we're going

to be hacking into twitter or hacking

into someone's account we're not doing

that so if you're here for that get out

of here not the video for you but we

will be using this amazing python

hacking tool to gather information from

twitter this tool is crazy powerful no

rate limit no login no api the setup is

super fast it seriously takes seconds

and i'll show you how to use this tool

via cli and even how to import this into

your python code now real quick

disclaimer while the tool we're using is

not illegal and the way it searches

twitter is not illegal your intent does

matter please do not hack anyone without

their permission or use this tool with

any kind of ill intent so be careful use

it for educational purposes only the

hacking tool we're using is called twint

which stands for twitter intelligence

and seriously no joke i've never had

more fun playing with a hacking tool

like i spent way too much time playing

with this so i'm crazy excited to show

you this for real and it's super crazy

easy to set up all you'll need is about

five minutes you can use any linux

computer and of course i'll show you how

to get free access to google cloud

console which is my preferred way to do

all this completely free like you can

start using this tool right now in five

minutes

all you need is your web browser i love

that so much anyways and then last but

certainly not least i need some coffee

man you need some hacking fuel two cups

minimum networkchuck.coffee if you don't

already have some

let's get started oh wait hold on real

quick have you hacked the youtube

algorithm today make sure you do hit

that like button subscribe notification

bell comment let's hack youtube today

ethically of course now again i'll be

demoing this on the google cloud console

which is completely free and amazing you

can do it right now i've got a link

below in the description just click that

sucker and go now of course you can use

your own environment that's fine too the

steps will be the same so i'm gonna get

signed into my google cloud console and

get this party started i'm so excited

once you're logged in click on the cloud

console icon at the very top right here

and that'll launch your cloud shell and

it's so cool again i can't say it enough

thank you google for doing something

like this now real quick if you're not

using google cloud console like me you

will need a few things installed like

apt install git

do that apt install

python 3 do that and apt install python3

dash pip and that should be enough let's

keep going first command we're going to

use git to clone our tool now i will

have all these commands below in the

description feel free to copy and paste

but typing it in feels so much better

just do that anyways git clone

we'll do a dash dash depth equals one

and then the url to the project it'll be

https colon whack whack and the url and

hit enter

it's gonna clone that sucker done so

fast then we're gonna change directories

into the twent directory that we just

downloaded cd twin

there and then last command to get this

going we're gonna install our

requirements so pip three

install we'll do a space then a dot and

then a space dash r

requirements

dot txt and hit enter

coffee break

and while we're all sipping our coffee

i'd like to thank the sponsor of this

video skillshare skillshare is an online

learning community with a ton of classes

like over a thousand thousands now what

i love about skillshare is that it's not

necessarily about i.t it's more about

creative stuff like how to make coffee

yeah there's a course on that or how to

develop my already excellent drawing

skills i mean i think it's pretty

obvious that i don't need any more help

i'm already pretty dang good so i'll

check out that course and see if they

can teach me anything i doubt it so be

watching the channel see if i improve my

drawing skills but seriously i do think

it's important that i.t people like us

explore the soft skills side of our

skill sets learning things like hey how

do i talk in front of people public

speaking how do i teach and get an idea

across how do i stay productive like for

example i'm going through thomas frank's

productivity class for creatives it's

these x factor skills that make you

great in i.t and also i do think it's

important that you have hobbies and

interests outside of technology i know

it's kind of hard to because it's

awesome so explore your creative side a

bit learn how to make a cup of coffee

learn how to draw maybe learn how to

make a ui a user interface the pretty

part of it instead of just the back end

so check it out link below in the

description the first 1 000 people to

click that link will get a free trial of

the skillshare premium membership after

that it's only 10 bucks a month anyways

coffee break over let's keep going and

that's it it's installed ready to go

just like that and honestly it's so

simple and cool to use watch this i'm

gonna clear my screen so let's try this

first type in twent

then we'll do a dash u for a username

and we'll specify a user let's say just

myself network chuck

what this tool is doing is so cool no

api required it's not using the twitter

apis

no twitter login required it's simply

scraping twitter and it's crazy powerful

let's try it out right now ready set go

ah

i'm going to hit ctrl c to stop but look

at all that look at all my tweets that

is so stinking cool but this is just the

beginning here we go

let me clear my screen once more now

first real quick how do you get help if

you don't know what you're doing simply

type in twent and then dash h it'll tell

you all the switches you can use now

this way is cool using the cli we'll go

through a few more examples here in a

moment but the more powerful amazing way

to do this the more fun way

is through python modules

or the python module we can import twins

into our code and use it for some cool

stuff i'll show you here in a moment but

anyways the cli is powerful by itself

let's try a few things so let's do that

same search we just did twins

dash u for user name network chuck now

what if you don't want a million tweets

what if you only want my last 20 tweets

we can do that dash dash limit

to the last 20 tweets that's more

digestible let's try that out real quick

okay there we go not too bad you can

also search through tweets so i can do

twin

u for my username network chuck once

more and then we can do a dash s to

search and this can be any keyword for

example we may want to see all the

raspberry pi tweets i put out

so put raspberry pi between quotes and

let's take a look

it even has my first tweet about

raspberry pi's which was back in 2016.

oh my gosh oh my gosh this is when i put

a unified controller openvpn dynamic dns

all running on my pi 3. that was fun all

right let's keep going let's go deeper

let's get crazier we can also output

these results to a file so we can you

know store them and look at them later

twint will do the same thing network

chuck for my username

i'll search for it every time i've said

right now and then i'll do a dash o

to output it to a file

see right now

dot json and then i'll do a dash dash

json to make sure the data is formatted

to be json now let's check it out

now it'll still output to the terminal

but let's do an ls to see what's inside

my folder here there it is right

now.json let's look inside i'll do a

nano right now.json

and there they all are that is so cool

okay here we go even deeper more cool

things let's pick on david bomble so

twint dash u david bomble

if you don't know who david bomble is go

follow that guy he's amazing we've been

friends for years now i want to see all

david bomble's popular post i'll do dash

dash men dash likes

and i'll do 100 this will return all

tweets that have at least 100 likes if

it doesn't have 100 likes ain't gonna be

there let's try it out

yeah look at david so popular look at

all those

popular tweets let's see all the times

he's talked about me i'll search for

myself

yeah oh it's still going yeah we hang

out a lot we talk a lot

maybe i only want to see his tweets from

today let's try that i'll do dash dash

sense and i'll specify the date 2021

today's april 28th

let's see lil congrats to all these

winners of the contest so just one tweet

today we can also go back and look at

previous stuff like let's specify a year

2016 was david even on twitter yeah he

was wow

[Laughter]

he's talking about sdn and open flow

like crazy now i want to see his

pictures from 2016 so i can actually

specify tweets only with images i'll do

dash dash images here we go oh he's got

one talking about raspberry pi's let's

go take a look at that

oh someone retweeted david and how he's

messing with

a raspberry pi zero that's fun now what

we're doing here might seem silly i'm

just looking at pictures and old tweets

but that's that's hacking gathering

information is a vital part of hacking

now just a few more cli commands before

we go crazy in python so here we go you

don't have to just search by username or

by one account

i can search simply by a search term so

maybe i want to find out all the people

talking about coffee

near where i live here in dallas i can

do that so i'll do dash dash near dallas

and i want to see it for today so i'll

do

sense 2021 blah blah today and these

things have to be popular so i want a

minimum likes

of at least 15 likes let's try it out

that is too cool

six hours straight of drinking coffee

while listening to edm probably not

healthy choice i don't know sounds great

to me maybe i'm in paris and i want to

hang out with people talking about

raspberry pies so let's see if anyone's

talking about raspberry pies today in

paris

and there certainly are let's go check

this guy out real quick raspberry pi

news looks pretty cool and you can also

be more precise so you don't have to do

near

you can actually search by coordinates

by geo coordinates so let's uh specify

some geo coordinates dash g

equals latitude and longitude

i'll do a comma after that and specify

the radius we'll say within like

20 kilometers no one this is austin

texas no one's talking about raspberry

pi's

i bet they're talking about coffee let's

test that out yeah look at all those

coffee people in austin texas

now the cli it's fun but the real power

comes in with python you ready let's do

this this is so cool seriously anyways

here we go i'm going to create a new

python file using nano leave me alone

nano and i'll name this hot topic

nothing to do with the store not

sponsored relax

dot pi

first thing we'll do here is make sure

we got

twint

involved we'll import twint

that's importing that python module so

we can use it in our script so for this

script i want it to be interactive so

here we go i want to be able to launch

this and say hey

this is what i'm searching for and what

city

i'm searching for it in to kind of get

hot topics like maybe raspberry pi's in

dallas coffee in berlin t in england

there you go david let's try it out i'll

name my first variable search

and i'll have that equal

an input it'll ask me for input it'll

ask me what are you searching for

another one i'll name city and equal

that

also an input i'll say where and then

let's get twent set up now this is all

foreign to you that's fine this is a

great opportunity for you to learn a

little bit of python and if you already

know python do you go crazy with this

and have a ton of fun seriously this is

so cool anyways

okay have i said that enough yet so i'll

say c another variable i'll have that

equal

twint.config case being very important

here i'll say c dot search

equals my variable search c dot

near

equals

my variable city i do want to limit my

search so i'll say limit it to 20 tweets

and i only want to see popular tweets

now i can say number of likes like it

has to have 100 likes or i can do

popular

tweets

this is boolean so how they equal

true i believe that is yeah oh wait the

t needs to be lower case

case is important

and yeah you know i think that's good so

now we're going to launch the command

it'll be twint.run.search

and then my variable c which

encapsulates all that business right

here that should be good i'm going to

control x

to get out of there why do you see it

want to save it

easy for me to say and hit enter

cool time to run my script by doing

python3 and then what i name it oh hot

topic hot topic dot pi let's see what

happens

what am i searching for hmm

let's see let's do coffee in berlin

coffee

berlin

how cool is that that's so cool

something about coffee and space i want

to see that tweet let's check it out ooh

a new coffee machine love it okay one

more python thing i want to show you

just to kind of show you the power of

what you can actually do yourself

so on twitter i tweeted two things i

said retweet this and then uh reply to

this that was for right now so i've got

a script let me show you what i'm doing

so here it is let's jump in there real

quick

i called it my people

dot pi and here's the script i'm pulling

in date time to get today's date

now now i'm saying whoever tweets at me

today i want to pull all those tweets

it's going to run that search and then

throw that into a a list a python list

if you don't know what that is we'll

cover some of that stuff later in a new

series i then create a new list just

called my people and that new list with

this command will only have all of your

usernames everyone who replied to me or

or sent me stuff i've got all your

usernames in a nice little list it's

going to print that list

and then it's going to go through all of

your accounts

and pull your last 20 tweets and 20

tweets 10 times fast and then print that

on the terminal

pretty cool right i mean it's kind of

pointless

but if you think about what you can do

for an actual ocean investigation when

you're hacking whatever

so check it out let's try it python3

my people

dot pi here we go ready for this here we

go

there you all are thank you

and then here comes all your tweets

how cool is that

twit a python hacking tool for twitter

it's awesome i can seriously spend hours

just playing with this and creating

scripts in fact i would love to see what

you guys create so let me know below

comment below with what you have that's

awesome anyways let me know you think of

the video in the comments below make

sure you hack youtube today ethically of

course the algorithm so like the video

comment notification bell all that

youtubey stuff and yeah that's all i

have today

i'll catch you next time

[Music]

[Music]