Word up: learning foreign languages for OSINT with Skip Schiphorst

Skip: My buddy asked me, hey, say you speak Chinese, right? So yeah, I do. Okay. So what does that, that my wife’s got this tattoo? You saw that tattoo? I said, yeah, I noticed it. Uh, he says it means, uh, it means precious, right? I said, no, it means expensive. And he said, wow, that’s right too. That’s that that’s okay too, because she is right.
But I know, because if you go to Google translate, this character, uh, actually translates into expensive, it can also mean precious, but. There you go. If you go, if you want to have a tattoo, Shannon or Jeff in Chinese, just reach out to me, I’ll double check for you. All right.

Jeff: Welcome to NeedleStack everyone. I’m Jeff Phillips.

Shannon: And I’m Shannon Reagan. Today, we’re discussing the use of foreign language content in OSINT with Skip Schiphorst. Skip is an OSINT course developer and instructor at iIntelligence, a Swiss based company providing research, training, and advisory services. Skip specializes in Chinese and Arabic content. Skip, welcome to the show. Welcome to NeedleStack.

Skip: Thanks so much. It’s really fun to be here. I was just listening to a couple of podcasts before. Last one was Ritu Gill and Chris Kemp and yeah, really enjoyable episodes that I listened to today. It’s an honor.
Thank you.

Shannon: Great. Thank you for being on and thank you to our former guests as well. Um, as we have chatted about your courses, um, The attendees seem to be on the spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, you have the OSINT experts, and at the other end, you have maybe native speakers or fluent speakers. If I first want to talk about the, the OSINTers who are coming, uh, who lack the foreign language, where do you even start teaching a language like Chinese, Arabic, or your company also offers [00:02:00] Russian courses as well, um, languages where even the alphabet is different?
How do you begin teaching that to non native or non fluent speakers?

Skip: So it sounds, uh, it seems pretty daunting, uh, very simply put, because when you look at these alphabets that look differently, it’s, it’s a bit more, it’s a bit more daunting to, to go into them. If you and I, uh, all speak a language that uses the same letters as, as English, I say, I don’t speak Italian.
I don’t know what you guys do, but. It’s less intimidating to do that than to pivot to one of the languages of India, maybe Chinese, Korean, Russian, or Arabic, right? So it’s all about really, uh, taking it step by step and, uh, breaking the ice of languages. Most languages have spaces, that helps. Some languages don’t have spaces, like Chinese between, uh, characters, et cetera.
However, Chinese is one of the easiest languages to search in online due to the simplicity of these characters. And now you’re thinking they’re not simple skit. No, they’re not simple. Uh, but it’s, it’s, it’s, they’re [00:03:00] quite easy to use in your search matrix, matrices when using Google dorking. So the first day of our courses, we really spend time on breaking the ice and just making people a bit more comfortable with whatever alphabet they’re looking at.
In my case, that would be Arabic and Chinese, and for a Russian course, that would be, um, from my colleague, uh, Vitez, who teaches that. And then gradually going into the details, because we have a, um, segue to that would be, we have a method of teaching languages really step by step. It’s, uh, it’s, uh, five, uh, half days of teaching.
And if you apply our methods to any other language, say Spanish or another language with another alphabet, you will get to those results as well. So it’s all about. Methodology, and then going deeper and deeper in the language. That’s for the people that, um, that don’t speak the language.

Jeff: Can we even, if I even step back a little further Skip, can you, without revealing anybody’s [00:04:00] missions or jobs, well, for our audience, what are some of the benefits for someone to be searching in local languages?
I mean, there’s one, I get it if you come across an asset, And it’s in Russian and I can’t read it, but the ability to actually search and find things and using the local language instead of using English in Google, or even using English in, you know, a German Google page.

Skip: Sure. Um, I think the number of people that really only specialize on.
On English OSINT, that would be very local. Think about police departments. Think about journalists that really only study and find content in that language. It would not make sense to start searching in the foreign language. However, Most OSINT researchers, whether they work for think tanks, law enforcement, or, uh, academics, are gonna, uh, are gonna come across foreign content or have to do some research in the foreign content to improve their information position, if they’re writing essays for school, etc.
A lot of content [00:05:00] you get. Has to be found in foreign languages. So those are typically the kind of people that would benefit from being able to search in a foreign language. Um, and I, I got there by accident as well. I had to write things in Chinese, uh, for my, my, my school time. I went late in life. I went to school, but a bit of a late bloomer, but I was just.
Putting in words in Google and just hitting enter. And then, uh, I didn’t know there were operators, right? If, if I would have known there were operators, it would have saved me so much time. And this is a, uh, this ties into one of your previous guests, Chris Kemp, what he said about teaching youngsters how to research online.
I think that’s great. Like, how do you research online? Use operators. If I would have used. PDF a bit better. I would’ve got way better grades and I would’ve done my research a whole lot faster. Right. So, uh, yeah, there we go.

Jeff: Yeah. And I imagine searching in the local language is going to return different results than if I.

Skip: Very much so. Very much [00:06:00] so. So I’m researching an individual, a company, a phenomenon, a political thing. Uh, it could, it could be anything, right. Yes, I’m going to have a look at what I can find in the language I’m comfortable with. English is still the language of the internet. So there’s going to be a ton of content to be found in English written by other people that have done research.
Then you can piggyback on that research, really zooming out, understanding what we’re looking at, and then really looking into the language of that country. If I’m researching something happening in country X, I’m going to be looking in language X to find more, uh, richer content. Think about company names.
They need to be exact, right? First name, last name has been all names. That’s where the rich intelligence is. The good information. That’s what we focus on.

Jeff: Gotcha. Well, maybe switching a little bit. We started off by talking about people with it. Don’t have the language skills. Um, what, what would fluent speakers, um, In a, in a given language, come to you, uh, I guess, uh, from a search and an [00:07:00] OSINT perspective, come to you for, and what do you, what kind of skills do you help them develop?

Skip: Sure. I’ve got a funny story for that. So I started, uh, four years ago teaching the, uh, the Chinese course, cause I’m much more comfortable at Chinese because I’ve spent, I spent four years studying it. Uh, my Arabic, I studied it for three years on my own back in the day when we, uh, when during my time in the military, uh, but it’s, it’s really not that good.
And I stopped the Chinese course for some time. And then my, my colleague, uh, director of intelligence says, Hey, uh, how about you? Uh, you make an Arabic course. You speak some Arabic, right? I said, yeah, well, I’ll, I’ll give it a try. One slide ends up in 10 slides and ends up in a course and there you have it.
And I was hoping the first people that signed up for my course for Arabic, just please, please just give me English speaking. That’s it. I don’t want any people that speak Arabic. Right. And then long behold, right? The first people that sign up are journalists from the Middle East that are all native speakers of Arabic.
And I thought massive [00:08:00] imposter syndrome. What am I going to tell them about their language and how to research online? I have the same thing when I teach, uh, Chinese. Sometimes I’ll have a native speaker or native, near native speaker. Think about, uh, uh, Singaporeans, for example, and same story, right? I’m a bit more confident now because I know I can teach them things.
And many cases people say, this is the same for our Russian course. Many people say, Hey, wait a minute. I speak that language, but I didn’t know I could search it this way. I didn’t know I could use. That operator or that tool with this alphabet to find richer content. So either they’re saying that to make me feel better, but I get the feeling that it really helps in many cases.
So I’m sorry. Interesting.

Shannon: I’m curious, how, how do you develop your courses and, and I guess why do you do this? Why do you bring people from either ends of the spectrum, you know, toward the center to, you know, improve the, the quality of their work or understanding of the world?

Skip: Um, so [00:09:00] I’ll start with the last question.
I’ll finish with the first one, which I probably will forget. No, I’ve got it. Um, well, you said it. I think I think you mentioned bridges. I love that. Connecting people is what’s so important, right? That’s especially in this day and age, right? Where things aren’t as good as a. As in other times, right? I think connecting people, being able to find content in a foreign language, especially when we’re talking about think tanks, students, people that need, that are going to be the policy makers later, if they are able to research in a foreign language and understand.
that people think differently. That’s, I just see a lot of benefits in that. Um, I remembered your first question. I’m not, uh, not that, uh, that, that old yet. How do I, uh, develop courses? Um, I, I data dump. I take a, I have an idea and usually under the influence of caffeine, I take a piece of paper and I just data dump on peeps.
I’m a big pen and paper fan. I data dump everything on a piece of paper. And then I mold [00:10:00] that into. Uh, two sessions, either in this is a five session course. Typically our sessions are three and a half hours and I’ll put those into, uh, into sections like that. Just tick them off every time. That’s how I do it.
Um, I love peer reviewing. I think it’s very important. Uh, I love running my courses. Any new course that I run personally, I really want to have that checked out by, by, by people attending the course. And typically I’ll just ask, uh, young people that want to learn something just, uh, Hey, why don’t you check out my course and I can run it through you.
And I know that it runs smoothly and you learn some skills. So that’s how I do it.

Shannon: Yeah, something, something you were saying in the, the, why do you do this answer? You know, I think everybody at least feels that the, you know, the world is very siloed or, um, opinionated, I guess, you know, within these silos, um, echo chambers, things like that, uh, is there, it seems like, you know, there’s a great need and value for this and in the internet age in the digital age. To be able to corroborate and, and verify and validate information, not just in your own language or not just in the language that you’re able to, to consume. Can you speak maybe to a little bit about that of like, why, why now? Or, you know, for disinformation or OSINT and, you know, the volumes of data on the internet, like, why is language such a pivotal thing now?

Skip: I think one of the most, a very important part of the answer would be, uh, attention span and the will to do some digger deeping, uh, digger, digger digging, right? Um, most people, even if we, I mean, we’ve never had access to so much information. I think we have a bit of access. too much information. I do not see, I do not need to see the gruesome details, uh, from very close up images happening in Ukraine or Gaza.
That’s not going to help me. It’s going to make me miserable. In fact, I don’t look at that just because that’s not my jam. Um, most people, regardless if we still have, if [00:12:00] we have so much access to pretty much unlimited information, Most people just still stick to what data mom, which, uh, look on the news or what their, what their friends, uh, look on the news,

Jeff: right? Well, since we’re talking about, I mean, this is, there’s languages and international search, um, translations got to come into the mix. I mean, Is there, is there more to it than, you know, Hey, you should have Google translate, um, uh, to do, do your translation for you. I mean, so where, where do, where do translation tools come into play and any tips or words of wisdom for using translation tools?

Skip: Sure thing. Um, I mean, if you have two tools, if you have Google lens and Google translate, that’s going to get you pretty far when dealing with a foreign content. I mean, how cool is it that we can now just read Transcribed Anything in any country online and just have it translated within a microsecond using Google translate, even if it’s not perfect, it’s still going to be able to tell you if you’re dealing with coconuts or bananas. Right. Um, however, because these tools are so good, there’s an over reliance on them. Now, especially when it’s more difficult text, like political text analysis, speeches. which often use proverbs. I use tons of these examples sometimes. Uh, that’s where there’s an over reliance of Google Translate. And, um, if it’s for something, I’ll give you a funny example in a minute. Um, but the people whose job it is to report the news also over rely on Google Translate. Just because it’s fast, we don’t need to be in country, apparently, to do good reporting. We can do that from, you know, Wherever we are, uh, that’s just plain dangerous. If you just report the news to people by using Google translate, especially if you’re translating more difficult texts than, than, than recipes, right? Uh, over reliance on, um, on Google translate. Funny [00:14:00] example is a friend of mine, very good friend of mine. His, his wife has a Chinese tattoo in the neck. Right. As many people do. I think I know where she got that tattoo from. I think it’s from Google Translate. I, I, my buddy asked me, Hey, say you speak Chinese, right?
I said, yeah, I do. Okay. So what does that, that my wife’s got this tattoo. You saw that tattoo. I said, yeah, I noticed it. Uh, he says it means, uh, it means precious, right? I said, no, it means expensive. And he said, wow, that’s right too. That’s that that’s okay too, because she is right. But I know because if you go to Google translate, this character, uh, actually translates into expensive, it can also mean precious, but. There you go. If you go, if you want to have a tattoo, Shannon or Jeff in Chinese, just reach out to me, I’ll double check for you. All right. So coming back to what I always tell as a tip, this is a fun segue is if you’re going to get a tattoo, go to skip or a tattoo parlor, [00:15:00] Google translate, but be, be critical, right?
Check out what other platforms, uh, translation platforms, uh, say out there. Reverso, uh, DeepL Translate. And if you really want to go for that tattoo, go to a native speaker and say, I want to have this in my neck for the rest of my life. Just check if this is good to go. Yeah. So there you go. But be critical, right?
And this is where I use one of my favorite tools to verify translations. Many people ask me what my favorite tool is. One of my favorite awesome tool is a tool called Which doesn’t take too much room when your computer is called notepad. It’s, it’s on, it’s on our computers. And what I love with it is everything is nice and straight every time.
Every time you put something, you stack something up, you can see, uh, it’s nice and straight, that means you can quickly see a difference between if you copy paste the word for expensive from Google translate, you put it in notepad from DeepL, maybe, uh, Baidu translate or Yandex translate, if they all check out in five, six, seven, all check out the same.
You’re pretty safe, right? Um, [00:16:00] so there you go. That’s a great tip.

Shannon: Uh, I was, you know, thinking about the, um, the gray area in language, um, that I’m sometimes like astounded by how much like metaphor and. Kind of coded speak we use just like in everyday speech, um, that we don’t necessarily recognize. Do you get into like how to understand cultural differences or dialects or meanings or is that really just the point of when you need to like triage information to a language expert versus like a good enough moment?

Skip: And I think talking about culture, since I do have their attention for, um, for my courses on Arabic, Chinese, and my colleague does the same for Russian, I do think it’s important to also lift a bit the curtain on culture, et cetera, and you’re taking a deep dive into languages. It’s not just searching online in Chinese, typing or searching in Arabic or something like that.
If we’re going to talk about how to research in that language, I think it serves people well also to, [00:17:00] you know, maybe people that haven’t traveled so much, maybe to also talk a bit more about the language. Where does it come from? How is it? How is it used online? So invariably languages always ties into culture.
I mean, in my experience and, uh, uh, mostly.

Jeff: Interesting. Well, we’ve kind of just assumed everyone gets why you’ve, uh, why you all are focused on the languages. So we’ve talked about Chinese, Arabic, and Russian, um, that Eye Intelligence focuses on. Um, And I get it, right? Um, they’re very important languages on the geopolitical front, on the economic front.
So, with the wars, unfortunately, in Ukraine and Gaza, and tensions in Taiwan, and we’ve got elections here and around the world, are those, do those, those change your courses, or is it driving more people to you for training? What

Skip: Um, so there’s always going to be a need to research, uh, [00:18:00] online in foreign languages in times of, uh, conflict and, and friction as we see now, uh, but just as much as in, uh, in times of, uh, stability, uh, fortunately, I don’t think I’m a big, uh, I mean, I do have faith that we can prevent, uh, uh, Oh, from murdering each other.
I think that building bridges is important. Being able to find different perspectives is very important in other languages. Um, it’s, it’s interesting because when I, when I teach to certain groups that are, that could be biased, whenever I give an exercise, okay, let’s go and research something that this country does.
And if it’s in their bias, they’re going to be, yep, let’s do that. And they’re switched on, and they look, and then I say, okay. Now, let’s have a look from the perspective that let’s look at the same problem set, let’s say that we’re looking at Middle East, and let’s, let’s take a look at what sources in Egypt say, what do they say?
What are the differences with the sources in In Western Europe, right? What are the source? What do people and what does the government and [00:19:00] what do people, what is the sentiment about what’s happening in Ukraine from an, uh, an Asian perspective, right? The West only is 9 percent of the world. Uh, the rest of the world perspective is just as important.
You’re going to see very big differences. Sometimes you’ll see people a bit reluctant to research something that doesn’t fit their bias, right? Because they might find things that challenges them the way they think. But I think that’s very important, right? In what we, uh, Getting out of the zooming out and, uh, and getting more information.
So, uh, I kind of like doing those exercises and, uh, usually during the week we, uh, teaching this week, actually, we, we just cherry pick a couple of, uh, things that are trending on the news and then, uh, then, then go at it, at it together. That’s, that’s, that’s the joy of reteaching in a life compared to other methods of teaching is that you can do some interaction together and some hands on, uh, case studies.
It’s fun.

Shannon: Well, Skip, you have already provided, uh, several tactical and philosophical tips, uh, as for people interested [00:20:00] in learning foreign language content for OSINT or vice versa. Are there any parting words of wisdom you can share with the Needlestack audience?

Skip: Be critical, uh, and a couple of things. Master the operators, you don’t need to know all the operators, but you’ll see that most search operators or advanced Google search operators will work as well in other search engines like DuckDuckGo, Baidu, and Yandex, right? Like I said, if I would have learned those a lot earlier, I would have found the information a lot quicker.
I mean, You guys probably, the way you Google for something, you guys, you search for a restaurant or vacation state where you’re probably going to use a lot of Google dorks to find the right spot, right? Um, but that all jokes aside, that does help a lot, right? Uh, knowing how to research online, because let’s face it, we all research online, just being able to find that precise content.
And, um, about languages, there’s a, there’s a very cool platform. That’s, uh, been out for a couple of weeks [00:21:00] called flinfo. com. And what they do is they pull information or you can search information. It’s, I think it’s refreshed every hour in Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, Vietnamese. And it pulls the information from tens of thousands of sources.
Including social media ones. So that is a really good, good go to, to get some really up to date perspectives about what’s happening in a region, in a certain language. I’m saving lots of time. I think it’s flinfo. com, F L I N F O dot com. And they have a, they have a free trial. So go and check them out.

Shannon: Okay. Yeah. We’ll drop the link in our show notes. Good tip.

Jeff: Yeah. That sounds, that sounds very interesting. Well, thank you Skip for being on the show today. Much appreciated.

Skip: No. Thank both of you so much. Thanks Sean. Thanks Jeff.

Jeff: Uh, and of course, thanks to our audience. Uh, you can view transcripts and other episode info on our website, authentic8.com/needlestack. That’s authentic with the number eight. com slash NeedleStack. And be sure to let us [00:22:00] know your thoughts on X, formerly Twitter or Bluesky at needlestackpod and the like, and subscribe wherever you’re listening today. We’ll see you next time on NeedleStack.