I will try to tackle these
"If you were paying for access to Frank's website out of your own pocket, do you feel it pays for itself as far as the info it provides to you?"
Just to make sure we are talking about the same course, it is Michael Bazzell, not Frank. I googled Frank Bazzell and found nothing related, so I assume we are on the same page. I think it was definitely worth it, even on a personal level. A friend that is a P.I. watched along with me during the Facebook and Twitter options and immediately bought his own monthly membership with personal funds.
"In teaching techniques that save you significant time and money?"
Definitely. He provides his own web based tools that saves me a ton of time. I use the Facebook custom tools page every day, it always finds something I missed within two seconds. To be fair, these tools are all free on his sight. the videos just help explain what all can be done with them. You could play around first.
"I assume there are some "BASICS (or a FOUNDATION) of conducting OSINT" training videos. Probably the "40 hours to complete" that people talk about."
The entire series was fairly straight forward. Not much fluff or filler. Started with search engine basics and operators, went straight into ways to exploit social networks.
"Then other videos dealing with more of the "SPECIFICS of OSINT"; perhaps how to use specific search tools, specific websites, software etc."
The later section on software is like 7 hours long. A separate video for each program. I skipped a few I would have no need for.
"The "monthly updates"
As far as the ongoing monthly updates to the website. Do you see many updates to the BASICS of conducting OSINT?"
No, the updates display new methods that have been identified since the original videos were posted.
"Or are most of the updates for the SPECIFICS of OSINT, like
using new software products or using new web tools that just became available?
(Or, like the example you mentioned. How one cell phone technique no longer worked. so it was replaced by a new method)."
Exactly. Actual updates.
"I know OSINT is supposed to be "open source" and most people often equate "open source" to equaling "free". How many of the research products, services or techniques involved have additional out-of-pocket expenses?"
None. He is pretty good about showing ways to bypass the fee requirements. One of the first videos showed how to access premium content on a newspaper archive site for free without any login.
"Like subscriptions or membership websites?"
None. He actually discourages anyone from using the paid sites.
One last thing. To be fair, I would probably get the monthly and start from there. My friend did that and decided later to get the whole year. They offered to only charge him the difference so that he ended up paying $999 for everything for a year. They were pretty easy to deal with. I emailed the instructor twice with questions and he responded personally within minutes. I thought it was an autoresponder until I read that he was referring to my actual inquiry.
To JHowell,
Thank you very much for taking the time to provide all your answers.
You are correct on the name.
I just looked at the book I have from Mr Bazzell "Open Source Intelligence Techniques" and it certainly is Mike Bazzell, not Frank. (Not sure where I got the Frank from when I was posting to the forum)
I have monies budgeted out to start in about 1 month from now.
It's great to hear from someone that is involved with using service and hearing your review of it.
I've found usersearch.org to be useful for this.
For investigators or researchers interested in OSINT, this is a comprehensive OSINT resource directory put together by the company I work for. Cynthia Hetherington (Hetherington Group, who was mentioned above) contributed to it
http//