What is WhatsMyName? It is a project that Micah "WebBreacher" Hoffman created in 2015 with the goal of discovering if usernames were used on a given website. He was frustrated with the false positives that were present in the username checkers of that time and so he made his own. Fast forward to today and many people have helped this open-source project evolve into what it is today.
If you are an OSINT person that has come here to run "the tool", try any of the checker sites and scripts below that use our data.
- https://whatsmyname.app/ - Chris Poulter created this site which draws the project's JSON file into an easy to use web interface.
- Filters for category and in search results.
- Exports to CSV and other formats.
- Pulls the latest version of the project's JSON file when run.
- Submit a username in the URL using
https://whatsmyname.app/?q=USERNAMElike https://whatsmyname.app/?q=john
- Reveal My Name is created by @yooper and is the Python checker tool that was bundled with this project.
- Spiderfoot uses this in the sfp_account module. There is also this video showing how to use this project using the Spiderfoot Command Line Interface (CLI).
- sn0int downloads and uses the JSON file in the kpcyrd/whatsmyname module, see https://twitter.com/sn0int/status/1228046880459907073 for details and instructions.
- WMN_screenshooter a helper script that is based on
web_accounts_list_checker.pyand uses Selenium to try and grab screenshots of identified profile pages. - LinkScope uses this in the Whats My Name resolution under the Online Identity category.
- Blackbird uses the Whats My Name list in its search.
- WhatsMyName-Python Whats My Name simple Python script made by @C3n7ral051nt4g3ncy
- K2OSINT Bookmarklet - Bookmarklet that lets you enter a username in a popup and then opens a new tab with the WMN results.
- Maltego WhatsMyName Transforms - Maltego Local Transforms that leverage the JSON file and check for usernames in real time.
WhatsMyName (WMN) consists of a JSON file with detections in it. Submissions from people all over the world are included. When a request is made to one of those sites from a tool like the ones in the previous section, the server replies with data that should match one of our detections. It'll tell the checker script whether there a valid user account with the name we specified on their site or not.
For a site to be included in WMN it has to:
- Be accessible. We cannot check sites behind paywalls or user authentication.
- Put the username in the URL. If the URL to view a user's profile does not have that username in it, this tool won't work.
- Not modify the username in the URL. URLs that have added user ID numbers to the username will not work in WMN. Also, sites that take your username and map it to a user ID number and then put that in the URL will not work.
- The https://github.com/WebBreacher/WhatsMyName/wiki/Problem-Removed-Sites page has websites that we have had in the project and are currently not working for some reason. We will retest those sites (in the future) and try to find detections.
- If you would like to help with detections, we are happy to accept them via GitHub pull request or you can create an issue with the details of the site.
- Want to suggest a site to be added? Use this form.
See CONTRIBUTING
Come follow us for updates. We are on:
- Mastodon at https://infosec.exchange/@whatsmyname
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
