Using Hubstream

Taking the address entity as an example, following are the steps to download it in the .xml format:

Downloading an entity from its Overview section

• Click and select an entity. This opens the Overview section of the entity.

  

• Click the three-dot icon on the right. This opens a list of available options.

  

• Click on Download. This downloads the entity as an .xml file.

  

Downloading an entity from the All-Entities page

• Click on the hamburger menu available in the top left corner.

  

• Click on the desired entity type in the All items section of the hamburger menu. This opens the All-Entities page of the particular entity.

  

• Click and select an entity. This opens an Actions menu on the right.

  

• Click on Download. This downloads the entity as an .xml file.

  

On the All Media page, the media view can be changed by following the steps provided below:

• Click on the hamburger menu icon in the top left corner.

  

• In the hamburger menu, click on Media in All items section. This opens the All Media page.

  

• Click on the View or 9-dot icon on the right. This opens a dropdown with two options, i.e., List and Gallery.

  

• Click on Gallery to change the view to Gallery view.

  

• Click on List to change the view back to List view.

  

A timeline can be filtered by following the steps provided below:

• Click on the hamburger menu in the top left corner.

  

• Click on any entity under the All Items section. This opens the All Entities page.

  

• Click on any entity. This opens the entity’s overview. The timeline is on the right.

  

• Click on the View icon on the right. This opens a dropdown of options, i.e., Show Investigative Dates, Show Notifications, Show Notes, and Show Data Updates. By default, all options are ticked.

  

• Check or uncheck any of the options. This refreshes the timeline.

  

• The new timeline contains only the selected items.

  

What is it and how to use it

In Hubstream (Classic), the image safety tool helps users to filter and mask the images they or others in their organization have uploaded.

Filters and masks in Hubstream

Users can use filters and masks to hide parts of an image for their safety. The following table shows the various available types of filters and masks:

How are filters and masks used for the safety and protection of investigators?

The use of filters and masks for protecting investigators from disturbing images (such as child sexual abuse material or CSAM) is invaluable in protecting their mental health.

Goals behind using filters

• To reduce the vividness of the image, making it easier for investigators to look at it without being overwhelmed or triggered by what they are seeing.
• To allow investigators (as a result of the above) to be more focused on getting information from an image instead of getting emotionally attached to what they’re viewing.

Goals behind using masks

• To block out the disturbing parts of the image.
• To help investigators focus their attention on the part of the image that contains helpful information rather than the part that contains potentially disturbing and unhelpful elements.

Types of filters

The following four kinds of filters are available for images:

1. No filter: The first filter removes any pre-applied filter applied to the image. This is also selected when there’s no filter applied to the image.
   
   

2. Gray filter: The second filter turns the image into a grayscale. When the gray filter is applied to an image, it alters the colors of the photo and desaturates them to various shades of gray.
   
   

3. Blur filter: The third filter blurs the image. When it is applied to an image, it has the effect of blurring or obscuring certain parts of the picture. It results in a softer, less detailed look and makes identifying people or objects much more difficult.
   
   

4. Block image: The fourth filter hides the image entirely.
   
   

Types of masks

The masks are present below the filter on the upper right side of the image.

The following four types of mask settings are available:

1. No mask: This setting removes any mask applied to the image.
   
   

2. Small mask: This setting allows viewing the image in a small circle.
   
   

3. Medium mask: This setting allows viewing the image in a medium circle.
   
   
   

4. Large mask: The fourth setting allows viewing the image in a large circle.
   
   

How to use the image safety tool

To use the image safety tool, follow the steps given below:

• Go to an investigation or media section of the hamburger menu. Click on an image to open it. The image safety tool is available on the right side of the picture.
  
  

• Click on a filter to turn the image to grayscale/blur/black.
  
  

• Afterward, click appropriate mask settings to view the image in a particular area.
  
  

• Hover the hand icon over any part of the image to view it.
  
  

The import .xml functionality can be used to import different types of entities such as investigations, people, addresses, IP addresses, online identities, etc., into Hubstream.

Users can modify the uploaded entities using the software’s interface. This includes adding new entities, editing existing entities, and linking entities together to create a complete picture of a case.

Importing an entity in Hubstream

An entity can be imported using an .xml file in Hubstream by following the steps provided below:

• Click on the cog menu. This opens a list of options.

  

• Click on Import Xml. This opens a popup titled Import Case From Xml File.

  

• Click on the page icon on the right. This opens a file explorer window.

  

• Navigate to the .xml file. Click and select it. Click on Open at the bottom of explorer. This closes the file explorer and turns the Upload button in the popup to green.

  

• Click on Upload. This starts the upload process. A progress bar at the bottom of the popup will show how far along is the upload.

  

• Wait for a few seconds for the upload to get over.

  

• Once the upload is completed, close the popup by clicking x in the top right corner. This takes the user to the page they were on before clicking the upload xml option.

  

• Wait for a couple of seconds. Verify the entity has been uploaded in the All-Entities page of the entity just uploaded.

  

Downloading an entity as .xml

Taking the address entity as an example, following are the steps to download it in the .xml format:

Downloading an entity from its Overview section

• Click and select an entity. This opens the Overview section of the entity.

  

• Click the three-dot icon on the right. This opens a list of available options.

  

• Click on Download. This downloads the entity as an .xml file.

  

Downloading an entity from the All-Entities page

• Click on the hamburger menu available in the top left corner.

  

• Click on the desired entity type in the All items section of the hamburger menu. This opens the All-Entities page of the particular entity.

  

• Click and select an entity. This opens an Actions menu on the right.

  

• Click on Download. This downloads the entity as an .xml file.

  

What does the investigation overview consist of?

The investigation overview shows insights related to an investigation. It is divided into four parts: header, field sub-header, infographics, and timeline.

• Header: It consists of the breadcrumb, investigation name, and assignee names.
• Field sub-header: It consists of information about the investigation, such as its ID, status, date of received, days open, priority, incident type, and source.
• Menu: It consists of an edit button, add investigation button or plus, timeline view settings, and a three-dot icon with various options to modify and download the investigation.
• Infographics: These consist of links of investigation, such as an address, IP address, etc., and media, map, link chart, etc.
• Timeline: It provides a bird’s eye view of various events by date in the investigation.

The map visualization allows users to view an investigation’s links or related entities with location information on a map.

To view the related entities on a map, do the following:

• From middle panel of the user dashboard, click on an investigation.

• If the investigation has any links with location information, a map tile will become available. The map tile contains a map that displays the location of various links.

  

• Hover the cursor over a link in the map tile to view more information about it. User can also drag across the map to view more related entities.

  

• On the bottom of the map tile, there’s an option to expand the map which appears only on hovering over the tile. Click on it to view the map in full-screen mode.

  

• Hovering the cursor on a link on the map will display a hyperlink along with location information.

  

  • Click on the hyperlink to open the link. This opens a page where more information about the link is available.

    

• Press Esc key to close the full-screen map.

Interface

Hubstream’s interface is divided into the following three areas:

1. Header
2. Side bar or navigation
3. Dashboard panels

Header

The header of Hubstream comprises three important areas, i.e., the hamburger menu, global search bar and the cog menu.

1. Hamburger menu

   

   The hamburger menu is divided into the following four areas:
   1. Dashboards: The user dashboard and the team dashboards are accessible from the hamburger menu.
   2. Reports: It consists of all the different types of reports that are available in Hubstream.
   3. All items: It consists of all the different types of entities.
   4. History: It lets the user view and access the most recent items.
   5. Jump to: It lets the user search a particular item within Hubstream.

2. Global search bar
   The global search bar provides a way to the user to search everywhere on the hub that they have access to.

   

   It has the following parts:
   - Text field: It is the place where the user types in the keyword.
   - Search button: It is used to initiate the search.
   - Search dropdown: is used to view advanced options for searching within the hub that user is a part of.

       The available advanced search methods are as follows:
       a.	Advanced Search
       b.	Hash Search
       c.	Bulk Search
       d.	Bulk Hash Search
   

   Some of the items that can be searched for from the global search bar are as follows:

   • Investigations
   • Addresses
   • IP Address
   • Media
   • Media Series
   • Online identities
   • Online Resources
   • Persons
   • Automations

3. Cog menu

The cog menu consists of the following options:

• User Profile: It takes the user to their profile.
• System Information: It provides basic information about what version of the Hubstream system the user is running.
• Import XML: Clicking on it lets the user import an xml file.
• Import Spreadsheet: Clicking on it lets the user import a spreadsheet into Hubstream.
• Import JSON Case: Clicking on Import JSON Case lets the user import a case from a JSON file.
• Undo Deletes: It reverses the deletion of items.
• System Status: It displays the in-progress tasks.
• Admin: It lets the user manage users on the hub.
• Diagnostics: It helps in diagnosing problems related to the hub.
• Log out: Clicking on Log out takes the user out of Hubstream.
• Help: It takes the user to a new page containing download link for intelligence agent and a video to learn to configure the credentials.

3. Side bar
   The side bar consists of three options, i.e., User Dashboard, Team Dashboard and Reports.

1. User Dashboard: It is the homepage and provides at-a-glance views of KPIs of the user.
2. Team dashboard: It is where the user can get at-a-glance views of KPIs of their team.
3. Reports: It is where the user can view reports about their organization.

The network chart in Hubstream Classic helps users visualise links associated with an investigation. It shows the flow of information and the relationships between different links of an investigation.

Once one or more links have been added to an investigation, follow the steps given below to view the network chart:

• From the user dashboard, click on an investigation to open it.

• Once in, open the side bar and click on Links. A list view of links will open.

  

• On the top right, there will be a grid icon called View. Click on it.

  

• From the dropdown that opens, select Network Visualization. The view will change to a network chart of links.

  

• Some links in the network chart will have a circle on the top right containing a plus sign followed by the number of related links.

  Click on the circle to expand the network chart and view the related links. The number disappears when the node is expanded. Click on the empty circle to close the expanded node.

  

• On the left side of the network chart, various filters are present. The network chart can be filtered using different entity types, link names or link quality. The type of filters shown depend on the type of links available and their field values.

  Click on any filter to apply it. The network chart will change accordingly.

• On the top right of the network chart, various options to modify it are available

  1. Add: The first one is the plus icon that lets the user add more links to the current investigation.

    Click on the plus icon to open the dropdown. Choose the desired type of link, add details and click on Save and close. The new link will be added to the current investigation. Expand the current investigation node to view it.
  

  2. View: Click on the nine-dot icon called View on the top right of network chart. Three options to change the view are available, i.e. List, Details and Network Visualization.

    Click on any other view to change the view. Don't take any action if no view change is required.
  

  3. Tree Layout: Next is a tree icon called the tree layout which shows the network chart in a tree layout. Click on it to change the network chart to tree layout.

  4. Horizontal Tree Layout: Click on horizontal arrows icon to change the network chart to a horizontal tree layout.

  5. Spatial Layout: Click on the Gift box icon to change the network chart to a spatial layout.

  6. Other options: Click on the three-dot icon to open a dropdown containing other options to modify the network chart. The dropdown contains four options, i.e., Expand All, Collapse All, Save Layout, and Clear Saved Layout.

    ![](../../Screenshots/Screenshot%202023-03-22%20165439.png?Web=1)
  
    - **Expand All**: It expands all the nodes of the network chart without having to click on different nodes one-by-one. Click on it to expand all the nodes.
  
    - **Collapse All**: It collapses any or all the expanded nodes. Click on it to close any expanded nodes.
  
    - **Save Layout**: It saves the layout in its current form. Click on it to save the layout.
  
    - **Clear Saved Layout**: It clears the saved layout. Click on it to remove the saved layout.

How to add a new organization to Hubstream

Follow the steps given below to add a new organization to Hubstream:

• Click on the cog menu in the top right corner. This opens a dropdown.

  

• Click Admin. This takes the user to the Admin section.

  

• Move the cursor to the right to view the sidebar.

  

• Click on Organizations. This opens the Organizations page.

  

• Click on the plus icon on the right. A popup form opens.

  

• Fill the form with details of the new organization. Click Save and close to save the form. Click Save and add another to save and add a new organization. Click cancel to cancel the process.

  

• Verify the addition of a new organization in the organization table.

  

How to download all organizations as .csv in Hubstream

Follow the steps given below to download organizations as .csv:

• Click on the cog menu in the top right corner. This opens a dropdown.

  

• Click Admin. This takes the user to the Admin section.

  

• Move the cursor to the right to view the sidebar.

  

• Click on Organizations. This opens the Organizations page.

  

• Click on the downward arrow icon (Tooltip: Download) on the right. This downloads all the organization entries as a .csv file.

  

How to edit an organization in Hubstream

To edit an organization, follow the steps provided below:

• Click on the cog menu in the top right corner. This opens a dropdown.

  

• Click Admin. This takes the user to the Admin section.

  

• Move the cursor to the right to view the sidebar.

  

• Click on Organizations. This opens the Organizations page.

  

• Click and select any organization. This opens an Actions menu on the right.

  

• Click on Edit. This opens a popup form titled Edit Organization.

  

• Make the required changes and Click on Save to save them. Click on Cancel to cancel the editing process.

  

• Verify the changes in the organization table.

  

The team dashboard is a place to view the ongoing activity of the team and related insights. It has the following three areas:
1. Left panel
2. Middle panel
3. Right panel

Left panel

The left panel is divided into two areas, each of which displays an interactive infographic about active investigations. These are Active By Incident Type and Active Investigations By Status.

• Active By Incident Type: This shows a visual representation of active investigations by their incident type, such as misleading words or digital images on the internet, child sex tourism, etc.

• Active Investigations By Status: This shows a visual of the active investigations by their status, such as open, importing, pending etc.

To navigate the left panel of team dashboard, follow the steps given below:

• Hover over various parts of the visualization to see useful insights as tooltips.
• Click on any part of visualisation to filter the list of team investigations present in the right panel.
• Click at the same place again or the filter icon on the top right of left panel to remove the filter on the list of investigations.

Middle panel

The middle panel is divided into two areas, viz. workload and days active.

• Workload: It shows the total number of unassigned investigations and the workload for each individual in an ascending order. It has a scrollbar that allows viewing the workload for each individual member. If there are a lot of members in the team, a More button will be shown at the bottom, clicking on which will expand the team.

• Days active: It is a multi-colour donut representation of the number of days the team members were active for. A legend is present below the donut representation that indicates the time period each colour in the visual denotes.

  To navigate the middle panel of team dashboard, follow the steps given below:

  • Hover over various parts of the visualization to see useful insights as tooltips.
  • Click on any part of visualisation to filter the list of team investigations present in the right panel.
  • Click on it again or the filter icon on the top right of left panel to remove the filter on the list of investigations.

Right panel

The right panel contains the following:

1. The total number of active team investigations
2. The total number of active investigations with the status high priority
3. A list of investigations with the their status and date of last edit.
4. An edit icon to edit an investigation
5. A plus icon to add a new investigation
6. A share icon to share the investigation

To navigate the middle panel of team dashboard, follow the steps given below:

• To filter the list of investigations, click on either the total number of active investigations or the total number of active high priority investigations. This results in a colour-coded filtered list, now containing only the active investigations or active high priority investigations.
• Click on it again or the freshly appeared filter icon on the top right of right panel to remove the filter.
• Click on any investigation to view more details related to that particular investigation.

The user dashboard has three panels, i.e., the left, the middle, and the right panel. Each one of these contains important information about the user’s activity in Hubstream.

Left panel

The left panel of the dashboard consists of two visualizations - Days Active Donut Chart and Active By Source Organization Pie Chart.

1. Days Active Donut Chart: It displays an interactive visualization of the days that the user was active for.

2. Active By Source Organization Pie Chart: It displays an interactive visualization of the days that the user was active for by source organization.

3. Filter icon: It only appears if any part of a visualisation is clicked to apply a filter to the list of investigations. Clicking the filter icon removes the filtering and the icon disappears.

To explore a visualization in the left panel, follow the steps given below:

• Hover over various parts of the visualization to see useful insights as tooltips.
• Click the visualization to filter the investigations displayed in the middle panel.
• Click the visualization again to remove the filtering.

Middle panel

The middle panel shows an overview of the user’s investigations. It contains the following information:

1. The total number of active investigations denoted by active
2. New investigations on the current day denoted by new today
3. New investigations in current week denoted by new this week

This is followed by a list of the investigations created by the user (4).

There are two icons on the top of the middle panel, viz. the plus icon (4) and the list icon (5).

Click on the plus icon to add a new investigation or list icon to view all investigations.

Click on either total number of active investigations, new investigations, or new investigations this week to filter the list of investigations. Click on it again or the freshly appeared filter icon on the top right to remove the filter.

Right panel

In the right panel, user can view the total number of unread alerts, followed by a general timeline that displays important events in all the investigations created by the user.

The right panel is further divided into the following three parts:

1. Alerts: They act as notifications in Hubstream. At the same time, they filter the timeline events. User can click on the alert number to apply the filtering to the timeline.

2. Timeline: The timeline helps users keep track of all the important events related to all the investigations.

3. Filter icon: The filter icon appears only when the user has clicked an alert and in turn, filtered the timeline. User can click on it to remove the filtering from the timeline. This causes the filter icon to disappear.

User management in Hubstream refers to the process of administering and controlling the access and permissions of individual users within the software. This includes creation, editing or activation or deactivation of user profiles, and assignment of different levels of access. It is only available to the administrators.

How to add a new user in Hubstream

Adding new users is an important task performed routinely by administrators. The following are the steps to add a new user to Hubstream:

• Click the settings menu on top right corner. This opens a dropdown containing various options.

  

• Click on Admin in the available options. This opens the All Users page of Admin section.

  

• Click on the plus button available on the right. This opens a pop-up form titled New User.

  

• Complete the form with the new user’s details. Ensure filling in the fields marked with an asterisk.

  

• Click Save and close to save the user and close the form or Save and add another to add another new user. In both cases, a new user is added to Hubstream. Verify the same in the user table.

  

How to download the user table in Hubstream

The user table is the centralized database that stores information on each user who interacts with Hubstream. It comes in handy as a comprehensive list of all users within the system and allows administrators to view and manage the user’s roles, and permissions. It is available on the All Users page of the Admin section.

The following are the steps to download the user table:

• Click the settings menu on right top corner. This opens a dropdown containing various options.

  

• Click on Admin from the available options. This opens the All Users page of Admin section.

  

• Click on the download icon on the right. This downloads the user table as a .csv file that can be found in the Downloads folder.

  

How to filter or search users in Hubstream

Filtering users
Users can be filtered using predefined filters, such as Organization and Active status, available on the left of user table.

The following are steps to filter users in user table:

• Click and open the All Users page from the Admin option in settings menu.

  

• In the list of filters, click on an Organization filter to get the users from that particular organization in the user table.

  

• Click on one of the Active filters to further filter the users based on whether or not they are active users.

  

• Hover over Organization or Active to get three options, i.e., Search, Clear selection and Remove filter.

  

  • Click on Search icon, type a keyword and press Enter key to search for a particular filter.

    

  • Click on Clear selection icon to remove the selected filter.

    

  • Click on Remove filter icon to remove the filter type from the list of filters.

  

Searching for users
Users can be searched for by using the mini search bar on All Users page. The mini search bar is available on the left, just above the filters.
The following are steps to search for a user:

• Open the All Users page. Type name of a user in the text field.

  

• Press Enter key or click on the search button. The table will be filtered to show the users that match the given keyword.

  

How to assign a role to a user in Hubstream

An administrator might want to assign a user a particular role or remove one from their existing roles to give more access and permissions for using Hubstream.

The following are the steps to assign a particular role to a user:

• Click on the settings menu on the right top corner. This opens a dropdown containing various options.

  

• Click on Admin in the available options. This opens the All Users page of Admin section.

  

• Click and select any user(s). This opens an Actions menu on the right.

  

• Click on Assign Roles in the Actions menu. This opens a popup form consisting of a search functionality and a checklist of various roles.

  

• Click on empty checkbox before a role to select it. Click again to deselect the role.

  

• Click on Save to assign the new roles to the user. This closes the popup and takes the user to the All Users page.

  

How to edit a user’s information in Hubstream

The following are the steps to edit a user information:

• Click the settings menu on the top right corner. This opens a dropdown containing various options.

  

• Click on Admin in the available options. This opens the All Users page of Admin section.

  

• Click and select a user. This opens the Actions menu on the right.

  

• Click on Edit in the Actions menu. This opens a form titled Edit User.

  

• Make changes and click on Save. This saves the changes to the user information and refreshes the All Users page.

  

How to change user status (Active/Inactive) in Hubstream

An administrator may want to change a particular user’s status to active or inactive to allow or disallow them to access Hubstream’s various functionalities. User status can be changed using the Edit User form.
The following are the steps to change a user’s status to active or inactive:

• Click the settings menu on the top right corner. This opens a dropdown containing various options.

  

• Click on Admin in the available options. This opens the All Users page of Admin section.

  

• Click and select a user. This opens an Actions menu on the right.

  

• Click on Edit in the Actions menu. This opens a popup form titled Edit User.

  

• In the form, there is a checkbox with the label Active. It is a setting to change the user status to active or inactive. Check or uncheck the box, according to preference.

  

• Click Save. This saves the form and changes the user status. Verify this in Active column of the user table.