I stumbled on Reddit Analyzer when a Digital Investigation that I was undertaking required that I be able to collect as much information from a single Reddit user account as possible. In my view, this tool is quite underrated for the simple fact that it is very easy to install and deploy through Python. Once it has been installed, the investigator is only required to input the target Reddit account and then let the tool do the rest of the work. The tool obtains the following information from a single account:

• Creation date and time
• Last user activity date and time
• Verification status and by what means
• Total number of comments
• Total number of ‘comment karma’ – the score you get for posting and commenting on Reddit – a good indicator of the account’s reputation amongst other Reddit users
• Total number of links shared
• Total number of ‘link karma’

Whilst the above is considered very useful information for an investigator in itself, the most useful feature is the tool’s ability to present in a graphical format the location and number of comments that the target has posted within different Sub-Reddits – user-created areas of interest or chat forums where discussions are organized.

Whilst Reddit Analyzer is a very useful and easy-to-use tool, the output from which I consider to be very actionable, I do believe that there is a lot of space for tools of this kind to be further developed. For example, in the case of Reddit, the capability to extract comments associated with a user account and providing a timeline or time/date visualisation of comments across Sub-Reddits would be highly valuable intelligence.