Maltego - Reconnaissance Tool to Mine Data from Internet

Maltego uses numerous methods to search for public information about a variety of entities, such as individuals, phrases, email addresses, URLs, and domain names. These methods are referred to as transforms. In the original release, these transforms were coded as part of the application -- not they're not in Maltego. It has been redesigned so that the Maltego client you run on your machine utilizes a server -- called a Transform Application Server -- to collect and process the information found by the transforms, then returns the results to the client.

This design allows others to write transforms, set up their own Transform Application Servers, or even add their own entity types to conduct searches for virtually any type of information. Users can now modify or add transforms without needing to reinstall the software. The new architecture also allows users to restrict or control the use of transforms through an individual API, thus avoiding the type of complaints suffered by the original design for violating the TOS from search firms, social networks, and others.