Monthly Archive for July, 2009

SeekingArrangement.com

Published on July 27, 2009 in Social Sites. 0 Comments Tags: .

Seeking a sugar daddy has never been easier.

Reports exist of the most beautiful women on the site, some of whom he had written to but they had not responded until the day after the subscription ran out, emailing the guy after his subscription lapsed.

When we first saw Seeking Arrangement, a site for rich gents seeking companionship, mentioned in the media and in press releases, we thought it was just another dating scam. Then we realised that if you had a rich guy or a potential gold-digger as a subject that this might hold some promise, but not for its  original purpose. An associate proved that with a little guile and ingenuity you can identify an investigation subject in this thing.

The Weak Science Behind Forensics

Published on July 23, 2009 in Forensics. 0 Comments Tags: .

In the August 2007 edition of Popular Mechanics Forensics under fire  shows how DNA analysis has forced traditional forensic science to be less valued and even suspect. The August 2009 edition contains an article that continues to debunk some of shaky scientific foundation of some of your favorite CSI myths.

These articles are must reading for any budding Investigator.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

Published on July 15, 2009 in Methods. 0 Comments Tags: .

It has been 60 years since Nineteen Eighty-Four was first published. This classic dystopian novel by George Orwell is one of my favorite pieces of literature.

My favorite quotation, from a Investigator’s  or Researcher’s  perspective, follows:

And if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth.”

The chances of all records telling the same story is very slim in our world — that is why secrets don’t last very long and why our views of historical events change over time as new information comes to light. The diligent Investigator searches for the records and testimonies that tell a different story.

CrowdEye

Published on July 10, 2009 in Twitter. 0 Comments Tags: .

Looking at Twitter with CrowdEye

CrowdEye only covers 36 hours’ worth of tweets — it’s not deep. But it gave me plenty of ways of viewing my search results and, thanks to that related tag cloud, helped me build a search vocabulary for further research on other, deeper search engines.

Where did this email come from?

Published on July 8, 2009 in Communication, Methods, Private Investigator and Sources. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Tracking down the origin of email messages has become a staple of many Private Investigators. Without getting into  mind-numbing technical details, here are the steps I take to find the origin of anonymous email missives.

  1. Search the sender’s email address using Google, Bing, and other search engines to see if it appears. Next search using Intelius’ reverse email lookup.  If the email appears registered to a name, you can pay a fee of $4.95.
  2. Even when a misleading email address is the origin, read the IP addresses in the header from bottom to  top. The IP address in square brackets is the origin IP.  Or, use IP tool to track the IP address. Copy the headers into the box and select your email system.
  3. Go to What Is My IP Address and enter the IP address to see where it originates.
  4. Search the email address using Spokeo.
  5. Try ReadNotify.com and email the anonymous correspondent. If he opens your message, then it will notify you and send back the reader’s IP address, the date and time the message was opened, location of recipient, map of location, apparent email address of opening (if available), referrer details (ie; if accessed via web mail etc), URL clicks, how long the email was read for, how many times your email was opened and if your email was forwarded, or opened on a different computer. If he opens your message in his office, then you will know where he works. However, this seems to only work with HTML enabled email programs. Remember, the header data from the original message will probably tell you what email program sent the message. NOTE: This does not work if the recipient opens the email in the Web version of Gmail. If he receives it in a desktop client that polls Gmail, then it will work.

 

 

Yauba

Published on July 3, 2009 in Search Engines and Search Strategies. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Arthur Weiss at Be AWARE  provides an excellent review of a new search engine called yauba. The search engine privacy policy states:

 We do not keep any personally identifiable information.

Period.

Anonymity may be important for some people. However for most, it’s search results that count and this review clearly shows that this is a search engine with yet undeveloped potential.

CIA World Factbook

Published on July 1, 2009 in Intelligence Services and Sources. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The CIA announced that their World Factbook Web site had been redesigned. I’m not the only person who constantly relies on this — over 3 million visitors access the online Factbook monthly. That’s not surprising as the World Factbook provides information about the background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 countries and other entities.

I really like the new features of reporting world rankings for data like life expectancy. Another new feature is the “Field Listing” icon that gives you an alphabetical listing of countries for that field so that you can do your own comparison of data that can’t be ranked.

This is a timely resource — it is updated every two weeks and the updates are logged on a special page. Though I wish either the country entries or data fields indicated the last update, but that might be asking too much.

If you want to avoid all the Flash content use the text-only version. I’m not a big fan of Flash, but this is a very well executed use of it that makes the World Factbook more useful.