To monitor someone’s Tweets, but not actually publicly follow the Twitter account, use Twitter to RSS. This service allows you to enter the name of a public Twitter account and create an RSS feed for popular RSS readers like Google Reader.
This won’t work if the account owner selected the Protect my tweets box in the account settings.
Finding useful information is time-consuming. Properly evaluating information is time-consuming. Organising information for analysis is time-consuming. We teach techniques that focus and refine your search results. Then we teach you to evaluate the quality of what you find. Finally, we teach you the best practices to organise your data for reporting.
For the Investigator, these time-consuming tasks are money in the bank if he can do the job in an organised and efficient manner. Get a jump on the learning curve from an expert who knows the challenges facing the Investigator.
We tailor workshops for Investigators of varying experience and information literacy.
Sample topics include:
Research Strategy: plan a research strategy, choose the appropriate tools, and use them to full capacity
Evaluation Matrix: the Internet is renowned for harbouring unreliable information, but we teach you how to evaluate the data you find for relevance and quality.
Google: learn the good and bad of Google and how to use its most powerful features
More than Google: learn the strengths and weaknesses of other search engines and how to benefit from them.
The Deep Web: learn about the resources hidden from search engines.
Social Networks: learn the rules regarding the searching and using this data. Learn how to search this vast resource and how to analyse what you find.
MSOffice & OpenOffice: these are not typewriters! Learn how to use them as sophisticated information tools that save time and effort.
Information Management: we show you the software tools and techniques that save your data and your time.
Secure Surfing: choosing the right browser and configuring it properly to leave the smallest footprint behind
If you are a Google+ user, then you now have a new search tool (the encrypted site is https://www.google.com/insidesearch/plus.html). When you are signed into your Google+ account your search engine results will be sorted for relevance in different fashion. Your search results will be sorted by what your Google+ friends say about the search term. This process assumes what your friends say is more important than other content.
This personalised search relevance is a boon for advertisers that want your attention. Google isn’t the first to do this. In 2010 Bing began ranking sites in search results based upon how many of your Facebook friends “like” the site.
The search engines and advertisers have decided that people want to search for other people and their opinions over other content. How convenient for the search engines and advertisers!
If you want a full explanation of the impact this will have for the Investigator, then read Phil Bradley’s article titled Why Google Search Plus is a disaster for search. Google is no longer my first choice, I start with Bing, then DuckDuckGo, and last but not least, I search Blekko.
RTBot (Real Time Bot) is a Real-time information service, where you can enter a topic title and get results from multiple sources (e.g. Wikipedia, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Books, Newspapers, Magazines) all at once. This may sound like a normal search engine, but it isn’t.
RTBot provides content only for specific topics such as concepts, subjects, personalities, events, places, companies, products, etc., but not for broader, unspecific searches.
If you use this properly, you often get a lot of video in the results that would require separate searches to find. This can be quite useful when searching by a company or person name.
Firefox is the online researcher’s best friend. No other browser gives so much control to the user as Firefox. It is more customizable than either Google Chrome or Internet Explorer.
Like any browser, you must be aware of what data you are releasing when you visit a Web site. The following add-ons help eliminate two serious security threats that occur when doing Investigative Internet Research (IIR).
BetterPrivacy—This add-on is pretty basic, but a must have. BetterPrivacy deletes flash cookies (LSOs/SuperCookies).
KeyScrambler—Check out Alex Long’s post from Null Byte for information about what KeyScrambler is and how it works.
I have already written about:
Lately, Google has begun eliminating as much search functionality as they can. One of their recent efforts is the revamped advanced search page. If you don’t think so, then just try to find the advanced search page on your own, I dare you. Did you find it?
Evidently Google thinks you aren’t smart enough to use such advanced stuff. If you really want to find the advanced search page you have to start your search first and then go all the way to the bottom of the SIRP where you will find a link to advanced search.
Under the guise of “people don’t use it”, the similar pages and links to a specific page (backlinks) options have been removed. Now why would anybody want those nasty things anyway?
Similar pages now have to be searched using SimilarPages.com and WhoIsLike.it. This type of search is important to the expert searcher to develop search syntax and to find other players in a given market. The Google search syntax related:www.ConfidentialResource.com is most often a poor substitute for the above search engines.
To find the sites linking to a particular page you have to do it in the main search box using the Google search syntax, link:ConfidentialResource.com. Google’s link command isn’t very useful because Google collects so few backlinks. Bing is no help with backlinks. Yahoo closed its Site Explorer some time ago. It might seem like searching backlinks is now limited to the scant Google results or nothing if you don’t have SEO tools on hand. Fortunately, that is not true.
Blekko is an excellent alternative for finding backlinks.
The search syntax is to use their slashtags /links or /domainlinks with a URL or domain name. The /links slashtag will find pages that link to a particular page whereas the /domainlinks slashtag finds all inbound links to a particular site.
The second route is via your search results. At the end of each search result is a downwards pointing arrow labelled SEO. Click on this and select links from the pop-up box. This creates a /links search syntax for the page given in the search result.
We have also used ReverseInternet.com successfully. Search by the domain name, then select [backlinks] next to the domain name in the resulting table. At the top right of the backlinks table, select External Only: On to get the external backlinks.
I’m a digital troglodyte that doesn’t like change, but sometimes there is no avoiding it.
Recently, Google stopped paying Mozilla for the little Google search window at the top right of the Firefox browser. Google has paid Mozilla about $1 per copy to have that window. Last year, that Google search window accounted for 84% of Mozilla’s $123 million of revenue, or about $100 million. However, Google’s Chrome browser has made remarkable strides against Firefox and the rest of the the browser field.
The loss of funding to support FireFox, and Chrome’s association with the largest search engine, may herald the end of FireFox. No other browser gives so much control to the user like Firefox does. Most users don’t understand that Firefox is more customizable than either Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. If Mozilla doesn’t find a way to replace the lost revenue, then expert searchers may loose their most fundamental and productive tool. That will lead to a forced change for this digital troglodyte expert searcher.
I have used Copernic for years, and just accepted its lack of a Google search. I just got used to it, and never sought a way to add Google.
At a recent conference, Kevin Ripa told me that a registry entry would solve the problem after I mentioned that it didn’t search Google. If you’re going to feel like an idiot, its good to shown-up by a really smart guy like Kevin.
Go to the registry key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Copernic\Agent\System]
and insert the following string:
EngineUpdateAddress=
with value, http://updates.copernic.com/k2upd/agentex
A colleague visited may office while I was conducting some searches. He noticed that I was using the search bar in FireFox and search engines he had never seen before. He then realised that the search bar would never allow him to add these search engines to his search bar.
Pedantic old me went to work on him. I just couldn’t resist.
The FireFox Search Bar allows you to enter simple search terms into a fixed list of search engines. This violates the first rule of being a Power User, which is “do more with less effort”. Read the Power User Tips category of this blog — you’ll get the idea.
The above FireFox AddOn makes any pages’ search functionality available in the FireFox Search Bar.
To use it, open a new tab, then enter a search term and hit enter. Open another tab and change the search engine, and then click on the little magnifying glass. Open another tab, select another search engine… you get the idea.
Update
A few sites don’t work with Add to Search Bar (most notably Google Maps) and there is nothing I can do about it. I just discovered that Sysoon.com, the dead people search engine, doesn’t work with Add to Search Bar.
Google’s Search by Image features all the functionality of Tineye and more from the Investigator’s perspective.
An Investigator whats to know where an image comes from and how it may be associated with the web page he is currently scrutinising. The Firefox Extension, Search by Image for Google 1.0.3, allows one to right click on an image to quickly find out the source of an image, how it is used, or find higher resolution versions via Google Reverse Image search. (This works in Firfox V.7 but may not V.8)
Search by Image usually returns more instances of an image than Tineye, which is understandable give the number of images indexed by Google compared to Tineye.
If you use Yahoo for images searches, you’ll get results from http://www.flickr.com/, which generally has the high quality photos. Yahoo owns flickr, but Google will usually finds flickr images.
The astute Investigator will use both Tineye and Search by Image, along with other tools and search facilities.
I have written about the dangers of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and how this may inhibit best practices while using search engines. Not using the best practices when conducting Internet research may lead to Tort for Negligent Investigations. Skill and knowledge will overcome both of these pitfalls.
Developing the necessary skills and knowledge isn’t ‘rocket science’. It is ‘time in grade’. You must simply do it, study how to do it, and network with people who do it. Unfortunately, this process takes years of effort. I have been doing this type of research for nearly 20 years and I am still learning.
Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines are owned by businesses. The search engine is a cost to those businesses. The search engine is what brings customers through the door. Once the customer is through the door, the search engine business sells something like advertising and other services. Understanding this is the first step to understanding that the search engine may not properly index what you want, or censor the material you seek. For example, the so-called ‘Googlegate’, where Google censored pages with data on the ‘climategate scandal’.
Another example is that Google AdSense stopped serving ads to this blog because there are words in the blog to which they object. It is a small step to intentionally not indexing something they don’t like or censoring something that represents a threat to corporate profits.
As an Investigator, there is no point to becoming upset with such problems. Problems are there to be solved.
If you are your own Expert Searcher, then you must recognise where the difficulties lie. This will mean developing search statements that yield the best results through trial and error. This will mean running many different search statements, for each topic searched, in many search engines. In turn, this will create a problem in documenting the searches and collecting the results for later use. The Expert Searcher will overcome these difficulties.
Over time, the Expert Searcher will develop a methodology for searching and documenting the process. The Expert will develop a set of sources on the Internet and elsewhere to fulfill most of his or her needs. From this will evolve a means of reporting that accurately states the sources and methods without the clutter of the large amount of data collected.
You may not be the Expert Searcher, which is fine if know this to be the case. You are a potential problem, if you think you are an Expert Searcher and you are not one.
If you use an Expert Searcher, and you should, you need to apply your skills to give him a solid starting point, especially when developing an Internet Profile. The Expert Searcher requires the following:
1. Name & Nicknames
2. D0B
3. Address(es)
4. Telephone
5. Fax
6. Email address(es)
7. Known internet handles
8. Known hobbies
9. Known employment
10. Known business & personal affiliations
I typically run the searches through specialised software for social networking and search engine sites, followed by some in-depth search engine queries, and then, I combine that with some whois searches and archived website reports. This develops a fairly robust Internet profile. Finally, I combine the Internet profile with authoritative public records and content from a variety of database aggregators.
Your Search Expert will:
1. Report Sources & Methods
2. Properly cite sources
3. Properly evaluate the source data based upon 13 criteria.
4. Use a proven search methodology
5. Properly document the search statements and search methodology
6. Select the best sources.
When I first tested Askboth.com it only searched Bing and Google. I didn’t like the Google ads that cluttered-up the page. Now the ads are gone and Twitter appears in the centre column of the search results.
If you use NoScript, then select Temporarily Allow Askboth.com. This isn’t the only search engine that requires scripts.
Askboth.com is a very useful tool for comparing the ranking of a query on both engines at the same time. This often aids in the creation of a more precise search statement when you go directly to the individual search engines and Twitter search tools.
With the demise of the unary operator, + in Google search, I went looking for a reliable list of query operators. (In a unary operation, in a mathematical system, one element is used to yield a single result.)
Google query operators must be entered in lower case. The best list I found is at Search Engine Land. The query operator list was compiled by Stephan Spencer. This article was written before the demise of the + operator.
Google SERP (search engine results page) URL Parameters are are name/value pairs placed in the query string portion of the Google search URL. The URL parameter most used in our office is the strip parameter in a cache search to eliminate any trace of your pageview in the visited website’s analytics. The SERP URL Parameters article was written before the demise of the + operator.
Google has removed the “+” search operator. Now if you try adding a + sign in your query, Google will ignore it. You must now use the quotation marks operator instead of the “+” operator.
Normally, using double quotes around a single word turns off stemming/synonym searching. I am not sure how this will replace the + operator that told Google that “this word MUST to be on the page”.
Most of the time, there isn’t much information available within the picture itself. However, certain smartphones (iphone) and high-end cameras have GPS built in, and geo-tag pictures. Advanced cameras also store metadata such as the model name, exposure settings, etc. Even without the location information, the Exchangeable Image File format (EXIF) info stored on the image is still useful in the evidence gathering process.
In Firefox, right click on the image and select Copy Image Location.
Go to http://regex.info/exif.cgi and paste the image location into the Image URL box. Now click on the View Image at URL button.
The next page displays EXIF info, or information on the Camera, and, if available, the GPS-based location where the picture was taken. Scroll down for the GPS info or click on the map service link in the box on the left side of the page.