For about three decades I’ve been an Investigator. It’s a very dangerous job.
Sitting in a car watching what people do and what they shouldn’t do. Hour after hour slaving over a hot computer searching for data and producing reports. Sifting through papers, tabulating costs, and organising file material at a desk.
It’s dangerous work. Hear ye the Investigator’s lament!
Over one pound per year have I gained.
Flexibility have I lost.
Physical endurance I have no more.
Of cholesterol I have an abundance.
I can see this dangerous job taking its toll on the young guys who have less than a decade’s experience. Car accidents, whiplash, carpal tunnel syndrome, obesity, repetitive stress injuries, and back problems, but no shootings, stabbings, or similar misadventures.
Being a Private Investigator is the world’s most dangerous sit-down job.
In future articles I will outline my solutions to some of these perils.
I just found this:
“WikiLeaks.org is developing an uncensorable version of WikiPedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis.”
I’m not sure how I might use this site, but it does have some very interesting instructions on how to submit material anonymously.
Handwritten documents are important to any Investigator or Researcher as they are either creating them, or reading them. Archives throughout the country are full of original handwritten documents of value to researchers.
The age of the ubiquitous ballpoint pen began in the 40’s and this has caused some problems for archivists as so many companies strove to create inexpensive ballpoint pens. The problem has become one of education. The pen may write, but the ink may fade over time, or be vulnerable to water and other solvents. UV light and poor quality paper also do a fine job of obliterating cheap ink from poor quality ballpoint pens. The forgers art of cheque-washing in the following examples illustrate what can happen to documents that encounter solvents. Continue reading ‘Cheque Washing and Pens’
My Tipple on Google-Free Wednesdays appeared in the FreePint Newsletter #247 this week.
I found this interesting article on Gwen Harris’s blog, Internet News.
Manipulation of search results
Is Search A Lie? Can You Really Believe Google? Bruce Nussbaum, Business Week (February 08)
Can a PR firm manipulate results at Google (and other search engines) to the degree that this man claimed?
“I sat next to a a guy I’ve know for years from a major public relations/media relations firm at the World Economic Forum in Davos two weeks ago and he told me how his company manipulated search to improve the image of its clients.”
One commenter advised, “… growing need for people to understand the difference between legitimate search results and PR-fueled, or otherwise manipulated, search results.”
Yes, but identifying these results usually takes a fair amount of subject knowledge and awareness of techniques to notice the signs of the gamed results. No wonder people trust search results less .
The last link leads to an article about search atheism, a term I could learn to love.
To quote Phil Bradley, “Of course companies and individuals try and game the search engine, and anyone who blindly accepts results without analyzing them deserves what they get.”
Industrial espionage is not a new. Most industrial countries have been doing it, in one form or another, since before the Industrial Revolution.
In the 14th century, the Italians devised a machine to make silk thread. This allowed them to dominate the silk thread market until about 1670 when first French, then Dutch spies, discovered the secret of the process and machinery.
The industrial espionage of England’s Thomas Lombe paid-off in 1716. Eventually Lombe’s silk thread factory employed hundreds, preceding the Industrial Revolution by about 50 years. Silk was not a mass market good and therefore the silk thread factories did not spark the Industrial Revolution. It took the wool and cotton factories to do that.
In an article entitled, Cyberterrorism, Inc., we see the usual link between CI and industrial espionage as if the two are the same. Creating a link between the two is the work of feeble minds.
To gain an advantage over competitors, many corporations are hiring ex-military and government agents trained in the art of intelligence gathering techniques, according to a report from the SANS Institute, a Washington-based cybersecurity training organization.
These individuals are used to head new company divisions whose mission is to spy on competitors and obtain intelligence. Companies spend over US$2 billion annually to spy on each other, according to the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.
In 1999, North American companies lost more than US$45 billion to theft of trade secrets and other valuable corporate data, according to the SANS report. “Today’s total losses are anyone’s guess,” the report continued.
CI is the act of creating Intelligence from open source data. Industrial espionage, on the other hand, usually involves the commission of criminal offences. I suspose the distinction is too complex for so-called journalists.
An article by John Polyzogopoulos, a partner of Blaney McMurty LLP, in the January 2008 edition of the Commercial Litigation Update explains a Norwich order can help victims of fraud determine what happened to the money.
The recent decision of Justice James Spence in Isofoton S.A. v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank should be of interest to anyone who suspects they may have been the victim of fraud. In that case, Justice Spence granted a Norwich order to obtain the banking records of a party suspected of defrauding the applicant of over $3 million. The unique nature of the disclosure order was that it was directed not to the alleged fraudster, but to the fraudster’s bank. The disclosure order was made to assist the applicant in investigating the fraud and determining what happened to its funds.
The article also illustrates the need for due diligence research prior to entering into an agreement with a previously unknown supplier. Once the victim realised that the supplier was not acting in good faith, they hired a PI who determined that the the supplier was a company without the assets necessary to deliver the contracted goods.
Ecological search engines use a black background rather white. Black backgrounds apparently uses less energy than white, though Google’s research tends to contradict this. Here is a list of some of these strange looking search engines:
Blackle
Eco-Find - Ecologic Search
Darkoogle
The most useful forms to examine when researching US listed companies:
10-K: A yearly report that provides a comprehensive financial overview of a firm’s business. Contains more detail than the Annual Report to Shareholders that firms are also required to prepare.
10-Q: An unaudited quarterly financial update that must be filed within 45 days of the conclusion of the most recent quarter.
8-K: Reports events such as a senior management change or major strategic shifts such as a mergers and acquisitions.
DEF-14A: This is the definitive proxy statement that provides the date and agenda items for the company’s next annual meeting. Proxy statements may also provide the names of major shareholders, executive and director pay, director biographies, and any shareholder matters that may be up for a vote.
S-1: This is the Registration Statement filed when a company raises funds for any reason, whether to repay debt or buy another firm. The S-1 details how much money was raised and for what purpose.
Forms 3 & 4: These filings are the means by which company insiders (usually officers and directors) report sales or purchases of the firm’s stock. These reports inform the investors of personal transactions that may reflect the insiders’ assessment of the company’s prospects. Form 3 is an initial filing and Form 4 reflects changes in the holding.
Nigel Stanley, at Bloor Research article entitled Ounce Labs weighs into rogue code about the dangers of outsourcing software development. The most interesting part of the article follows:
Industrial espionage, or good old fashioned spying, is as alive and well today as it has ever been. In fact, a lot of time and effort from the security agencies is tied up in dealing with this issue, and contacts have assured me it is worse now than it has ever been as developing countries try to steal a march (maybe even literally) against the developed world. Spying between developed nations is also a problem, with some larger European countries having a dreadful reputation for trying to obtain industrial secrets from so called allies. Software development is an obvious target…
The downside of this approach is that decision makers get seduced by green lights whilst their developers look for even more creative ways of inserting malicious code. No sensible person will ever declare that a product such as Ounce 5 will guarantee that your code is 100% secure…
Wikipedia maintains a long list of social networking websites. The links are to other Wikipedia articles about the listed sites so that you can get a feel for what the sites might offer.
I don’t know how I so skillfully miss a good blog when I’m searching. Ian Smith’s blog, aptly named Ian’s iBlog, has been going since December 2006. Ian is a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal.
His article entitled FI: Facebook Intelligence attracted my attention as it provides a good explanation of the value of searching this social network site.
The following press release came across my desk yesterday. It illustrates how CI has become the domain of large corporations, maybe it always was. It is the large businesses that can afford the specialised personnel to fill the roll of CI professional.
THU Jan 24, 08, 12:25 PM
Competitive Intelligence: Processes to Produce Insights that Matter
CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ — Competitive Intelligence
groups have a tough job…
Specific best practices are revealed in Managing the Competition:
Turning Competitive Intelligence into Strategy, a compelling benchmarking
study conducted by Best Practices, LLC…
Download a complimentary study excerpt at http://www3.best-in-class.com/rr904.htm.
The study presents provocative sharing compiled from surveys and in-depth interviews with 29 top CI executives at such world-class companies as AstraZeneca, IBM, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Kodak, Eli Lilly and Abbott Labs…
A brief sampling of harvested insights and best practices include:
One benchmarked executive explains that CI analysts at his organization must develop executive recommendations beyond pure data analysis. This kind of accountability led to more empowerment of the CI team as company members are more likely to use competitive information if it is readily available.
This is something that makes me think, “why didn’t I think of that?”. I found it on the Sources And Methods blog.
Newsroom101.com. This site has a ton of easy to do exercises to improve your grammar, spelling and punctuation. Designed for journalists (with the AP style in mind) the site is almost just as useful to intelligence analysts who have to learn to write in the concise style of a journalist. I also like the way the exercises are put together. If you get the right answer, the site doesn’t bore you with the details. If you get the wrong answer, however, the site lets you know what you did wrong and why immediately.
