Refresher of Advanced Research Techniques from Day 1

Pre-course Exercise

Who Owns a website?

• free webspace example

• isp webspace 

• university server example

• registered domain name example use geektools

• international domains example - use alldomains

Exercise - who owns the following domains?

Tertiary Research

Example: 

• martinlutherking.org

• Turn email address into web address

• Turn phone numbers into physical addresses

• Name & Email Search

• Find who links to a site

Exercise - find out what you can about the owners of the following sites:

• screwdriver.net

• randallterry.com

• washtimes.com

Tracing Emails

What are headers? example

Use the Astilbe Tracker to check headers

Exercise

• trace an email in your inbox / hotmail

Message Boards

example message boards

• Police

• Prostitutes & their customers

finding message boards by keyword 

finding message boards by subject 

using Yahoo groups

Message Board Reader

Exercise - find message boards for the following communities

• Wilful anorexics often describe themselves "pro-ana" - find some message boards

• People using vegetable oil instead of diesal

Other Online Communities

USENET

• find a newsgroup

• using Google Groups

• using advanced Google Groups

• example: Ciggies

Finding Mailing Lists

• topica

• yahoo groups

• search by keyword "majordomo" and "listserv"

Chat rooms 

good for research - discuss!

Using Communities - Best Practice?

• Netiquette & language

• BBC Policy on transparency

• Obscene or illegal Research

• Using a dedicated "research" email address eliminates hassles, stalkers and spam

Undercover work

• What info are we betraying?

• The exposed clipboard trick

• Infiltrating Communities

Evaluation Form