Facebook Skeletons

In a relatively short period, my wife has become addicted to Facebook.  She commented to me last night that she was devastated when one of her “friends” had scanned and posted and old picture from junior high school.  Of course, the nifty tagging feature allowed all of her “friends” to learn about the picture as soon as it was available.  [You can see a creative implementation of the feature in a NY Times photo of the recent presidential inauguration, where many of the attendees in the photo have been tagged.] 

Other than being mortified about others seeing such an out-of-style hairdo, the damage was relatively limited.  But, this got me thinking about Alan Pruitt’s recent comments regarding Online Identity Management. Fortunately, if you’re the one being tagged in a photo, Facebook gives you the option of removing the tag.  But even still, the photo remains online for everyone to see.  

Suddenly, that college trip to mardi gras is starting to seem like a bad idea.  Social media and Web 2.0 technologies are connecting people and information in ways that were never possible.  While this is a great innovation, it also brings with it a new set of responsibilities for managing – or at least being aware of – your online identity.

PIN heads

A recent article in the Hartford Courant indicated that two dozen bank customers lost money after falling victim to a phishing attack where scammers sent email and text messages asking them for pin numbers associated with their debit cards.  The article suggests that the timing of the scam coincides with an announcement from a financial processing company that it’s data had been compromised.  It seems as if we’re not making much headway on the education of consumers about not responding to such obvious scams.

What’s Up Doc?

The state of Florida is well-known in the public records arena for offering up all kinds of records, making skip tracing and background investigations that much easier.  One tremendous source of information that is often overlooked is the free data downloads offered by the Florida Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance.  You’ll find data files that list licensed medical practitioners – from acupuncturists to doctors to pharmacists to therapists, nurses, and all other types of medical providers.    They even have a list of people that have requested a license application – even if they didn’t submit it yet.  And they have a database of health clinics.  If you’re into data as much as I am, you can have a field day with this information.

Internet Archive

Ever wish you could go back in time and see what that website used to say last week, month, or even (gasp) last year?  That’s eons in the blogosphere.  But, there is one tool in the online investigator’s arsenal that shouldn’t be overlooked.  The Internet Archive Wayback Machine collects and indexes sites across the web every day, and stores those pages for future reference.  With over 85 billion pages, the index is huge and contains all manner of web flotsam.  They now also index moving images, texts, audio and other web content.    Biggest advantages:  1) the archive takes snapshots of indexed sites over time and saves each one so you can see changes, and 2) it’s free.  Biggest drawbacks: 1) it doesn’t contain the entire web so the site/page you’re looking for may be missing from the index, and 2) the platform is finnicky and sometimes media (like images or flash) does not save or load properly making some pages hard to make out.  But overall, this can be a great investigative tool, especially when the subject of an investigation makes changes to a website/page during your the period of your investigation.

Google StreetView

Most readers are probably familiar with Google StreetView.  It’s a great investigative tool but has received negative attention in recent months due to privacy concerns.  This week, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported that tech-savvy law enforcement professionals in MA were able to use StreetView as an investigatory tool in a kidnapping case.  After receiving cell phone coordinates suggesting that the kidnapper might be in VA, investigators used Google StreetView, satellite view, and maps to give them a sense of the location and which buildings were nearby.  Since the cell phone triangulation data they received couldn’t pinpoint a location, they had to make some assumptions about the subject’s whereabouts.  But using these tools, they identified a nearby motel.  Their hunch proved correct and the suspect was taken into custody and the 9 year old victim is back home.

Such tools can be a tremendous resource for investigators.  In addition to Google, other companies offer similar tools. For example, Microsoft’s Live Maps “Bird’s Eye View” also provides great imagery.

Wiki-telligence, eh?

The Vancouver Sun reports that the RCMP is launching a wiki designed to keep law enforcement authorities up-to-date on gang activity in Canada.  Readers might recall that the US government intelligence community created Intellipedia back in 2006, which is used to share intelligence across government agencies.  A “vertical” wiki called Diplopedia is also used by the US Department of State.

In September 2008, it was learned that the FBI has created it’s own wiki – Bureaupedia – to record knowledge of retiring agents, presumably in an attempt to thwart “brain drain.”  The bureau has been criticized for creating a separate platform instead of utilizing the existing Intellipedia platform, which they already access. 

Wiki technology is a boon for intelligence services.  Sharing up-to-date intel is difficult, but the collaborative nature of wiki’s is a great – and often inexpensive – solution.  I wish more agencies in law enforcement and private sector investigations would take note.

Social Network OSINT

Tamara Thompson recently published a great article in the December issue of Law Technology News regarding the use of social networking websites during due diligence research on people and companies.  The article is particularly good because it describes effective search techniques that investigators or researchers should use when searching social media sites like MySpace, Facebook and others.  

You can read more of Tamara’s great tips on her blog at PIbuzz.com.

Gender Analysis

A free gender analyzer is availble from uClassify.  It claims to determine the gender of a website or blog author.  Self-repored (non scientific) accuracy statistics seem to be around 60%.  Thanks to Sources & Methods for the tip.