Finding people and other resources on the Internet
Tim Barmann
Oct. 31, 1997
The Internet is not just a tool for computer-related stories.
You can use it for everyday stories as well.
For example, one Sunday a Cessna airplane crashed in Rhode Island. I did the background story about the plane. With most offices closed, virtually all of the reporting came from the Internet.
Another Sunday, I was putting together a news story on a man who was a patient at Butler Hospital and had jumped into the Seekonk River. He was rescued by firemen and by a passerby in a boat. My only source was a fire official who described how he was rescued. The fireman said the passerby was a woman who he thought was a rowing instructor at Brown. He thought here name was Phoebe Murphy, but he wasn't sure and didn't have the spelling.
I figured if she was connected to Brown, her name would likely appear on one of Brown's Web pages.
I turned to AltaVista, one of the best search sites. The address is
http://www.altavista.digital.com/
Search engines, such as AltaVista, go out and scan through Web sites all over the Internet, keeping track of the words it finds and where it found them.
But search engines aren't perfect. They can't tell you everything that can be found at any given time on the Net. That's because
But they are still valuable and helpful tools.
- The Web changes every day. Links come and go. Pages are updated and deleted constantly.
- Not every Web site allows search engines to check them out
There is a trick you can use with AltaVista that lets you narrow your search to a particular Web site or "domain." (A domain is the right-most part of an e-mail address, such as hasbro.com or brown.edu)
Here's the trick. On AltaVista, use this syntax to limit you search to Brown University:
+host:brown.edu +"Phoebe Murphy"
That tells it to look for "Phoebe Murphy" on any Web server that ends with brown.edu. Bingo. It came up with two Web pages and I immediatly confirmed that the woman indeed was a rowing instructor and confirmed her name.
More about domains
When a company wants to put up a Web site with their own domain, such as www.hasbro.com, the company has to first register that domain. That registry is available for anyone to search, and that provides a good way to look up who is responsible for a particular domain when it is not clear. It may also lead to a phone number of that company.
Let's say you wanted to look up who has registered projo.com. Unless you've been on vacation for a few months, you probably know that the Providence Journal's Web site is called projo.com. But if you didn't know, you could look up who has registered the domain name.
The place to go is http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois/ You'll find a form that allows you to type in a domain name. If you type "projo.com" (no quotes) and press enter, this is what you'd get:
The Providence Journal (PROJO-DOM) 75 Fountain St. Providence, RI 02902 Domain Name: PROJO.COM Administrative Contact: Roe, Jon (JR167) jon@PROJO.COM 401-277-7725 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Ballem, John (JB237) jb@PROJO.COM 401-277-7726 Record last updated on 26-Nov-96. Record created on 23-Aug-94. (other technical stuff deleted)(I've written several articles about domain names and who is using them. One is at http://www.cybertalk.com/ctalk/020496.htm)Where does this information come from?
From the agency in Herndon, Virginia, which is responsible for registering and keeping track of most Internet domain names.How can this stuff be useful to a reporter?
Let's say you saw that Jack Reed, who was a candidate for U.S. Senate, opened up his own Web campaign Web site at http://www.reed96.org/. You could look up who is responsible for the site by looking in the domain registry for "reed96.org."In that case, you would get:
The Reed Campaign (REED5-DOM) 382 Benefit Street, Suite 3 Providence, RI 02903 Domain Name: REED96.ORG Administrative Contact: Marshall, Joshua (JM2698) terry@IDI.NET 401-454-3553 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Hall, Mike A (MAH6) mhall@HOMECOM.COM 404-237-4646 ext. 135 ext. 135 (FAX) 1-404-237-3060 Record last updated on 24-Oct-96. Record created on 05-Apr-96. Domain servers in listed order: FOYER.HOMECOM.COM 204.198.148.2 KNOCK.SER.BBNPLANET.NET 192.239.16.129So what? you are wondering. Well, what's interesting here is the technical contact person listed has a Georgia phone number. After a little investigating, you would learn that that guy works for a Georgia company that hosts Web sites, and they are hosting, or storing all the files for Reed's campaign Web site several hundred miles away.Knowing that, you could then call Jack Reed's office and ask him why he is using a Georgia company to host his Web site, when there are a dozen in Rhode Island companies that would be happy to have his business.
I didn't ask Reed that question (I probably should have) but I did learn something else from looking up this domain before the election. Reed's Web site had been down for several days, and I found during one of these queries that the domain name was "on hold." After some calls to Reed's campaign, I learned that they hadn't paid the $100 registration fee, and the campaign Web site had been disabled by the Virginia company that registers domain names. (You can read that story at http://www.cybertalk.com/cybertalk/102796.htm)
Another use: Let's say you got an e-mail message from john.smith@en.com. You're not sure where John Smith is from, so one clue could be to look up the information on his domain, en.com. Doing that, you would learn his Internet account is with a Cleveland area Internet service provider called Exchange Network Services. However, be aware that this doesn't mean John Smith is definitely from the Cleveland area. He could be anywhere. But chances are, unless he's a computer geek, he probably is from the Cleveland area. Use it as a clue, not fact.
Obviously, this technique can't be used if the sender of the message is john.smith@aol.com since AOL is spread out all over the country. (There is a way, however, to learn more about individual users on AOL. More on that later.)
Other ways to find people and business:
These sites are like huge phone books, but go one step further. Sometimes they list the names of everyone in a household, not just the name of the person who signed up for phone service.
Beware, these can be tricky to use sometimes. For example, I did a search for a business I knew was in Smithfield called "Insurance Reconstruction Services." I searched for "Insurance Reconstruction" and Switchboard.com came up empty. Then I searched for just "Insurance" and a couple dozen listings came up. Among them was Insurance Recnstcn Svrs. Since it was abbreviated, my exact term on my first search didn't match its database.
Learn what people are talking about
Dejanews
There are "newsgroups" or discussion groups on just about every conceivable topic. Skydiving, investing, photojournalism, rock stars, etc. These are public message boards where people can go to read other's messages on various topics and leave their own if they wish. These are different from chat rooms, which have live interaction.