Digital Sleuthing - A primer
I want to preface this by stating unequivocally that I never wanted to spend my time on this. It’s time consuming, frustrating, it causes mood swings, loss of sleep, fractious relationships, impaired job performance, and drives an inability to take joy in the smaller things - because there’s always another link that needs to be investigated, connected, unpacked… consequently, the second the ball starts rolling, I’m more than happy to retire in obscurity. Helpfully, this primer will help those who are only now starting to dig up digital dirt. Or perhaps I’ll lose interest tomorrow, or am somehow impaired from carrying on, in which case this should outline what I did. And perhaps you have a few hints of your own — feel free, in fact, please do reply with a comment if so.
And most of this advice is entirely obvious. I don’t attempt to claim credit in any regard, because ultimately, I don’t matter. While individuals have to drive discovery, it’s ideas that matter. Sure, it’s nice to scale a mountain first, but self-promotion won’t stop a speeding train.
I also want to categorically state that you have to prepare for tedium. Often, you’ll waste hour upon hour attempting to establish a link which simply does not exist. Occasionally, because it was never there in the first place, and yet at other times, because the pattern of implementation is more complex that you expect - you are attempting to connect two nodes (or more) which are separated by a number of links you have not yet discovered. I’ve fallen prey to this on so many times. But the good news - at other times one discovery leads to the next continuously. A personal example being when I first heard of Heidi Larson and Peter Piot in jikky’s thread. No matter what I searched for, more dirt arrived. It was just astonishing - and fun!
However, those times are generally the exception. Because the general gist here is - the more important the information, the harder it tends to be to find.
And remember, there are no stupid questions. No, really. Much better you ask what you perceive to be a stupid question, than to waste time wandering in the wrong direction. Commonly, in fact, you will find those who appear the most ‘in the know’ can’t answer the occasional question themselves, or it represents an opportunity for them to reflect on it.
And finally, be ready to steal. You have to. If you find information worthwhile, do share it, don’t wait for other people to rubberstamp it — obviously taking into account intellectual property rights. Do not commit crimes to expose other crimes.
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So, with all out of the way, let’s establish the absolute basics.
Delivery of the message - it’s not enough to bring fish to market, you still have to sell them - a concept will receive no visibility - regardless of merit - if the message is complex or confusing.
The Overton Window - doesn’t matter. Discard it - entirely. In fact, the more the media tells you to stay away from a topic, the more you need to ask the question why.
Listen to the kooks - frequently, the best conspiracy theories contain a grain of truth. At other times, they will have carried out some work which is of use, and on yet other occasions, they will give you an idea of a starting point.
Seek information in the least unlikely place - I am fundamentally a libertarian, which means explicitly anti-authoritarianism. Doesn’t mean I don’t listen to what they say. It often is a great spot to investigate your own argument for weaknesses. Listening to someone doe not mean you agree with them, regardless of what the mainstream media tells you.
Be persistent - just because a paywall stands in front of the information you seek, does not mean you can’t get to it. If it’s less than £10, I usually pay for it, but on other occasions, you can commonly find it elsewhere. More on that later.
Find the right tools for the job - and by that I mean browsers, VPN, TOR, search engine and so forth. You will find a surprising amount of discrepancies, especially when it comes to censorship. Ironically, many of the most contentious articles on a topic I’ve located via Yandex, or Baidu. Yes, really. Sure, they have censorship as well - but their censorship fundamentally differs to that in the West.
Source everything - make absolutely certain you can connect two data points. You have to be able to deliver the entire set of links, or it’s of no use - even a single missing link will immediately be seized as an opportunity to discredit your entire argument.
Revisit old ground - I often go back to previous articles and papers, because upon a later visit, other detail will suddenly emerge, like some person or company with which you were not familiar only a month back. Frequently, these then allow you to link an even bigger quantity of information together.
Credibility of information - the information you present has to be neigh-on watertight, or you’ll be discredited on a technicality. Don’t use Alex Jones as a source, always try to locate the root.
Fame - gets in the way. More eyes on you hinders your ability to operate unnoticed. And it might interfere with your private life.
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The first thing to do is to research and establish the topic.
Establish the topic - in this regard, generalise within context. If you’re looking for, say, global mortality data, UK ONS data only paints part of the picture. In which case, either you find other datasets, or specialise in UK Mortality.
Establish ultimate authority on said topic - which organisation is ultimately the top dog in this field? Say your topic is CBDCs - Central Bank Digital Currencies - the first step would be the central banks, but walk up the hierarchy and find the Bank for International Settlements; commonly framed the central bank of central banks. On CBDCs, they are the ultimate authority. When it comes to Sustainable Development Goals, the similar would be the United Nations.
Synonyms - does the topic have any synonyms? For instance, ‘One Health’ has been renamed a number of times, and is referred to as the ‘Global Health Security Agenda’, or when the ‘Global Health Security Index’ is considered (which is a measure of One Health compliance).
Parallel constructs - another favourite is to have several topics conflate, ‘merge’ down the line. ‘One Health’, for instance, was ‘One World, One Health’, and is also interesting in the concept of ‘One Medicine, One Health’, or even ‘One Medicine’. These are rhetorical devices used to drive the same narrative from different angles like, say, the vetenarian and human health routes of One Health converging.
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Once we have an established topic, the first thing to do is to establish the hierarchy. There are a number of these, but the two most common come down to power hierarchy and information hierarchy.
By power hierarchy I simply mean, who takes orders from whom? Who speaks and who listens? Power hierarchy first.
Parent organisations - organisations are frequently organised under the umbrella of other organisations. The WHO, for instance, is part of the UN. As is the FAO.
Founders - the Global Fund and the Center for Global Development are two examples of organisations founded by the Gates Foundation. A plethory of health organisations are founded by Rockefeller. These would be expected to carry heavy weight on a final word.
Funding - GAVI, is funded greatly by the Gates Foundation (Likewise for the WHO). Foundations commonly expect a return on investment in one way or another. How money flows between the various organisations to a high extent influence the output of said.
Subscription - commonly, organisations subscribe to mutual understandings or common frameworks, and/or contribute either directly or through senior executives; the World Economic Forum is a common node in this regard. Other examples would be the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals, the Bank for International Settlements, or the ‘One Health approach’.
Flow of Control - who’s supply side, and who is demand. Does A listen to B, and if so, does B listen to A? When organisation A writes papers with help of employees of organisation B, how are they credited? And which organisations go first in the list of acknowledgements, and which go last. The twist here is that those truly on top prefer to live in the shadows, and hence, often go last if at all credited.
Next goes the establishment of an information hierarchy.
Chronology - impossible to fake. When browsing footnotes of a report written in 2011, all prior references will take a step back in time. Should that link be followed, you will eventually contextually run out of time.
Locate the earliest possible work - and once there, move down the hierarchy again. Determine which are the pivotal reports or papers, the ones which carry the most contextual gravitas.
Seek out work by the same author/s - frequently hints at the direction of a narrative, an example of which is Alan Gelb of the World Bank on the topic of Digital IDs. But this also tends to drag in co-authors, who might have escaped early attention and/or joined later with ulterior motives.
Citations - more citations does not necessarily imply better, but definitely worthy of look. Also ensure that the citations are relevant to your topic.
Sources - who produced the paper? Always seek the highest quality source - when you’ve discovered a less credible one, it’s often simple to locate better one; you now know what to look for.
You also have to be prepared to bridge the disciplines.
Commission - who commissioned a given report, and how does it tie in with general hierarchy?
Interest - which individual/s ran the department commissioning the report?
Revision - was this the output of a working group, and if so, do later revisions exist? Locate all documents, and sort in chronological order.
Discontinuity - given one or more revisions, do differences exist between these?
Bad actor - given a discontinuity, who could have introduced said, and why?
Manipulation - given a bad actor, for which organisation was s/he engaged, and in which capacity? The point here is to work out when an ideological inflection point was reached, and then to establish the reason behind said. Often, the reason could be a commercial decision (ie, big pharma inserting themselves into a timeline), but on other occasions, it could be for far more nefarious purposes. So - if possible - determine who, and why.
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Once you have located a credible paper on a topic, here’s how to traverse and locate information of interest quickly.
Confirm - double check that the year of print is what you expect. Often, several revisions of the same document exist (or similarly titled documents, even). Always make sure you confirm that the document you read is the one you expect - or you risk having to toss your entire effort. I’ve done this on a multiple of occasions, and it’s incredibly frustrating when you realise you just wasted an hour going through a document which contextually doesn’t matter due to its timestamp (ie, released outside of a given timeframe).
Contents section - browse the contents section, because it allows you to quickly discard sections, cutting down on time spent reading material.
Author search - if questionable material originates with a specific author, perhaps that’s what you should search for.
Keyword search - if you look for ie ‘One Health’, search for just that. Be aware that often the most contentious topics are hidden under synonyms, with ‘Global Health Security’ being one for ‘One Health’. Also be aware of alternate spellings, like ‘One-health’, or even ‘OH’.
Speedread - once you have located a section (a book chapter or paper) and want to glean information quickly, do a speedread of the material. A number of Google Chrome extensions exist if not familiar with technique. If confirmed to be of interest, read the section again, but this time normally. This alone will accelerate your ability to go through documents at a factor of 5-10x.
Unknown definition - if constellations are discussed, giving only a single-line or almost dismissive description without a clear source to follow for further information, then treat this with the utmost suspicion.
Unclear definitions - if contentious topic (like ‘surveillance’ or ‘fair’) is not clearly defined, the intent is often expressly to be filled in later. Locate the later documents, and see the direction of evolvement, because this commonly is a technique used to hide egregious intent.
Narrative shift - when reading document in chronological order, a topic gradually evolving should be noted, but one with a sudden, significant broadening of scope or change of definition is a certain red flag that should be pursued. If done in combination with an unknown or unclear definition, it’s a flashing red light.
Footnotes - documents often include additional detail and/or links to further material.
Presentations - often serve as great sources, as it’s far more difficult to hide information using rhetorical tricks when delivering to an audience. On other occasions, the speaker comments are embedded as well.
Appendices - will generally supply you the sources of claims with high quality links; authors have pre-vetted information for you.
Timestamps - consider age of a paper before prioritising. If you find a paper on digital identity from 1979, less likely to be relevant to contemporary discussion. But a recent link might slow down hunt for root document.
Topics & authors - take the time to work out the topic and authors of a link; these two combined with timestamp often lead to higher quality links.
Source correlation - multiple documents leading to same source can be used to build credibility.
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Also do track information through people and location.
People - what did they do next? This, in particular, is important because frequently, former officials join organisations of interest - the Collegium International, for instance, or Tony Blair still pushing ID cards 17 years on.
Co-workers - with whom do they work?
Family - very hit and miss, but occasionally, a great source (wife/husband/parents/?)
Employers - where did they work before, where do they go after? Use LinkedIn here. What I tend to look for is job-hoppers within Wastington DC.
Location - if in Washington DC who else is in the same building?
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Other bits of advice
They really do hide information
And very often in plain sight
What else took place on the day?
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Funding is another primary source
Funding - who funds the topic - foundations? Gates? Rockefeller?
Expenditure - How is the money spent?
Partners - who are they? United Nations?
Unnamed partners - find via search engines, company documents, their own website via wayback.
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When gathering information, utilise the following search engines.
Google - use specific timelines to narrow down root. When locating one link, step back further in time, and try again. Double check the links that the date quoted is correct. Google is frequently wrong.
Be aware that Google is very censurious. In fact, they often block access to information on a per-account basis. To counteract, perform mitigatory approach as per below.Yandex - features less detail than Google, and is censored just as well - but in a markedly different way. Frequently, the most contentious links are available on Yandex, where not on Google. Often also lists results in very different order, which casts a different light.
Baidu - again, censurious, but it’s a Chinese filter, and they care about very different things to us. When it comes to contentious material involving geopolitics and/or the United Nations, often far better than any of the above, but be aware that this runs through a Google Translate session. Translations are often far from perfect.
SearX - there are a huge amount of different instances of SearX, and most are garbage. This is a very hit-and-miss approach, but has been known to yield a rare document.
Bing - less useful than the two above, but has an occasional hit. Probably the search engine I use the very least of the lot.
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In terms of issues relating to search engines, utilise these mitigation measures.
Access to Information - Google restricts access to some information on a per-account basis. Keep a backup account, used rarely, for these occasions. Otherwise, use without logging in, or incognito. Sadly, Brave appears to always assume worst case, I have not had any luck here.
Paywalls - often, an archive will work. Otherwise, attempt to simply search for a part of the information you look for.
VPN - on other occasions, information is region locked, and/or different in between geographical regions. VPNs are essential to get around that.
TOR - in extreme cases, you might not want to be associated with the website whatsoever, including leaving an IP address, even one bounced via a VPN. This is a very rarely required step, but just in case.
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Best early hubs of information.
Wikipedia - good for giving broad overview, and for highlighting founders, and timeframes. Furthermore, Wikipedia history often tells far more information later removed by censurious editors.
Wikileaks - some pearls of information can be located here, but a lot of the truly controversial material has been eliminated. Best of luck locating anything on the ‘Global Health Secutity Agenda’ aka ‘One Health’, for instance.
LinkedIn - great for delivering a quick overview of work history. What I personally tend to look for, is people who job-hop a lot within Washington DC. Because what better way to cash in on future regulation, but to join a company which stands to gain?
Companies House - very frequently gives a lot of information related to co-founders, and enterpreneurial history. Company documents can also frequently be used to spot spikes in sales, undocumented directors, and be used to locate parent companies or organisations.
SEC Filings - like companies house, but not generally as good.
Market Screener - great for locating past press releases related to finance.
ResearchGate - gives broad overview of research direction of researchers. Can be used to etablish bias and agenda, like Heidi Larson’s ludicrous track record of finding that every vaccine is a safe and effective vaccine.
Google Scholar - similar to ResearchGate.
Google Trends - can be used to very quickly pinpoint when concepts and/or ideas were launched and gaining traction. To give example - I used this to establish that ‘Build Back Better’ without question was inorganically driven, and pushed from above.
YouTube - often you will find associated channels, even when it comes to organisations no longer around. Watch video clips on maximum speed, then stop and slow down for detail.
Twitter - much like with Google, much censorship is applied here, but it doesn’t yet appear to affect reading tweets. If you do wish to quote a Tweet make sure to take a screenshot rather than linking the tweet, as that will alert the person of interest.
EPDF - has a large assortment of books and documents otherwise hard to find.
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When a link no longer works, head for an archive.
Wayback - the original, and still the best by a wide margin. It’s slow, however. But the convenient interface allows you to quickly narrow down a change on a website. This information can then be combined with political events and/or major news, to find links not otherwise immediately obvious.
Be aware that Wayback progressively censor information - often you’ll find an index, but no data.Archive - I used to prefer this, especially as it’s much faster than Wayback. However, censorship is completely out of hand, so much truly contentious information has been removed meaning it’s often completely useless.
Google Cache - occasionally, Google have cached a fortuitous version of the website. I see this on occasion, but much like archive being useful, it’s rare.
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When trawling for information, certain keywords trigger an alarm within. These are listed below, but there are also a number of other tricks used which should raise an alarm bell.
Opaque Institutions - if you cannot work out what an organisation does from their webpage, that’s typically a sign that it’s not in your interest. Vague words such as ‘fair’, ‘oppressed’, and ‘vulnerable’ in exchange for an iron clad definition practically always mean they attempt to mislead you.
Alternate terms - in the case of the ‘Global Environment Facility’ for instance - allows organisations (in this case, the UN) to distance themselves from controversies like 15-minute cities and Net Zero lunacy directly, because it’s all done via a political special purpose vehicle. This is a red flag.
One-way links - if hyperlinks only ever direct in one direction, you should ask yourself why. In the case of the GEF, it’s to ensure you don’t notice the flow of money to Net Zero and the likes from the same nations which fund the UN.
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Often, the association of a number of foundations mean it’s reasonable to be skeptic.
Rockefeller - funded a large amount of early United Nations work, in fact, the land of the UN building was donated by this Foundation. From what I’ve observed, they tend to specialise their efforts in health, and the United Nations.
Gates - they have their fingers in just about every pie. Health, climate change, you name it, the Gates Foundation is usually not far away. Also heavily involved in the development of Digital ID, via Alan Gelb and the Center for Global Development.
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There are also a number of institutions in the educational sector worthy of mention.
The Imperial College - they gave us Neil Ferguson for starters.
Georgetown University - Clare Sullivan (Digital ID) and JC Smart (surveillance) are both employed here.
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And finally, we have a slew of international institutions which you need to be aware of.
The United Nations - home of the Sustainable Development Goals, which are of course completely unachievable, and will lead to Net Zero, 15-minute cities, and so forth. Supposedly the very peak of public policy.
World Health Organisation - controllers of the fascist state of tomorrow.
Broadband Commission - another UN offshoot in collaboration with the ITU, which also is a UN initiative. The BC drives the online censorship acts you see gradually introduced across the world.
World Economic Forum - the playground of the world’s billionaires, who are most definitely not in it to protect you, but rather to look out for their own business interests.
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We also have a range of financial instututions to look out for. In general, there are two sides here, supply and demand. Demand represents those organisations ie spending the money (the UN and the world’s governments), and supply ultimately comes from the central banks, spearheaded by the BIS in Basel.
The Bank for International Settlements - the world’s central bank of central banks. The very pinnacle of private interests.
The World Bank - Bretton Woods instrument to finance development in the 3rd world, but in reality, they control the finances of every significant United Nations venture.
The International Monetary Fund - the other Bretton Woods institute, the lender of last resort, but these bailouts generally come with conditions attached.
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Final notes
Credit - do give where appropriate, as it reduces friction, and should ensure people are more willing to work with you. It also makes people feel valued, which is important.
Ask questions - and then ask them again.
Accept your own fallibility - we are all wrong from time to time. Accept and move on.
Accept fallibility of others - when other people are wrong, never gloat.
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v1.00 - (2023/07/08)