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Investigative Reporters and Editors
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Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Jan 28, 2015

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News & Politics

Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, spoke about doing deep background checks on candidates for local office at RJI's "Down-home Democracy: Empowering Citizens With Outstanding Coverage of Local Elections" on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014.
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Page 1: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Investigative Reporters and

Editors

Page 2: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Run every candidate in key races through the same basic checks. This can include things like: Have they paid their property taxes? Do they have any liens? Do they have criminal records? Are there any civil suits against them? Any discipline from professional licensing bodies?

Page 3: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office
Page 4: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Advanced search

Think about how people live online: Email addresses User names Phone Numbers

Page 5: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

• Ask.com (Subject-Specific Popularity™)

• Yippy.com (clustered results)

• Yahoo! (directory)

• Bing

• Duck Duck Go

• Browsys

Page 6: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Who is he/she? Google, yes, Google Also check at least one other search engine.

Where has he/she lived? Zabasearch

Does the person still live there? Do they own? Subtitle: Property records are fun BRB Publications

Page 9: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office
Page 10: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Domain searches can reveal a lot.Domain Tools http://www.domaintools.comAllwhois http://www.allwhois.comQuarkbase

Page 11: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Search by image with Google Search by image with Tin Eye EXIF Exchangeable Image File: the file format

used by most digital cameras.  Usually consists of the JPEG file format along with metadata tags.Firefox add-on

Page 12: Mark Horvit, Doing deep background checks on candidates for local office

Search engine cache (Google, Bing) Wayback Machine Library of Congress’ archiving project: Mapping

the Internet Electronic Resources Virtual Archive (MINERVA)

CyberCemetery – sites of defunct government agencies and commissions