This is Not a Story on Negative News

Think Before You Think

I have a blog post in the making. I plan on writing about the error of relying on negative news filters.  In researching that post I came across something that supports me in an on-going debate I have with my wife.  I’ve decided to take my case public.  There’s nothing in this post about Lexis searches or using PACER or going through Facebook posts.  It is, however, about using an outstanding OSINT tool – your brain, and why we frequently misuse this tool.

I got a story and facts below, but for the impatient, the moral is: you can make long lists of links, and you can study up on techniques.  Yet, if you are not aware of the failings of your own investigative thinking, you may stumble.  Bias is a fact.  Our brains fool us for reasons of destiny and evolution.  We cannot help but be biased. We can, however, be aware, and learn from others’ mistakes.

My ongoing debate with my wife revolves around this: do people know what they are doing?  I’d like to be on her side.  It seems more noble.  Generous.  Good spirited.  All things she is.  Except that she is also wrong.  This is an ongoing battle, which arises over things we encounter all the time. 

The joke in Chicago is that we have two seasons, winter, and construction, and on cue, they came and dug up the cross street from my bungalow this spring.  Several weeks later, after the first coating of new asphalt, I noticed they came around again, now to dig up the spots where the sewer covers sat.  When I pointed out that this did not seem efficient, my wife, as is her wont, argued that the workers knew what they were doing.  And furthermore, what did I know about paving streets.  Maybe I do not know anything about paving streets, but I know that just because people think they are doing things right, they may not be. 

In setting up my story on negative news, I typed the words alta and vista into my draft.  Name checking this archaic search engine was my way of signifying my (age and) wisdom.  I then needed a link for those who wanted to know what an alta vista was.  I found an excellent article on Alta Vista, how it came to be, how it eventually stumbled into something other than what it intended, and then, its later demise. 

The Alta Vista data:

On its launch day in 1995, the new search engine saw around 300,000 visitors. One year later in 1996, it was serving 19 million visitors each day. And by 1997, it was attracting 80 million visitors daily. By 1998, it required 20 multi-processor servers to carry out all of the search queries it received… And yet, Yahoo closed AltaVista quietly in 2013.

Any of you OSINT nerds heard of Alta Vista?  It was a revolutionary product that could put order to the emerging world wide web.  Today, we google things with abandon.  Siri, how old is Pati LuPone, was something that came up during dinner last night.  Searching has made Alphabet, the parent of Google, a very, very rich company. As of July 2022, it had a market cap of $1.5 trillion. This makes Alphabet (Google) the world's 4th most valuable company by market cap (source). 

It is given that we can google things and find things on the web.  This is not a post on searching or tips or even on things Google can’t find, the “dark web” and the “deep web” or the “invisible web”.  It’s kind of on why you don’t know Alta Vista, but more on what you should know about Alta Vista.  That smart people did not know what they had.

Know that Alta Vista failed because its owners did not see the value in search as a stand-alone product.  Initially Alta Vista was intended to help sell computers.  Then, its owners decided that the search features of Alta Vista would be downplayed in favor of making it a “portal.”  See there was a period, circa, 1998, where the Internet experts of the time thought users needed an online place to go, a set of directions to execute, a single handy web page where we could do all the things one could do on the web in 1998, which was mostly talking to strangers and downloading files.  The portal phase of the Internet died with a lot of other tenuous Internet ideas around the turn of the millennium. 

When I question something, Mr. Know-it-all that I am, my wife retorts, well these people have to have put some consideration into what’s happening.  They thought about it she insists. I counter, just because something is being done, does not mean it’s being done for the right reasons.  Often, businesses act the way they do because of habit, routine, and bureaucratic morass. Just as likely, as the Alta Vista situation showed that management probably thought their concept through, but ultimately came to the wrong conclusion.  These are big time errors in thinking.  Doing things because we always done ‘em.  Assuming we’re right now because we were right then. Faulty thinking killed Alta Vista.

As investigators and researchers, we need to address a lot of things, big and small, to succeed at our jobs. If you spell a name wrong, you will miss the critical court record.  If you look at the deed without looking at the mortgage your asset search may be off by several thousands of dollars.  It is easy to think these are mistakes that can be avoided.  But as a sort of case study, the Alta Vista people thought they knew what the Internet needed. 

It is well-accepted that our thinking is often flawed, what is called bias.  This infographic identifies 188 cognitive biases. Re-telling the Alta Vista story and pointing out that people made flawed decisions is not some great insight on my part.  Plus, I’m skipping all the evolutionary biology which explains a lot our bias.  Just know that our brains are wired to be bad.  That said, I’ll admit, my wife is at times right.  There are times with well thought-out but not always obvious reasons for the ways things are.  Do now, however, expect that. Insist we can and should think better. 

Your roles as researchers and investigators are to figure out when things are not as they seem.  When assumptions are not strong. I’m not suggesting you become some great short-seller, seeing through all the doomed companies out there.  I am not suggesting that you can know more than the engineers boring tunnels under the Las Vegas strip. I’m suggesting you spend a little more time, each project asking yourself, do I have an Alta Vista here.  Are my assumptions good.  Did I search the way I always search or the way this case demanded? Was my thought process flawed? Biased? Think for a second or two before you ask Siri.

Stay tuned for negative news news.

Robert Gardner