CSIS6/LIB6
Research Skills - Lesson 15

Evaluating sites and finding scams

Fun with domain names

Below are links to 3 different whitehouse websites. One is a government site (.gov), one is a nonprofit (.org), and the last one is a commercial site (.com). Before you click on each one, look at the URL (down in the status bar), and draw some conclusions about what you might find.

Ready? Now click on each one and verify your expectations.

Did you get what you expected, more or less? Those domain name endings can give clues, but here's another site, where the domain name doesn't help at all:

http://www.martinlutherking.org/

This site has a very definite point of view, and yet there are no definite clues as to the ownership of the site or the identity of the author. There are no tildes in the URL. There are no mission statement or 'about us' buttons that we can follow. This page makes it very difficult to find out who is putting up this information, and what, if any, bias they may have.

But there is one clue. Notice the link towards the bottom of the page, "Hosted by Stormfront". Click on this link and browse through the site it leads you to.

What can you find out about the author through this link?

And here's yet another site:

The True but Little Known Facts about Women and AIDS
with documentation
by Dr. Juatta Lyon Fueul

First of all, notice that we can't tell much from the domain name (http://147.129.226.1/) , so that's not going to help us in evaluating this page. Click on the link and look around for some other clues. What can you tell me about this page? You might want to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.

A Research Assignment

I have a library patron who recently read an article about Sam, a young boy with debilitating epilepsy, and the ketogenic diet that has changed his life. She herself has a child with this illness, and would like to find more information. See if you can help her.

Search for keto diet epilepsy in Google. Look for a description, watch dates. The article written by Sam's father describes (on page 4 and 5) a study done by J Helen Cross, of University College in London. She published her research article in 2008, so it would be good to find an information page published after that date and taking that research into the information. The first article I found was published on June 30, 2008, and doesn't mention the study. The second article, from the UK and published in 2010, still doesn't mention the study done by Cross.

A fast way to check for mention of the article is to do a find search on her name:    

The wikipedia article for Ketogenic diet does mention a 2008 randomized study, but doesn't mention the author or the research institution. The article describes the outcomes for the trial like this:

Of the children in the diet group, 38% had at least a 50% reduction in seizure frequency, 7% had at least a 90% reduction, and one child became seizure-free. Only 6% of the control group saw a greater than 50% reduction in seizure frequency and no children had a 90% reduction. The mean seizure frequency of the diet group fell by a third; the control group's mean seizure frequency actually got worse.[5]

The article does give a link (see that number 5?) to the citation at the bottom of the page. And from that citation, I can find the actual research article, published in Lancet Neurology in June of 2008. And they report the outcomes this way:

After 3 months, the mean percentage of baseline seizures was significantly lower in the diet group than in the controls (62.0%vs 136.9%, 75% decrease, 95% CI 42.4-107.4%; p<0.0001). 28 children (38%) in the diet group had greater than 50% seizure reduction compared with four (6%) controls (p<0.0001), and five children (7%) in the diet group had greater than 90% seizure reduction compared with no controls (p=0.0582).

Aren't statistics fun to figure out?

The original article about Sam's diet also says that in 1997, 15 hospitals were offering a keto diet program to epileptic children; now roughly 150 do. See if you can find the closest hospital that does offer this option to my library.

Internet Scams

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is how fast you can get information and how easily you can share it with your friends. One of the most annoying things about the Internet is how fast you can get information and how easily you can share it with your friends.

How many of you have received the request in your e-mail box asking you sign a petition in order to help the women in Afghanistan (or some other repressed group somewhere)? You are supposed to add your name to a list and then forward it to all your friends who would then add their names to it. The request might have be worded differently, but it basically said something like if we get 10,000 (or some similar number) "signatures" then the U.N. (or similar agency) would be pressured into doing something?

Fortunately there are some excellent sites through which you can find out whether you should believe a piece of information that you have just received. One of the most popular and trusted sources is at www.snopes.com.

Click on this link and type in the words Taliban Women in the search box and look at the results. Now click on the entry titled "Should you sign the petition circulating on the Internet decrying the plight of women in Afghanistan?"

Browse through the entry, particularly the "Origins" section, and answer the following questions.

1. At which University did this petition originate?
2. What could happen to your e-mail account if you forward this and similar chain letters and why?
3. When was this entry about the Taliban women chain letter last updated?

Rumors are amazing in how they originate, how they spread, and how they take on a life of their own. Many businesses and political candidates are vulnerable to this kind of use of the Internet. Both the GAP and Tommy Hilfiger companies have been attacked this way. Explanations are many:

• disgruntled employees
• competitors
• investors trying to bring down the price of the stocks so that they can buy some shares cheap!

Let's go back to the Snopes homepage and find out some information about the rumors about these two companies.

1. What was GAP supposed to be a acronym for?
2. What racist statement was Tommy Hilfiger rumored to have made and where?

1. Can you really help someone get a free mammogram by clicking on this site? Yes, no?
2. Give the name of one other site listed that offers a similar service to charities.

So, in fact, we have now found a chain letter that might actually be carrying around some good information!

Urban Legends

Urban legends are another category of endless fun, or annoyance, depending on your point of view.

Urban legends are stories of questionable origin, usually having been experienced by someone's friend's brother's nephew, or some other long-distance-but-seemingly-authentic source. These are usually stories that are sensational and also humorous, touching, or very scary. They may occur in several forms and, strangely enough, will surface in many countries with local cultural variations.

Among some of the old and well known urban legends are the one of the man in a motorcycle accident who had his head wrenched around by the paramedics because they didn't realize he was wearing his jacket backwards to keep his chest warm. Another old classic is the one about the woman in the warm car whose biscuit dough popped, flew out of the tube and hit her on the back of the head, and she thought her brains had fallen out of her head! These two, like many urban legends have been around for literally several decades.

Have any of you, especially the younger students in the class, ever received the scary story of the man who went to a bar, had a drink with an attractive young person, and then woke up the next morning in a tub full of ice missing one of his organs but with a cell phone in his hand and a note telling him to dial 911? Go back to Snopes and see if you can find out some information about this urban legend. (Hint: You can try using the keywords: bar organ ice.)

What specific organ is usually involved in this story?

Review

This has been a fast trip around the Internet, searching for tricks and ruses and misleading information. Remember, to evaluate a website, you can:

1. Check the URL to see what kind of ending it has.
2. Look around the website to determine the author, the person or organization that is posting it, the date it was posted, and any other clues that will show the inherent bias of the page.
3. Use a page like Snopes to track down dubious Internet stories.

Assignment

Open up a word processing document and type answers to these questions:

1. What were the differences between the 3 whitehouse websites?
2. Who is Stormfront and what do you think their bias is on their Martin Luther King website?
3. What can you tell me about the True but little known facts about Women and AIDS?

• At which University did this petition originate?
• What could happen to your e-mail account if you forward this and similar chain letters and why?
• When was this entry about the Taliban women chain letter last updated?

Further searches on Snopes:

5. What was GAP supposed to be a acronym for?
6. What racist statement was Tommy Hilfiger rumored to have made and where?
7. Can you really help someone get a free mammogram by clicking on a link?
8. What specific organ is involved in the urban legend about the guy in the bar who wakes up in the bathtub full of ice?

9. What is the closest hospital where my library patron with the epileptic son can find more information about the keto diet?

Save all your answers, and then paste them into the submission box for Assignment #15. This is your last real assignment. Lesson 16 is a review of everything we've covered in the last 5 weeks, to get you ready for the final exam. And the only other little detail that you have to finish for this class is the final project. Go back to Lesson #6 if you've forgotten the details.