Who's+site+is+this,+anyway?

If you remember, we're on to a mission to expose the elephant - all those different parts look a lot like different animals, but really, it's all parts of the same beast. The internet is like that too.

You've maybe heard the phrase "follow the money." That can help us to figure out if we should believe a web site or not. There is a way to find out who actually owns the domain name for websites. Sometimes this can be a valuable tool to use if you are not sure, or if you find a site that makes some claims that don't really fit with what others may be saying about a topic.

Let's say you're writing a paper about the history and future of the star wars franchise. Type star wars history into google and you'll come up with millions of hits in less than a second. Some of them that will be at the top of the list are:

http://www.starwars.com/ http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/ http://www.supershadow.com/starwars/history.html http://www.sithlordshistory.com/history_of_sith_lords_sith_lord_siths_sith_master_sith_apprentice_dark_lords/history_of_darth_maul.html

While everyone is not a star wars nut, take a few minutes to evaluate these websites using some of the techniques we used before the Christmas break. One last test that you need to perform is to validate the ownership of the domain names to help us to follow the money trail. The following link will help you to discover who owns a doman name. You'll need to truncate each of the above websites before you enter them into the "easy who is" site. After you enter the domain name, you can do a quick google search to discover more about the owners of the sites.

[]

Your assignment for today's lesson is to rank the four websites listed in terms of validity for the history of the star wars franchise. Create a word document that ranks the four websites and give a description of who owns each of the websites. Save the word doc on your jump drive or on your dropbox and then email it to your computer teacher, Mr. Hullinger at Brodie.Hullinger@k12.sd.us.