deceinte.htm: How to search the web, by fravia+

~ An Interview ~

				Interview DEC 2002

December 2002
~ (Part of) an Interview with fravia+ ~
"Let's not become conspiracy-obsessed" (part of Searching Lab 3)

(Please excuse the poor linguistic level, I ported this text to english myself)

...Five years reverse engineering... three years searchlores... what are your plans for the future, Fravia+?

I would like now to begin to 'flex our seeking muscles' so to say. I have in mind a searching assignment, or a "searching lab", that could help show to a broader public how powerful, and how useful, good searchers are... I think we should aim very high, nowadays, both to see our limits and to try to overcome them :-)

What do you have in mind?

Nothing more and nothing less than to shed some light on the 9/11 New York attack. Please do not smile. The more I think about that, the more I watch and analyse the developments that have followed it, the more I feel that there is something 'wrong' with the commonly accepted perception of this event.

What do you mean exactly? That what we know about those events does not correspond to reality?

Frankly, I do not have (yet) any exact answer to this question: but any trained analytical observer, capable of a minimum of text-exegesis, will confirm you that something does not 'sound' correct in the media coverage of these events. As I said before, in order to better understand what's going on, you always have to "reverse" the assumed "correct view" of the world around you. I would paradoxically add that you can count on one hand the cases in which your usual media will be able, or allowed, to deliver you a "correct view" of the world... and I bet you would still have some fingers free after the count.
I am convinced that the various pieces of a yet unsolved puzzle lie around the web, and I intend to use the collective power of my fellow seekers to assemble these little, scattered bits, into a coherent meaning.

So you do not believe that the democratic media are covering correctly what happened?

No. Not in the least. I do not even believe that there are real democratic media in your paper/TV "real" world: there is only place for a concerted propaganda machine, poisoned by useless advertising, and they are just a part of it.

The web does not seem advertising-free either.

That's true, but in this context irrelevant. The web is a new media, but it follows very old academical "knowledge spreading" rules, where you can still find easily some real snippets of information... even if, at times, you have to break some database protection or comb some hidden messageboards... and maybe even troll or stalk someone in order to do it.
Please understand what the information on the web is for us searchers and reversers: it is as if we could enter -- in an "invisible mode" -- into ANY newspapers or TV-channel discussion room, at the very moment a new issue is prepared, and listen WHY something will be said and WHY something else will not be published and moreover, just in case, read all the internal memos and even all private letters and notes of the writers, owners, publishers of those media... and check their bank accounts too, and see who paid who and why.

Quite powerful deeds it would seem, still democratic media do exist and can discover some unpleasant truths.

Since you yourself are a journalist, and thus part of this group, you will have to excuse me, but I believe that the very purpose of your existence, the real purpose, behind all the "democratic" hype, is to try to mislead your readers with irrelevant crap, de facto doing your outmost to try to prevent people realizing some simple truths about the world they live in.

"Truths" that you no doubt perfectly know.

No my dear: truths that YOU know. Truths that I moreover could document for you hic et nunc through the web... and truths that, on the contrary, I am not able to find on your newspaper's today issue!
Please do not try to stick to me some "cospiracy-obsessed" tags. I said simple truths. Kinda like: we have 6 milliards individuals on this planet, and --lo and behold-- 5,5 are in a situation of need and 3,5 of dire need, duh! In the European Union, itself one of the richest parts of the world, there are now more than 50 million people in poverty, one out of five.
But that's nothing: the sum of the yearly incomes of the 300 (I will repeat this small number, so that you wont forget it: three hundred) most wealthy individuals is bigger than the sum of the yearly incomes of 3 milliards (I will repeat this BIG number, so that you wont forget it: three milliards) individuals in need. You could be allowed to think that each slavemaster has 10.000.000 slaves. And all these data are public and available, yet ignored by your media-brood.
If you think that a world like this, with such GROWING inequalities, is NOT on the verge of a historical social implosion you're nuts.

And Bin Laden and the 11 september in all this?

Simply put: I suspect that in a situation where one boxer (the left/democratic/socialist/pauperistical, you name it, "counterweight") has disappeared and only one boxer has remained on the ring, this 'survivor' has to invent an enemy (Bin Laden yesterday, Hussein today, someone else tomorrow) to justify his existence (and his costs) in the eyes of his electors, his slaves or your readers.
Note that I have no doubt whatsoever that Bin Laden is a dangerous criminal, the fact that the CIA paid and protected him for a very long time is proof enough for me.
Nevertheless, I repeat, I am not obsessed by simplistic ideas, like this were simply a "Reichstag/KristallNacht" situation, or some "Neronian burning of Rome" plot.
Yet there are some pretty obvious inconsistencies in this 11/9 thingy, and I have been formed --long ago-- as a historian, and I follow the old school: "watch the data dance around with unsullen eyes and they will start to sing by themselves".
Hence I can bet with you that "oil" is the refrain that this specific data-song will sing, and I want to find out more, and then even more, in order to understand what did happen, what happens and what will happen.

And you think that you are going to find out some historical "secrets" like that?

No, I just think that we as a group of people really able to search the web may have a (albeit small) chance to understand more, to see and shed some light on a very dark moment of mankind's history.
No more, no less than that, but that would already be a lot. Yep: such a specific query-quest may not work. But those that will participate will anyway learn how to search the web... and become even better seekers...
Actually, hey! We do have a (slight) chance. But only if many good seekers will participate (a big if); if they will send some feedback (a big if); if the web is truly a treasure of hidden, yet relatively easy to find, information as we believe (a big if); if...

...So you think some web-searchers can succeed where many others, with bigger research facilities, have failed? You seriously think you will discover "the truth" behind 9/11 just visiting some sites on the web?

No, I am not very optimistical about this, actually. I think we will not "discover" much. Maybe there is nothing to "discover" at all, you see.
Once more I do not believe in evil "conspirations", I believe in history (which by the way is full of failed plots :-) and its well-known power games: Fraus sublimi regnat in aula (Seneca, hu, he already knew that all powerful are inherehently evil).
I think I have to tell you something important about this specific search and, at the same time, about our attitude: I do not want to get mystical, but people like us have always existed. And always will. Searchers, reversers, sons of knowledge and transparency. Naïve idiots, if you want. Yet we truly love to fight battles that we cannot win. And... as strange as it may seem... sometimes we do not lose them neither :-)

Hence "searchers" are against an intervention in Iraq?

"Searchers", should they exist as a category, could not care less about such crap. I will be now rather cynical: On our planet there are so many people, and so many kids, dying every day because of some nonsensical, bogus or idiotic / wars / laws / ideologies / religions / that --frankly-- a couple of millions more or less would not change the total sum in any significant way.
But on this specific case, allow me a final remark: do you for instance, you personally, sitting there in front of me, seriously believe, that a 200-300 milliards dollars/euro intervention in Iraq (a country that happens to have the second place in the list of planetary national oil reserves) could really have the aim to "protect the West" against this specific (and rather tiny) third world dictator? (Why?) or, even more ludicrously, could such an act of war really have the purpose to "bring some real democracy" to the iraqi people (should they really care for such a "gift")?

Are you not leaving your searching techniques ground, in order to cover a rather political field?

Nowadays there's no difference between searching the web, reversing software, reversing reality, and being politically active.
The moment you engage in any of these activities you will soon find, or bounce against, some unpleasant truths. You may swallow them, you may ignore them, you may try to get some personal gains out of them or you may try to debunk them.
You will have to choose. I did.

a lot to add... soon or later