The Case of the Suspect Source
This is in interesting case which shows that you need to keep on your toes - watch the process then try it for yourself
The Home Page below appears to be that of the World Trade Organization, an international organization based in Switzerland that deals with the rules of trade between nations. However, there's something not quite right about it - let's investigate!
The Investigative Process
1. Look at the URL
The URL of the site is http://www.gatt.org/, the .org domain suggests it is a non-governmental, non-profit making organisation, which seems appropriate for this type of body.
2. Check out the Contact Address
The postal address shows that the organisation is based in Geneva in Switzerland, which again seems appropriate; the email contact is info@gatt.org, which matches the URL of the site. So far so good...?
3. Investigate the Content
Clicking on some of the content links takes you off to different sites completely - you would normally expect to be directed to content on the same site unless it was explicitly stated.
The link describing the WTO itself has a press release dated 20 May 2002 announcing that the WTO will be disbanding - there is something seriously wrong here! You will need to dig deeper...
More Clues...
Search for the site through a Subject Gateway or Search Engine
Searching for the World Trade Organization through a subject gateway service such as Intute: Social Sciences [ http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/ ] or Google [ http://www.google.com/ ] will quickly reveal the real address of the World Trade Organization web site is in fact http://www.wto.org/
Checking the registration of the URL
You could try checking to see who has registered the domain name of a site by using Register.com [ http://www.register.com/ ] This reveals that the gatt.org is registered to an individual in the States, which seems unlikely given that the WTO is a large international organisation.
Case Solved!
This is actually quite a sophisticated hoax site set up by a group of anti-WTO campaigners. It is designed to look almost identical to the real site and even the URL is using the name of the predecessor organization of the WTO – the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt), which makes it seem more plausible.
In this example the site is a political protest vehicle but is not really intended to be malicious. However there are plenty of examples of sites out there that do contain some harmful disinformation. Make sure you question the content of what you find and verify your sources at all times.
