Are you interested in pursuing a career as a private investigator? Here is a short, but interesting, job profile by private investigator Rikki Glen that was published in the Wisconsin State Journal:

What I Do: Private Investigator

We have discussed the best way to reverse lookup an email address in the past.  One of the best ways to reverse an email address is to enter it into one of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN.  There are a number of ways to do this:

- You can enter the email address as is like anyone@anywhere.com but some search engines will ignore the @ symbol and return results where the id or the domain name appears on a web page.  To avoid this, you should do a search without the @ symbol that checks for pages where the user id AND the domain name appear on the same page, like anyone AND anywhere.com - make sure you include the AND in the search.  Some search engines like Google will use the AND search by default and so all you need to do is include a space between the email id and domain name.

- People will often use the same logon id for numerous email addresses.  Someone could have multiple email accounts with different email  services, like user_id@yahoo.com and user_id@hotmail.com etc. You should try searching for just the user id to see where it appears online.  For instance, say you know someone with the email of address of john_doe@anywhere.com, you should try a Google or Yahoo search for just the user id of john_doe to see where else it appears online.  Very often it will be used by the same person for various addresses, especially if the id is somewhat unique and uncommon. 

- With the proliferation of blogs, message boards and comment posting on the web, you may also want to reverse lookup the email address on one of the major blog search engines like feedster.com or technorati.com.

Additional reverse searches for phone numbers and addresses are located on skipease.com at Reverse Lookup .

The November / December 2005 issue of Professional Investigator Magazine is out now.  Articles include:

Coverage of the 2005 World Investigators Conference
Insurance Fraud
Unmanned Remote Surveillance
Searching the Deep Web
Getting Ready for Court

and more.  You can visit the site at Professional Investigator Magazine .

PI Mall is one of the internet’s largest resources for private investigator news, tools, books and other private investigation information.  You can visit the PI Mall site at PI Mall .

Ralph Thomas from pimall.com has published a convenient overview of the laws on recording conversations in all 50 US states.  The information presented contains Federal and state recording laws and defines the legal terminology associated with these laws.  You can read the article at Covertly Recording Telephone Conversations .

FCW.com has an interesting article on identity management - verifying that employees and others are who they say they are and verifying that they have the background they claim to have. 

Identity management falls under the process and procedures of pre-employment background checks, screening and investigations.  Proper identity management is needed for secure operations at any organization and requires effective use of Human Resource and other areas. 

From the article:

Identity management answers the questions of whether people are who they say they are and whether they have the proper affiliation or criteria to do certain tasks, James Kerins, senior vice president for information solutions at LexisNexis Special Services, said at the Information Technology Association of America’s Identity Management Conference last week.

You can read more at Experts give identity management advice .

Identity Theft is the cover story for the September / October issue of Professional Investigator Magazine.  The story covers everything from street level identity theft criminals all the way to ID theft ring leaders.  The Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to combat identity theft crimes are also discussed.

Professional Investigator magazine is an excellent trade publication for private investigators, skip tracers, law enforcement officials, legal professionals and criminal justice majors.  For more information visit PI Magazine .

For more comsumer and citizen information on identity theft from the Federal Trade Commission visit ID Theft - FTC .

In addition, the Social Security Administration’s identity theft site can be found at ID Theft - SSA .

Peter Fifka, a cyber sleuth with Microsoft’s Internet Safety Enforcement Team, hunts down virus writers and other shady internet criminals.  He uses a variety of internet skip tracing skills as well as street-level investigation tactics to bring these web bandits to justice.   Even in the age of high tech computers, sometimes the only way to catch a high tech criminal is by talking to the neighbors.

You can read the full article at Gumshoe Chases Internet Villains in Eastern Europe by Cassell Bryan-Low, The Wall Street Journal.

Finally, a reality t.v. show for the investigator in all of us.  Parco P.I. is a reality show about the Parcos and their family-run private investigation business.   You can read more about the show, episodes and the Parcos at Parco P.I. 

Read all about the cool professional workings and instinctive street smarts of Texas bounty hunter Billy Wells:  Night of the hunter by Heather Holmes @ San Antonio Current.