TRADECRAFT: The Intelligence Analyst’s Guide to the Internet

TRADECRAFT: The Memory Hole (Digital Forensics)

The Concept

In George Orwell’s 1984, the “Memory Hole” was a chute where inconvenient documents were destroyed to rewrite history. Today, the Memory Hole is real. It is called the 404 Error.

Governments, corporations, and political campaigns routinely scrub their websites to hide past promises, scandals, or scientific data. As an investigator, your job is to realize that “Deleted” does not mean “Gone.”

The Tool: The Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive (archive.org) captures snapshots of the web every day. It allows you to travel back in time to see exactly what a page looked like before the scandal broke.

LAB EXERCISE 1: The Government Wipe (The EPA)

The Scenario: In 2017, the incoming US administration wanted to downplay climate science. The Objective: Prove that the EPA removed data on human-caused climate change.

The Mission:

Open a new tab and go to archive.org.
In the search bar, paste this URL: https://www.epa.gov/climatechange
Step A (The “Before”): Click on the year 2016 (in the timeline at the top). Click on a specific date (like January 15).
- Observation: Notice the header “Climate Change” and the extensive links to data, reports, and “Basic Information.”
Step B (The “After”): Go back to the timeline. Click on the year 2018. Click a date in January.
- Observation: Look at the page now. It is often a redirect, a “Page Not Found,” or a generic page that says “This page is being updated.” The scientific data is gone. The Verdict: The science didn’t change. The policy changed, and the digital record was scrubbed to match it.

LAB EXERCISE 2: The Corporate Retreat (Google)

The Scenario: For decades, Google’s famous motto was “Don’t Be Evil.” In 2018, amidst protests over military AI contracts (Project Maven), this motto quietly disappeared from the preface of their Code of Conduct. The Objective: Pinpoint the exact moment the ethics changed.

The Mission:

Go to archive.org.
Paste this URL: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
Step A: Go to April 2018.
- Find the Text: Read the very first sentence or the preface. You will see: ““Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users…”
Step B: Go to June 2018.
- Find the Text: The preface is gone. The phrase “Don’t be evil” was moved to the very bottom, buried as an afterthought. The Verdict: A strategic retreat from an ethical brand promise, captured in code.

LAB EXERCISE 3: The Scandal Scrub (Wells Fargo)

The Scenario: In 2016, it was revealed that Wells Fargo employees opened millions of fake accounts to meet aggressive sales targets. The Objective: Find the “Vision & Values” document that encouraged this behavior before they deleted it.

The Mission:

Go to archive.org.
Paste this URL: https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/vision-and-values
Step A: Go to 2015 (Before the scandal).
- Observation: Look for language emphasizing “Cross-Selling” (selling multiple products to one customer) as a core value. This was the metric that caused the fraud.
Step B: Go to 2017 (After the scandal).
- Observation: The page was completely overhauled. The aggressive sales language was sanitized to distance the bank from the incentives it created.

LAB EXERCISE 4: The Brexit Erasure (UK Government)

The Scenario: Post-Brexit, the UK government needed to scrub references to EU cooperation schemes like Erasmus+. The Objective: Track “Soft Censorship” where history is rewritten by omission.

The Mission:

Go to archive.org.
Search for UK government pages related to “Erasmus+” or “EU Funding” from 2015.
Compare them to the same pages in 2020.
The Nuance: Notice how the benefits of the previous programs are removed, and the language is shifted to emphasize “New Sovereign Alternatives” without acknowledging what was lost. This shapes public memory by simply removing the comparison point.

Advanced Tradecraft: The “Changes” Feature

The Wayback Machine has a hidden feature called “Changes”.

When looking at a URL history, click the “Changes” button in the top menu.
Select two different dates.
It will visually highlight Red (Deleted text) and Blue (Added text) side-by-side.
Action Item: Try this on a politician’s bio page before and after an election. You will often see “controversial” stances highlighted in Red (Deleted).