

This weekend's project: shellcompanyfinder.com - fnid2

The thread that started it all:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1134813<p>I am soliciting ideas for shellcompanyfinder.com  I'm going to build it this weekend.  I'd love to have some help with it.  It's a great idea and a way that we can start to combat some of the ridiculous behavior from corporations who hide their actions with shell companies.<p>For now, it's a list of companies with a many-to-many to associate them.  We can add comments to companies to discuss whether or not they are actually shells. It also accommodates actions these companies have taken so we can roll up all the bad behavior for the uber parent "name brand company."  These types of tricks aren't just perpetrated by corporations no one has ever heard of.  Think Enron, MCI/Worldcom, ATT, and a host of others...<p>You can also vote on whether or not you think a particular company is a shell and provide evidence in the form of uploaded attachments that could be scanned documents or public notices for DBA's, etc.<p>Please share your thoughts. I want to have something up by Monday morning, so the sooner the better!<p>EDIT: The site is live now: http://www.shellcompanyfinder.com  though obviously still a work in progress.  If you are interested, create an account.  We may want to set up a gotomeeting to run through how to make changes.  Everything is behind the login wall right now.
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fnid2
I've begun a data model at yuml, you can see it here:

[http://yuml.me/diagram/dir:lr/class/%5BActions|id%3bShellCom...](http://yuml.me/diagram/dir:lr/class/%5BActions|id%3bShellCompany%3bSubject%3bMessage%3bparentActions%3bcreatedate%3bcreateid%3b%5D%2c%5BComments|id%3bShellCompany%3bSubject%3bComment%3bReplyToComment%3bcreatedate%3bcreateid%3b%5D%2c%5BRelatedCompanies|id%3bCompanyOne%3bCompanyTwo%3bcreatedate%3bcreateid%3b%5D%2c%5BShellCompanies|id%3bName%3bAddress%3bWebsite%3bDateFounded%3bcreatedate%3bcreateid%3b%5D%2c%5BVotes|id%3bShellCompany%3bIsShell%3bcreatedate%3bcreateid%3b%5D%2c%5BShellCompanies%5D%2b%2b1-ShellCompany+%3E%5BActions%5D%2c%5BActions%5D%2b%2b1-parentActions+%3E%5BActions%5D%2c%5BShellCompanies%5D%2b%2b1-ShellCompany+%3E%5BComments%5D%2c%5BComments%5D%2b%2b1-ReplyToComment+%3E%5BComments%5D%2c%5BShellCompanies%5D%2b%2b1-CompanyOne+%3E%5BRelatedCompanies%5D%2c%5BShellCompanies%5D%2b%2b1-CompanyTwo+%3E%5BRelatedCompanies%5D%2c%5BShellCompanies%5D%2b%2b1-ShellCompany+%3E%5BVotes%5D%2c%5Byesno%5D%2b%2b1-IsShell+%3E%5BVotes%5D%2c)

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abolibibelot
What's the point of the createid fields? And why do you hardcode two related
companies instead of going for a N-N relationship?

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fnid2
The createid is the unique id of the user who created the record.

There is an N-N relationship between companies persisted in the
RelatedCompanies table. Perhaps I should add a field to the RelatedCompanies
table that is a description of the relationship: Subsidiary, Partnership,
Spin-off.

When we start, we are probably going to start listing companies without really
knowing how they are related. They are just a group of companies. I considered
a self-join, but we may not know who the parent is and a company may be
related to more than one company through some mechanisms I don't understand
yet.

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tphyahoo
you will want to take a look at how wikileaks does it thing. you will need
people in asset havens like bahamas/etc uploading you stuff on the sly, as my
understanding is a lot of the way this works is simply information hiding by
having an official registry that is text only, having legal standing, not
searchable in any electronic way. when a crime is committed you get to
initiate a legal proceeding that will eventually unravel the paper trail in
the bahamas or wherever, but each step takes n amount of time, and when you
have shell companies under shell companies the stalling strategy can be quite
effective.

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fnid2
It's going to be quite difficult. I am also concerned about the legal issues I
may face. I don't doubt we'll get C&D's and other legal threats for defamation
or libel.

I really don't know what I'm getting myself into here, but I feel drawn to it.

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bhiggins
It would be very interesting to know how Avancept LLC found IV's 1000+ shell
companies -- their reports cost money though:
<http://avancept.com/Publications.html>

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tphyahoo
I like it!

