Frequently Asked Questions
Can I have a dump of your entire database?
Not yet. We're still improving our results and tweaking our database, once the site is as good as it can be we'll worry about what to do with the raw data. For now we want to make a tool that is maximally useful to journalists and citizen journalists.
How do I need to format my search?
Doesn't really matter, as long as you enter at least six digits. The search engine will figure out most common telephone formats, which makes it easy to paste text into the search field.
It says that my search limit is exceeded. What's the deal?
To discourage abuse and prevent high load on the system, we are limiting database queries to a very reasonable 50 per hour.
How many hours did it take you to type these all in?
Actually, you'd be surprised what an army of monkeys with typewriters chained to desks will do when you wave a banana above their heads.
Seriously, though, we ran the records throught a gauntlet of image processing, optical character recognition software (OCR) and specialized cleanup filters. It took several near-allnighters and a lot of parsing and tweaking.
I found a number, then looked at the original scans of the records and it's wrong! Why?
Scanning technology is less than perfect - even with OCR accuracy of, say, 95%, the odds that some part of a given 10-digit number with punctuation will scan incorrectly is around half. Like the disclaimer says, this is just a guide to the phone records, not an exact transcription. This is why we've tried to add links to the original documents - so you can compare and check the computer. If you've found a mistake, let us know and we'll correct it in the database.
Who are you?
Four young professions in the Boston metra area with day jobs in technology.
Do you work for Deborah Jean Palfrey?
No, we are not working for, nor with, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. We linked to her site in order to provide context, and links to the original documents. Jeane and her attorney in turn linked to our site because they found it to be a useful resource, and because it dovetails with what they hoped to accomplish by releasing the records in the first place.
How can I reach you?
Email dembitz@dcphonelist.com.
Important Disclaimer: This data has not been verified by any human beings, and we make no claims about its reliability or accuracy. The dataset was created by parsing the publicly available image files provided by Deborah Jeane Palfrey on her web site. We used commercial optical character recognition software and custom-written text processors to create our database. Given the volume of records, it is entirely possible – indeed, likely – that the automated process misread some phone numbers and locations. Before using this information you should confirm the accuracy of all data by checking the original records, available at deborahjeanepalfrey.com
Please report inaccurately parsed or erroneous data to dembitz@dcphonelist.com