The approach page says the work draws on public and authorized sources, organizes findings, and surfaces patterns. This note walks through what that means, using the same examples as the note on spreadsheets and AI.
Public and authorized sources
Collection starts with sources you are allowed to use. Official sources come first. The kinds of material already named in the notes include customs filings, shipping notices, government gazettes, prices, news, laws, press releases, and filings. Much of that material is text, not a neat table.
"Authorized" means the source is one the work may use for that question. It does not mean a private file was taken without a right to read it. If a source cannot be read, the gap is named. The missing piece is not filled in with a guess.
What is recorded each time
A figure without a source and a date is not ready for a report. For each item the work keeps:
- Where it was read.
- When it was published, when that date is on the source.
- When AetherVett read it.
- The question it was collected to answer.
That is the same discipline as a well-labelled spreadsheet: you can point at the cell and say where it came from. Volume is larger now. The label is still required.
Joining one fact to another
A single list rarely answers a business question. The notes already describe the joins the work uses, in the same spirit as a database join:
- A company to its owners.
- A product to a tariff line.
- A route to the ports along it.
The join is there so a finding can be followed. It is not there to invent a link the sources do not support. If the shared key is missing, that absence is a gap.
Patterns, not a pile
Structured analysis looks for the pattern a person can use: what changed, what repeats, what sits upstream of the supplier you are looking at. Raw volume is not the goal. A thousand unread pages do not help a decision. A short finding with its source does.
Continuous collection means sources are read again on a schedule, and the change is recorded. It does not mean every page on the internet is in scope. The scope is the question that was asked.
What you should be able to see
In a finished report you should be able to move from a finding back to its source, and you should be able to see the date. You should also be able to see what was asked and what the work could not cover. Those points are the scope and the source lines. The empty example leaves them blank on purpose.
Documentation of what was collected, and how it was handled, is part of the approach. The public site does not publish internal system names. The reader-facing record is the report itself.
Not legal, financial or other regulated advice.