Diebold, CIA edit wiki entries by winstnsmth [Subscribe]
Tue Aug 14, 2007 at 05:08:59 AM PDT
Wikipedia has launched a new feature that tracks back anonymous edits to the IP from which they came.
Wikipedia Scanner -- the brainchild of CalTech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith -- offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses. /snip
Voting-machine company Diebold provides a good example... with someone at the company's IP address apparently deleting long paragraphs detailing the security industry's concerns over the integrity of their voting machines, and information about the company's CEO's fund-raising for President George Bush.
/snip
Employees at the CIA's net address, for example, have been busy -- but with little that would indicate their place of apparent employment, or a particular bias.
One entry on "Black September in Jordan" contains wholesale additions, with specific details that read like a popular history book or an eyewitness' memoir.
It's a great feature, but now that the cat is out of the bag, I expect anyone with an ulterior motive to cover their tracks better while making edits to wikipedia.