Wikipedia Infiltrated by Intelligence Agents? 428
An anonymous reader writes "International Humanitarian Law professor Ludwig Braeckeleer thinks so. In an article published yesterday in the Korean newspaper OhMyNews, he reveals a discovery he made while researching a story on the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland. It turns out that a Wikipedia administrator named SlimVirgin is actually Linda Mack, a woman who as a young graduate in the 1980s was hired by investigative reporter Pierre Salinger of ABC News to help with the investigation. Salinger later came to believe that Mack was actually working for Britain's MI5 on a mission to investigate the bombing and to infiltrate and monitor the news agency. Shortly after her Wikipedia identity was uncovered, many of her edits to articles related to the bombing were permanently removed from the database in an attempt to conceal her identity. This discovery comes only months after another Wikipedia admin was caught lying about his credentials to the press. What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?"
Transparency (Score:4, Interesting)
Jim
http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] - A workout plan for beginners.
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Funny)
I have a better idea. Rather than an appeal-to-personal-authority based approach, maybe Wikipedia could adopt some policies regarding verifiability of claims, so as not to rely on the personal credibility of the submitter.
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the founder, Jimmy Wales, has commented many a time on the fact that Wikipedians should just remove unreferenced statements that are potentially controversial or that someone disagrees with.
In Wikipedia, appeals to personal authority don't work at all, unlike Britannica, which bases its entire approach on these. They are at either end of these extremes, andf both work to some extent. Being in the middle would like not work at all.
Re:Transparency (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Transparency (Score:4, Informative)
-nB
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Informative)
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As I understand it, that a source is no longer in print does not prevent it from being a citable source that would satisfy WP:V, though obviously, where they are available, more accessible sources for the same information would be good. Non-public
Re:Transparency (Score:4, Interesting)
And that's been one of the key problems I've had with the Wikipedia from the beginning... Common knowledge to who ? Just because it's not common knowledge J. Random User, doesn't mean it's not common knowledge to a smaller more specialized community.
Heck, I was reading some articles on Pokemon last night (watched the cartoon out of boredom, decided to learn more), and very few statements presented as facts had any references - maybe they are common knowledge to Pokemon fans, but not to me. On the flip side, numerous edits I made to specialized articles that contained material that was common knowledge among folks active in that field were reverted because I couldn't provide a reference. Others were reverted because my reference was an extremely specialized $120 book - which contradicts the material available on the web.
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Interesting)
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In the end, Wikipedia will fail through it's lack of a tr
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In reality, your view might be valid as a description of how Wikipedia works in a few highly controversial areas where people expend lots of energy. Much of Wikipedia works more like this: someone posts material without adequate references and with clear inaccuracies,
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Re:Transparency (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to support the idea that I am indeed being naïve, can you give me an example of how these individuals manage to exert pressure on others over the Internet? I don't really think "bullying" works very well over the Internet and multiple personal attacks will get one banned, anyway. Also, winning through having better arguments and the other editors agreeing with them (a self-selecting argument-based democratic consensus) seems to me to be quite a good way of dealing with things; please suggest a better one.
I'm assuming this hierarchy must work via some kind of conspiracy. I don't doubt there is the odd, small-scale conspiracy between a few friends going on (like IMing them to support you in some discussion), but I see little evidence of a greater cabal. In fact as an editor without a great deal of experience, it just so happens that I recently admonished two editors who turned out to be admins (who I guess would be the ones most likely running any cabal) about what I thought was their not following policy (I was probably a little too severe in retrospect), and they discussed this with me very politely with reasoned argument and one conceded some ground on it, as opposed to exerting pressure on me somehow.
Re:Transparency (Score:4, Interesting)
Multiplicity through Freedom yeilds Truth. (Score:2)
should those who contribute more (I don't know what the threshold would be) be required to reveal more personal identification details in order to ensure some level of transparency?
Freedom yields truth. There is great incentive for contributors to identify themselves. Part of the reward for editing is recognition. Truth, however, requires anonymity and multiplicity. Freedom gives you as much truth as is possible and restrictions, licenses and all that reduce it.
Just as there need to be multiple, ind
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Imagine every University in the world, every high school even, running it's own Wikipedia. That kind of network would be impossible to corrupt.
Unfortunately that's when the marketing techniques step in to pander and cater to certain crowds - thereby using the theory of mob rule to enforce credibility on subjects that shouldn't be decided by such factors. A large chunk of my job is in marketing and I am willing to say from first hand experience I don't want it involved with establishing reference credibility in any way, shape, or form.
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>> What can Wikipedia do about those who would use it for their own purposes?
The answer to the question is very simple: Infiltrate MI5.
I'm sorry to bring up the old fighting fire cliche, but that's how counter-intelligence works. Well, using that and disinformation. Which do you think is more in line with Wikipedia's goal?
Dude, You are a nutcase. (Score:2)
Anybody who has any doubt should look at his posting history.
BTW do you do anything besides hanging on /. all day?
Prominent AC Poster? (Score:3, Funny)
A better question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A better question... (Score:4, Funny)
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I sure hope not (Score:4, Insightful)
If they want to contribute true information to Wikipedia out of their own knowledge, well that's nice. If they want to contribute false information to Wikipedia for some obscure reason -- to fox the opposition, I guess, who are clueless newbs who believe anything they read on the 'net -- then that's an annoying waste of my tax dollars, but hardly seems worth raising a fuss over. If the Wikipedia has to rely on the honesty of every last J. Random Web User -- if they can't easily detect a nontrivial campaign of deliberate falsehood -- then they're clearly doomed. Because I can think of many groups other than "intelligence services" who would be very interested in easily spreading disinformation via a trusted source.
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In either case, Wikipedia has (by and large) mechanisms which prevent it from being a problem in anything more than the very short term. Claims have to be verifiable, or they're marked as not being, which tends to be a hint to anybody reading that it's just conjecture.
Even someplace as "small" as WikiMapia (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out the two CIA buildings in the center.
Now check their edit histories...
I read it on wikipedia (Score:5, Funny)
This sort of thing is a compounding issue. In fact, this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months. I read that on wikipedia somewhere.
Don't be confused. (Score:2)
this sort of activity has tripled in the last six months. I read that on wikipedia somewhere.
I think you are remembering a CNN, CW, or M$NBC story. You know, the people who continue to tell you free software, free encyclopedias, free textbooks, and freedom itself are unpossible.
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Clearly you are referring to the Elephants [wikiality.com].
This sort of thing is a pounding issue. In fact, this sort of activity has been trampled in the last few months, not tripled. It's truthy. I saw that on TV somewhere.
Re:I read it on wikipedia (Score:5, Funny)
[clicky... clicky, clicky]
No you didn't.
Thank God this won't affect Wiki's primary market (Score:5, Funny)
Its a highly visible site... (Score:4, Insightful)
OTOH, compared to what covert agents do outside of Wikipedia, I can hardly see much reason for alarm.
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Okay, so in this case they get zero points for subtlety (and when your cover gets blown editing an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, that's not a good sign...), but they're not doing anything I wouldn't expect them to be doing.
I fully expect that the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, etc., probably have propaganda agenc
Annoying Indeed. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be a little annoyed if the brain surgeons in our intelligence agencies -- who I, along with the rest of the taxpayers, bankroll -- weren't at least aware of Wikipedia. ... they're not doing anything I wouldn't expect them to be doing.
I do NOT want my government spending my money on disinformation. It's bad enough when they publish it openly, but lying about who you are while you vandalize a public resource is much worse. Freely elected governments are supposed to represent the opinions of their people, not brainwash them.
I fully expect that the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, etc., probably have propaganda agencies astroturfing Wikipedia and other web sites to their own advantage. This is what countries do.
No, that is what tyrants do. They also murder those who oppose them. They do both of these things because they are fucking everyone. They have placed their self interest above yours and do what it takes to keep that position.
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We are boned (Score:2)
"What can Wikipedia do...?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't you rather have someone writing stuff that can be corrected by anyone than have a publisher infiltrated and subsequently print untrue (yet unchangeable) information?
Of course, through ignorance or apathy or downright malevolence, any source produces at least some erroneous information anyway...
why SHOULD widipedia do anything? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If the policy has changed, it should be revised to: "The Encyclopedia That Anyone Except Intelligence Agents Can Edit."
Pierre Salinger (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Pierre Salinger (Score:4, Funny)
Linda Mack
Re: Pierre Salinger (Score:5, Insightful)
(Putin murdering people with radioactive isotopes, the French blowing up anti-nuclear vessels, Scientology break-ins at federal offices, acoustic kitty, LSD experiments on civilians, Tuskagee experiments, etc. etc.)
Lets face it, the world is an incredibly fucked up place - and the idea of someone being planted to infiltrate a newspaper investigation is not bizarre at all in comparison.
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Or... How abo
He had a few good years. (Score:2)
He said, "If Bush wins, I'm going to leave the country and spend the rest of my life in France," and then he did. In hindsight, this guy had great forsight. He missed the Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Freedom Fries and other red neck/Nazi stupidity.
straw man attack, anyone? (Score:2)
Pierre Salinger was kind of a crackpot at this point in his career, so just because he believed somebody was an MI-5 operative doesn't mean much. He was a laughing stock because of all of his conspiracy theories at the time.
Too bad you're using a straw man attack on someone. Just because he's nuts, doesn't mean everything he says is false.
If you think of wikipedia as a credible source (Score:2)
Like Amazon reviews... (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember when Amazon went to that system after it was discovered how many negative reviews were authored by competing writers attempting to anonymously besmirch eachother in the review comments. Now you really find the highest rated reviews are almost exclusively by people who have chosen to forego anonymity for the benefit of having a trackable reputation.
Re:Like Amazon reviews... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Secondly, requiring people to provide their real names is very "un-wiki", meaning that it flies in the face of some of the core philosophies of Wikipedia. Anyone is supposed to be able to contribute on equal footing, regardless of who you are. Other people can also correct you if you're wrong, regardless of who you are or who they are. If a 12-year-old can compose a more convincing
Depending on the purposes! (Score:5, Insightful)
What a retarded question... Don't we all use Wikipedia for our own purposes? The reaction — if any is needed at all — should depend on the purposes.
A covert agent of a reasonably democratic government investigating a crime is one thing. A pseudo-scientist lying about his credentials is another. A pranskter vandalizing pages is the third. An overt agent of a reasonably democratic government pushing their government's view [slashdot.org] is yet another. And so on... And then, of course, come the rest of us using the resource to learn, teach, and immortalize ourselves via contributions...
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I use it to look up documented information and references to canonical sources thereof. I use it for a reference. Most people who use it probably do.
However I don't edit it for my own purposes. The purpose of Wikipedia is as an information reference, with cited sources for some measure of integrity. Not a playground for pushing agendas. Not necessarily that this was what the alleged agent was doing---but some people do.
No one does anything without his own purpose. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh come on, let's think this out. Are you suggesting people who do edit it do not edit it for their own purposes (fame, showing off, to feel part of a virtuous movement)? Or are you suggesting they're robots acting purely from instinct?
Surely imagining that anyone does anything without personal motivation is deluded. We're not insects. But just because you have a personal motivation doesn't mean what you do is suspect. I go to work primarily to get money to b
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Not everyone believes this in the same way. It took a while before I noticed I should look at it this way too.
I know people who just like me have some position on whatever and cite Wikipedia as their reference and not only are wrong, but when they go back to show the links, the i
First the internet. Next the mainstream media! (Score:5, Funny)
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I think I'll just nip over to Wikipedia and write this up, self-fulfilling prophecies don't fulfil themselves you know
From her wikipedia userpage: (Score:2)
I'll meet you there."
Interesting.
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It might qualify as harassment if it wasn't totally relevant to her NPOV and should be known by fellow editors but as far as I can find, "attempted outing of a fellow editor" isn't ev
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And conveniently, banning me has prevented me from even discussing the situation on the various WP talk channels. He not only censors the wikipedia but then prevents the censored from presenting their case until 24 hours later, and a lot can happen in that time.
I wrote an email to jimbo but my hopes are not high.
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They aren't. And if you think otherwise, you're going to go through life being kicked out of places that insist on people playing at least a little nice with each other.
If you troll people like that, you're gone. And you should be.
So Prove it Already (Score:4, Insightful)
So, show me the 'before' and 'after' of the edits. Surely Google cache or Archive.org or any of the other search engines have that page from some point in the past, no? How about even a locally cached copy (certainly not tamper proof)?
Or... have all of the people who might have a cached copy also been infiltrated? We know how that story goes.
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At issue is Wikipedia's guideline on the inclusion of fringe theories [wikipedia.org], which says
Spy? Assassin, I bet! (Score:2)
Carry On (Score:3, Insightful)
Carry on exactly as they are, because that is precisely what every contributor is doing. Their purpose may be an attempt at the truth, which is noble, but also subjective, and some will disagree. They too will contribute if they care enough. With enough of that, any other "purposes" will be, if not buried, then at least illuminated. Where that could fail is if there are not enough who care enough to contribute.
So what are you still here for?
Shameful this made it to the front page (Score:5, Informative)
I am appalled that Slashdot decided to participate in this public character assassination of a private citizen.
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Re:Shameful this made it to the front page (Score:4, Informative)
On the other hand, there are fewer people who decide to criticize the power structure like Daniel Brandt does - stalking and outing the real names and cities of residence of Wikipedia editors. Those people, pleasantly, get banned.
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What do you do when a fraudster is caught IRL ? (Score:2)
I experienced this as well on Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, where is that IP from? At the time I did an nslookup and I resolved to n-mnstci-142.mnstci.iraq.centcom.mil (the IP now resolves to a different CENTCOM host, host216-142.iraq.centcom.mil). CentCom I remember from the film "Control Room", they are the people trying to spin the Iraq war for the world (and especially the US) media. But MNSTCI? A little checking around showed me MNSTCI stood for the United States Central Command's Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq.
I brought this up at the time, but everyone I brought it up to dismissed it. This is CENTCOM's job - US taxpayer's dollars to rewrite history, so that the US can keep going overseas militarily. It particularly annoyed me that I was paying the salary of the person trying to rewrite history. I kind of felt like I was battling someone in the bowels of the US's Orwellian version of "Minitru".
In the mid-1990s, I got a strange SNMP request from an army intelligence outfit in Quantico, Virginia after reading Australian web sites which discussed possible CIA involvement in overthrowing Australia's government in the 1970's (the Whitlam/Kerr thing). This was back in the (usually) non-NAT'ed days - I had just assigned this IP and had an unusual amount of monitoring set up, I'm sure most people would have noticed the query. With the PATRIOT act, split fibers at the major telcos going to who knows where and so forth, I guess this is normal nowadays. The next step for those who support all of this is to just to either dismiss it, or attack the people who complain about.
Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
While, certainly, there are people in the PR arm of Centcom (and the Pentagon itself, and the White House) doing that, Centcom is the United States "Central Command", the regional combatant command in whose area of operations both the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan are being fought, not simply a special-purpose spin shop.being the part of the US military that is (in one particular area) overseas. Their job is fighting and winning wars, and preventing wars by having the capacity to fight and win them. Propaganda is part of that, of course, and no doubt they engage in some practices in the course of that against which there are legitiamte objections.
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By not being outlawed under the laws of that government.
Proper decision-making, period, requires access to the truth. Which is why propaganda has always been important in war: denying the enemy the ability to make decisions well. Of course, domestic propaganda by a regime is undesirable from a democratic perspective. And, in the modern age where information is fairly globalized, i
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Quant
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There was CIA involvement - but it did not appear to be paticularly competant or effective and Whitlam was informed of it some time before the dismissal (and apparently laughed at some of the stupid antics along with the intelligence agents that told him - it looks like they sent the new kid in the agency). The major consequence of this operation was it's existence upset two US agents and they used is as
Authoritative Sources (Score:2, Interesting)
Because I know it will come up ....
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IMHO, any source that is not peer-reviewed by identified experts and can be edited by anyone at a moment's notice is not authoritative.
By your definition of "authoritative", no encyclopedia can be authoritative because an encyclopedia is, by definition, a tertiary source.
An encyclopedia is a large work that attempts to summarise the entirety of human knowledge through a number of articles on distinct topics. Each article gives a concise summary of the current state of knowledge on that topic by referencing secondary sources, which are themselves based on original research (and in part the results of any peer reviewing of said research
Flogging! (Score:2)
And we liked it that way!
Indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously the fact that a twenty-something was caught posing as a Catholic theology professor lends credence to the accusation by a former Kennedy administration official that MI5 has penetrated Wikipedia.
...
Don't you fools see? Kennedy was Catholic, and Essjay claimed to be Catholic! TELL THE WIKIT$&$^^$^&NO CARRIER
Actions, not motives (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as their contributions are valid, it does not matter why they contribute. If you wouldn't delete a given contribution from a PHD, you shouldn't delete it from a highschool student either, because it's the contribution itself that is either good or bad, not the source. The validitity of contributions should be derived from itself (including references provided, which is explicitly required by Wikipedia policies), and it has nothing to do with who actually contributes, because you may not use yourself or your reputation as a reference.
Likewise, it's wrong to censor someone's contributions just because you think he has a political agenda. As long as (and only as long as) the content submitted is valid and conforms to all policies (neutrality, references, no original research), it should make no difference whatsoever what agenda the contributor has.
Information honeypot (Score:2)
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Self interest (Score:2)
Jayjg anyone? (Score:2)
While a caricaturization, there is some truth to the EncyclopiaDramatica article that follows (Note that SlimVirgin as part of the cabal)
I got repeatedly threatened by the guy and called an apologist for trying to wanting to include Tehran official response to the mistranslation of the infamous "wipe off the map" Ahmadinejad speech. They wanted to block my account for adding the c
it doesn't matter (Score:2)
Trustworthy (Score:2)
Why did they remove the edits? (Score:3, Insightful)
The important revelation here isn't that there are intelligence agents using Wikipedia to spread propaganda -- being open to edit by most anyone means it'll pick up its fair share of people editing in bad faith, ranging from civilian vandals and scumbags to the government's equivalent. The important question here is why the hell did Wikipedia's admins cooperate with her -- protecting her by removing the content -- when she was outed? Everyone likes to argue over the credibility of the information they find on Wikipedia, and this does not help their credibility at all.
huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prove it.
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A new low for Slashdot (Score:3, Informative)
Here we have an excellent Wikipedia administrator who has been victimized by lunatic conspiracy theorists, a private person who has absolutely no relation to the wild stories that this article promulgates.
Slashdot, you have been trolled.
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You have knowingly harbored and cossetted a person very strongly suspected of spying on behalf of a foreign government and should never have been allowed to touch Wikipedia never mind be one of the most powerful and thoroughly abusive admins.
Now all that's happened is that SV's user pages (and that of her soc
Anyone want to bet even money... (Score:3, Funny)
--
Toro
Wikipedia Infiltrated ? (Score:3, Funny)
plus, Salinger is involved (Score:3, Funny)
Wikipedia is perfectly welcome to sap and impurify my bodily fluids, although there are probably other web sites that are much more likely to actually do so.
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Re:A Wikipedia sysop breaks this down (Score:5, Informative)