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
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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.
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.
Authoritative Sources (Score:2, Interesting)
Because I know it will come up ....
Re:From her wikipedia userpage: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 even in the policy guidelines. I really do believe this is just a sockpuppet of hers.
Re:Transparency (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
What's the difference? (Score:2, Interesting)
After all, if someone's relying on Wikipedia as an unimpeachable source (and way too many "netizens"--most of whom should know a helluva lot better, do so) then they do so at their peril.
Re:I experienced this as well on Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)
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, its very hard to engage in propaganda directed at an enemy without simultaneously engaging in domestic propaganda.
huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prove it.
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Shameful this made it to the front page (Score:2, Interesting)
But on the other hand, the propagation to OhMyNews and subsequently to Slashdot is a substantial escelation of the damage. And I question the editorial wisdom of both sites in deciding to be complicit in spreading the information.
Ironically, this is something Wikipedia is increasingly getting better about - deciding that person X is primarily a private citizen, and that we just don't need to be the people who come up as the first Google hit on their name. It doesn't put the information back in the bottle, but it doesn't turn the bottle upside down and shake it to see if there's a little more we can wring out of it either.
Re:A new low for Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
"This story is demented and broken on so many levels, it is quite difficult to know where to begin, even."
Why don't you start with the basics then?
Is SlimVirgin Linda Mack?
Does she enjoy vastly more power than most admins?
Does her clique suppress legitimate editors on WP?
Does she get paid by someone else to edit WP?
"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."
Please.
EssJay was a 'private person' you supported even after it was clear he lied about everything all the time. How is this time supposed to be different?
"Slashdot, you have been trolled."
Translated: "I don't like it when wikipedia is examined under a light. Make it stop. Make it stop.
P.S. How's that situation with Jeff Merkey aka "the standard of truthiness" working out for you Jimbo?
Re:A new low for Slashdot (Score:2, Interesting)
SlimVirgin along Jayjg, Crum375, Mantimoreland and a few others do effectively operate as a powerful and unaccountable clique on Wikipedia controlling the content of numerous articles and quickly banishing and/or abusing those that disagree with them. SlimVirgin is a very abuse character, although she is also great at playing the victim and ingratiating herself with those who hold power.
There is an essay I wrote about the tactics that they use to effectively control articles on Wikipedia here:
-> Cabals on Wikipedia: Prerequisites, Characteristics and Tactics of Effective Partisan Groups [wikipediareview.com]
Another honest account of the situation is provided on this web page, also written by experienced long-time Wikipedians:
-> WikiTruth.Org: SlimVirgin [wikitruth.info]
There is an elite class on Wikipedia that colludes together and is effectively unaccountable. You can continue to ignore this issue but it isn't about to go away, its just going to grow.
Even someplace as "small" as WikiMapia (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out the two CIA buildings in the center.
Now check their edit histories...
Re:From her wikipedia userpage: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Like Amazon reviews... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 argument than a Nobel laureate, then that argument carries the day, not either person.
Finally, there's no reason why CIA agents shouldn't be allowed to contribute to Wikipedia. No doubt they have hobbies and interests just like you and I. They can contribute positively and objectively to any number of articles unrelated to their profession. If they want to edit articles relating to the CIA, they are expected to abide by Wikipedia's guideline on conflicts of interest [wikipedia.org], just like anyone else. I work for a company that has a entry in Wikipedia and I've edited Wikipedia before. Does that mean my company has "inflitrated" Wikipedia?
On the other hand, there are plenty of people and organizations that do try to influence Wikipedia's articles through decidedly underhanded means. Thankfully, the Wikipedia community is usually very good at detecting that kind of thing and sorting it out. Wikipedia has a wonderful tendency to right itself eventually. No attempt to spin an article in any one direction will last very long if it's a popular or important topic.
Re: Pierre Salinger (Score:3, Interesting)
Or... How about the J Edgar Hoover days at the FBI? Spying on Martin Luther King Jr and John Lennon? I read that they "discovered" that John Lennon did lots of drugs and cheated on Yoko. They had to bug his apartment to figure that out? Federal tax dollars at work!
Or... What happened to socialists and communists inside the US? Isn't the US supposed to be a country where you can believe in any political system you want? Why were these people silenced during the Cold War? Is that really a free democracy?
Or... How about all the dictatorships we installed? Latin America is a good example. Most Americans don't care about any of this, but ask a Latin American about the Monroe Doctrine some time. And here in the US, we're taught in school what a good thing it was! And speaking of dictatorships... Who was it that put Saddam there in the first place?
Or hey... How about the shit that's been going on more recently. Iraq anyone? Wasn't it curious how just about everyone with the means to do so was pushing for that thing in 2003? Warantless wiretaps? Federal money delivered to contractors in the form of millions in cash in trash bags? Executive orders that say, "Hey, I'm going to go ahead and break the law. Peace, -George Bush."
I think it's all kind of messed up. I know some people who are really hardcore conspiracy theorists, and I usually dismiss their attitudes, but yeah, with crap like this going on, I can see why they come to their conclusions. We need a government that doesn't try to meddle with these things.
Re:Transparency (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Transparency (Score:4, Interesting)