WikiScanner
Type of site | Database tool |
---|---|
Available in | Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish |
Owner | Virgil Griffith |
Created by | Virgil Griffith |
URL | wikiscanner.virgil.gr Virgil Griffith's current page |
Commercial | No |
Registration | No |
Launched | August 13, 2007 |
Current status | Offline |
WikiScanner (also known as Wikipedia Scanner) was a publicly searchable database that linked
In his "WikiScanner FAQ" Griffith stated his belief that WikiScanner could help make Wikipedia more reliable for controversial topics.[3] He also indicated that he had never been employed by the Wikimedia Foundation and claimed his work on WikiScanner was "100% noncommercial".[3] On December 21, 2012, a research group from Fondazione Bruno Kessler released an open-source clone of WikiScanner called WikiWatchdog.
By April 2013, attempts to run "WikiScanner Classic" from wikiscanner.virgil.gr returned to the WikiScanner home page, which identified itself as "WIKIWATCHER.COM"; and invoking "WikiScanner2 PreviewNew!" led to a "failure to load the page due to timeout" error.[4]
In 2007, Virgil Griffith said he had to take WikiScanner down, as it was costing him "several thousand USD per month."[5] He added below this on his WikiScanner webpage that as a grad student at Caltech in 2008 he developed with the aid of several undergraduates "a suite of Wikipedia-related tools known collectively as "WikiWatcher" which included: WikiScanner2 (Daniel), Wikiganda (Rishi), Poor Man's Checkuser, and BeaverScope," which he launched at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference that year. They used used "high-quality data" from Quova, and among them WikiWatcher "had some media successes, but when the summer was over there was no one to maintain the tools and they fell into disrepair."[5]
Design
The tool's database contained 34 million entries on anonymous edits (those by users who were not logged in to Wikipedia) between February 7, 2002, and August 4, 2007.[3] Griffith stated that the database was constructed by compiling the anonymous edits included amongst the monthly public database dumps of Wikipedia. He claimed to have connected the organizations to their IP address with the assistance of the IP2Location database, and through comparison had found "187,529 different organizations with at least one anonymous Wikipedia edit."[3]
WikiScanner only worked on anonymous edits, which are made under an IP address, not edits by anyone logged in under a username. It could not distinguish between edits made by authorized users of an organization, unauthorized intruders, or users of public-access computers that may have been using an organization's network. In discussing edits made from computers in the Vatican, computer expert Kevin Curran was quoted by the BBC as saying that it was "difficult to determine if the person was an employee or if they had maliciously hacked into the Vatican system and were 'spoofing' the IP address."[6]
The WikiScanner FAQ noted that edits could not be positively attributed to representatives of a company, only to a computer logged into a company's network. The FAQ went on to say there is no guarantee that an edit was made by an authorized user rather than an intruder.[3] The likelihood of such intrusions depended upon an organizations' network security; organizations such as the Vatican Library have public access terminals or networks.[7]
Media coverage and reaction
According to
On August 21, 2007, satirist Stephen Colbert who had long featured stories about Wikipedia and its "truthiness" on his program mocked WikiScanner creator Virgil Griffith's ambivalent stance on anonymity on Wikipedia, declaring it the "right" of corporations and governments to participate in the democratic process of deciding what is and is not true on Wikipedia.[9]
According to the
The Associated Press reported on August 15, 2007, that computers owned by the
According to Maltastar.com from August 16, WikiScanner has shown edits by other large organizations, including
Reuters reported that CIA computers were used to edit an article regarding the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq, including editing a chart showing casualties.[17] CIA computers also edited the article for former CIA chief William Colby.[17] Reuters reported that an FBI computer edited an article on the United States prison at Guantanamo Bay.[17]
On August 24, 2007,
On August 26, 2007,
On December 18, 2007, Fortune magazine mentioned the use of WikiScanner in the 96th of its list of the "101 Dumbest Moments in Business", saying, "A Washington Post employee is found to have changed a reference to the owner of a rival paper from Philip Anschutz to Charles Manson, while someone at The New York Times added the word 'jerk' 12 times to the entry on George W. Bush."[26]
During the period of May 27 to June 4, 2008, edits originating from an IP address belonging to
Wikipedia reaction
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales spoke enthusiastically about WikiScanner, noting that "It brings an additional level of transparency to what's going on at Wikipedia"[13] and that it was "fabulous and I strongly support it."[29] The BBC quoted an unnamed Wikipedia spokesperson's praise for the tool in taking transparency "to another level" and preventing "an organisation or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to."[10] In responding to the edits from the Canadian Ministry of Industry, spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation Jay Walsh noted that neutrality of language and guarding against conflicts of interest are two of the central pillars of Wikipedia, adding that "The edits which should be trusted would come from people who don't possess a conflict of interest, in this case, it would be worthwhile saying that if someone is making edits from a computer within the government of Canada … if it was someone within that ministry, that would theoretically constitute a conflict of interest."[30]
Wales speculated on a possible warning to anonymous editors: "When someone clicks on 'edit,' it would be interesting if we could say, 'Hi, thank you for editing. We see you're logged in from The New York Times. Keep in mind that we know that, and it's public information' … That might make them stop and think."[14]
See also
- Reliability of Wikipedia
- Seigenthaler incident, one of several scandals involving anonymous hoaxes on Wikipedia
- WHOIS
- Wiki-Watch
References
- hacker, heard reports that Congressional staff members had been caught altering Wikipedia for the benefit of their boss, he got to thinking of all the other kinds of spin occurring on the site.
- ^ a b c Borland, John (August 14, 2007). "See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign". Wired. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e Griffith, Virgil. "WikiScanner FAQ". Archived from the original on August 30, 2007. Retrieved August 18, 2007.
- ^ "WikiScanner2 PreviewNew!". Archived from the original on September 22, 2010.
Accessibility of WikiScanner can be checked on the web page Archived April 8, 2012, at the Wayback Machine - ^ a b "Virgil Griffith's WikiScanner Page". Archived from the original on March 14, 2016.
- ^ "Did Vatican alter Wikipedia info on Adams?". Belfast Telegraph. August 16, 2007. Retrieved May 18, 2009.
- ^ "Rules for Readers in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana" (PDF). Vatican Library. September 15, 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 27, 2007.
- ^ Poulsen, Kevin (August 13, 2007). "Vote On the Most Shameful Wikipedia Spin Jobs". Wired blogs. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
- ^ The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. August 21, 2007
- ^ a b Fildes, Jonathan (August 15, 2007). "Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits'". BBC. Retrieved August 16, 2007.
- ^ Blakely, Rhys. "Exposed: guess who has been polishing their Wikipedia entries?". The Times. Archived from the original on May 17, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2011.
- ^ Clifton, Pete (August 16, 2007). "Wikipedia edits". BBC. Retrieved August 16, 2007.
- ^ a b "New online tool unmasks Wikipedia edits". Associated Press. August 15, 2007. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved August 16, 2007.
- ^ a b Hafner, Katie (August 19, 2007). "Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits". The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
- ^ "Student's program sends PR chaos in Wiki-scandal". Maltastar.com. August 16, 2007. Archived from the original on December 25, 2007. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
- ^ "Government computers linked to Wikipedia edits". CTV. August 16, 2007. Retrieved August 20, 2007.
- ^ a b c "CIA and FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits". Reuters. August 16, 2007. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
- Sydney Morning Herald. August 24, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
- ^ Moses, Asher (August 24, 2007). "Government caught Wiki-watching". The Age. Melbourne. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
- ^ "PM 'not behind Wikipedia edits'". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. August 24, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
- ^ "PM's Dept denies making Wikipedia changes". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. August 24, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
- ^ "PM's staff edit Wikipedia entries". The Advertiser. August 24, 2007. Retrieved August 24, 2007.
- ^ "Defence blocks staff's Wikipedia access". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. August 24, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
- ^ "Behind the e-curtain". The Boston Globe. August 26, 2007.
- ^ Verkaik, Robert (August 18, 2007). "Wikipedia and the art of censorship". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on January 9, 2009. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
- ^ "101 Dumbest Moments in Business - 96. WikiScanner". Fortune. December 17, 2007. Retrieved December 18, 2007.
- ^ Nowak, Peter (June 4, 2008). "Government buffing Prentice's Wikipedia entry". Canada: CBC News. Retrieved June 4, 2008.
- ^ Geist, Michael. "Prentice's Staff Scrubbing Copyright Controversy From Wikipedia Entry". michaelgeist.ca. Archived from the original on April 19, 2012. Retrieved June 4, 2008.
- ^ Noyes, Katherine (August 15, 2007). "New Tool Outs Would-Be Wikipedia Tricksters". TechNewsWorld. Retrieved August 16, 2007.
- ^ Cheadle, Bruce (June 6, 2008). "Copyright rewrite war rages on Prentice Wikipedia page". The Globe and Mail. Ottawa. The Canadian Press. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
External links
- WikiScanner, Virgil Griffiths page about wikiscanner.
- Listen to an RTÉ news piece on WikiScanner (RealPlayer required).16 August 2007
- A new website unmasks Wikipedia's vandals Archived August 27, 2007, at the Slate.com,24 August 2007
- Verkaik, Robert (August 18, 2007). "Wikipedia and the art of censorship". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on August 20, 2007. Retrieved August 20, 2007.
- How the Wikipedia Scanner Works on howstuffworks.com
- wikiwatchdog tests if an organization edits Wikipedia using their IP address
- "Users'traffic data on all WIki projects". wikiscan.org. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved March 27, 2021.