How to Bust the Spooks on Wikipedia

Go to Virgin Griffiths Wikipedia Scanner page. Under "Specify by IP Range", enter the following IP's: 63.167.255.0-255. They all belong to the Department of Homeland Security. Then click on "Wikipedia edits Ahoy!" Don't you feel safer now that you know that Homeland Security employees have made 2147 edits to Wikipedia?On Oct. 8, 2005, someone, using a computer linked to the Homeland Security Department, edited G.W. Bush page. Here are the edits he made. The left and right columns contain the text of the article before and after the editing. All references to Bush's addiction to alcoholism have been suppressed. Information concerning Cheney's DWI arrests was also deleted by the same Department.On the other hand, Homeland Security people are unpleased with Mohamed Atta sobriety. "In the week before the attack, Atta was seen drinking juice and playing video games..." was edited to read "In the week before the attack, Atta was seen drinking heavily and playing video games..." Voila! America is safer now. Read full story

WIKIPEDIA EDITED BY CIA COMPUTERS

According to a CIA spokesperson, the US Intelligence agency is editing Wikipedia pages in order to save Americans lives. Between June 29 2004 and July 30 2007, Wikipedia pages have been edited 297 times by some individual(s) using computers that belong to the CIA network.

Among the pages that were edited by the CIA individual(s), we find The 2003 invasion of Iraq (modified on 2004-11-09 15:57:47), William Colby (modified on 2005-06-23 22:45:00, 2005-06-24 16:32:11, 2005-06-24 16:34:19 and 2006-06-20 18:32:45), The Iraq Intelligence Commission (modified on 2005-06-30 21:27:22), The Central Intelligence Agency (modified on 2005-07-18 17:54:46), The United States Intelligence Community (modified on 2005-08-15 15:05:43), Ahmed Chalabi (modified on 2005-12-09 18:13:04), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (modified on 2005-12-15 16:38:49), The National Counter Terrorism Center (modified on 2005-12-22 16:24:26), The National Security Council (modified on 2005-12-27 13:42:09 and 2005-12-27 13:44:14), Porter J. Goss (modified on 2006-01-25 00:08:00 and 2006-01-25 00:10:10), George Tenet (modified on 2006-02-10 10:36:53), Kyle Foggo (modified on 2006-05-08 17:00:42), Encryption (modified on 2006-10-27 16:41:05), The list of Yale University student organizations (modified on 2007-01-23 23:54:42), China and Weapons of Mass Destruction (modified on 2007-02-05 17:27:24), and The Director of National Intelligence (modified on 2007-04-24 20:07:24).

On May 8 2006, I wrote an article in which I discussed the resignation of CIA former Director Porter Goss.

"Goss 19-month tenure was marked by low morale at the agency, turf battles with the director of national intelligence, and a fair number of scandals.
"Soon after his nomination, Goss appointed Michael Kostiw as executive director. Then, someone leaked embarrassing information about Kostiw's past. Kostiw had been forced to leave the CIA 20 years earlier. Two officers resigned in protest.
"Goss picked Kyle Foggo to replace Kostiw. The CIA's inspector general is examining whether Foggo arranged for any contracts to be granted to companies associated with Brent R. Wilkes.

"Wilkes is a contractor who had connections to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. The Congressman has been sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption. Wilkes and Foggo are long-time friends. The agency confirmed that Foggo and Wilkes attended private poker games (also attended by a fair number of prostitutes) at a Washington hotel.

Upon hearing Goss's announcement, Foggo announced his resignation. On the same day this article was published in OhmyNews, someone, using a CIA computer (IP 198.81.129.194) edited the Wikipedia page of Kyle Foggo. The following innocent statement was added by the CIA user.

"He [Kyle Dustin "Dusty" Foggo] resigned from the CIA on May 8, 2006, stating that a new director should be able to choose his own deputies."

On July 26, Ohmynews alleged that Wikipedia may have been infiltrated by Intelligence Agencies. The story attracted more than 50,000 readers in just three days, was highly debated on the Web, and translated in several languages.

On August14, Wired reported that Griffith had completed a new software utility known as the "Wikipedia Scanner". The software is capable of tracking millions of Wikipedia article edits back to their originating IP addresses. Thus, it is now straightforward to identify any corporations or organisation editing article on the world famous Free Encyclopedia.

Using Griffith’s software, I could identify 297 edits that can be track back to the following IP’s: 198.81.129.193, 198.81.129.194, 198.81.129.186, and 198.81.129.34. All IP’s 198.81.129.(0 to 255) belong to the CIA computer Network.
"I cannot confirm that the traffic came from agency computers," a CIA spokesperson stated. "I'd like in any case to underscore a far larger and more significant point that no one should doubt or forget: The CIA has a vital mission in protecting the United States, and the focus of this agency is there, on that decisive work."
"Technically, we don't know whether it came from an agent of that company, however, we do know that edit came from someone with access to their network," Griffith wrote on the Wikipedia Scanner site.
"We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level. The Wikipedia Scanner may prevent an organisation from editing articles that they're really not supposed to," a Wikipedia spokesperson said.

Wikipedia and the Intelligence Services

In the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, the finger of suspicion quickly pointed to a Syria-based Palestinian organization -- the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command (PFLP-GC) -- hired by Iran. The terrorist group was created by a former Syrian army captain, Ahmed Jibril, who broke away from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1968.I had learned from a recently released U.S. National Archives file that Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency, had infiltrated the PFLP and helped the Entebbe hijackers (Israeli commandos rescued the hostages in Uganda in 1976), so I wanted to learn more about the link between the PFLP and the PFLP-GC. I also wanted to learn more about allegations made by David Colvin, the first secretary of the British Embassy in Paris, concerning the rather bizarre collaboration between the PFLP and the Shin Bet.

As I could not locate the article in which I had learned about the allegations, I consulted the article on the Entebbe Operation on Wikipedia, where I knew the story had been noted. To my surprise, I found that all references to the alleged collaboration between the PFLP and the Shin Bet had been suppressed. Moreover, it is no longer possible to edit the page. Read full text