Department of Justice gets blocked from editing Wikipedia because of vandalism

[ck4829]

And now, YOU can see the page which shows this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:149.101.1.130

[ColbertWatcher]

1. Hahahahahahahaha! n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. The department of 'Justice' is involved with internet Vandalism.....

Of course the 'Justice' department will look into it.

[malaise]

18. KO needs to see this

WTF???

[ColbertWatcher]

3. And here is a list of the pages they "worked" on...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/149.101.1.130

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. that doesn't make sense mostly TV shows?

WTF?

[ColbertWatcher]

5. You have to click on "diff" for every entry to see what they posted.

Also, check the "history" tab at the top of the "talk page" (discussion tab also at the top of the page) to see all the warnings about posting "unsourced" info.

It seems someone may be involved in a little propaganda....

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Can you give a little more details for your OP's readers?

I've heard of this before with corporations but not with the govt.

[ColbertWatcher]

16. A Wiki Primer...

Wikis allow people to edit articles (or pages).

Every edit is recorded with the time and day and name of the editor who made the changes.

Other editors can discuss changes to find a consensus and improve the article.

Every one of these bits of info is attache to the main article and can be accessed by clicking on the tabs at the top of every page.

The "article tab" allows you to read the main article.

The "discussion tab" allows you to read the "talk page" associated with the main article.

The "edit this page tab" allows editors to access the "code" page where changes can be made.

The "history tab" allows you to see all the changes made to the page. Talk pages have their own "history tab" showing who has changed the talk page.

Every person who edits automatically gets a "User page" and "User talk page"

The User page is usually used to post things about oneself like where you live, interests, pages edited, etc. The talk page is where people can talk to the user about their edits, etc.

Special pages like the "User contribution page" is merely a list of all the edits one editor has made, in backward order. On this page, you can access the individual edit (and see when it was made), the current version and the history page for that article.

I hope this helps.

If you have any more questions, ask away.

[Richard Steele]

6. Smoke screen.

Just like trolls here who post a bunch of innocuous stuff
as cover for their occasional RW crapaganda posts.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Look at this page...

...http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Don%27t_Be_a_Menace_to_South_Central_While_Drinking_Your_Juice_in_the_Hood&diff=prev&oldid=209374613

It is the DoJ's official edit for the movie "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood", which contains the passage:

"One progressive view of the film holds that it teases ..."

And it has not been changed back (reverted).

I am sure more can be found at http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/">wiki scanner.

[whoneedstickets]

10. Likely bored, straight-out-of-college para-legals....

...who are used to doing whatever they want on networked computer systems and haven't a clue that their actions can be traced back to justice.

[Xithras]

12. Heh, or maybe a night watchman. Look at the timestamps on the edits.

I noticed this after putting up my other post.

The vast majority of them start at about 5pm and end roughly 10 hours later around 3AM. While there are many edits outside of this window, the vast majority seem to be after hours.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. Are you converting from UTC time? n/t

[Xithras]

21. Nope, good catch.

DC is a 4-5 hour offset depending on DST, so that puts these at noon to 1pm. So much for the night watchman theory.

[ColbertWatcher]

22. Which college?

The same one Monica Goodling went to?

Let's sing a song in honor of Miss Goodling: Monica Goodling, Dancing Around Testimony Queen

[Xithras]

8. Looks like pretty innocuous stuff.

TV shows, history articles, football stadiums. My guess is that most of this is employees goofing around during their lunch breaks. I diff'ed a bunch of them and didn't see anything objectionable. Of course, I only hit about 20 of them, and there are hundreds of edits there.

Keep in mind that, in an enterprise network like that, you may have thousands of users who appear to come from a single IP address (typically the outside gateway). While there are lots of nogoodniks at the DOJ, you also have computer geeks, secretaries, and other run of the mill employees who may be using it for far less nefarious purposes. With thousands of employees, I'm not exactly shocked that a few of them may be Wikipedia contributors.

I'll bet they're all going to get called to the carpet for it though.

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Inocuous? Look at this page...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Committee_for_Accuracy_in_Middle_East_Reporting_in_America&diff=next&oldid=208194299">Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America

The link above shows the Wikipedia administrator revert of the DoJ's removal of info on that particular page.

The accompanying comment is also interesting:

"(Undid U.S. Dept. Justice edit again -- this is very bizarre)"

[whoneedstickets]

13. The most political edit appears to relate to CAMERA

and the edit is intended to explicate the plot by some CAMERA supporters to infiltrate Wiki and eliminate any pro-Arab content.

[Xithras]

15. But bizarrely it doesn't remove the description of the plot itself.

It only removes the second portion, focusing on advice regarding how to get promoted to Wiki-administrator status. The first part of the entry, which explained CAMERA's intention to flood Wikipedia with pro-Zionist propaganda, was left there by the DOJ.

It their intent was to hide CAMERA's plans, you'd think they'd have removed it all. That's just an odd one.

[ColbertWatcher]

19. Check out this link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=149.101.1.130&month=&year=

[ColbertWatcher]

20. ...And this link...

from wiki scanner

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/name2ip.php?orgname=Department+of+Justice&location=

[Xithras]

14. That's an odd one. Look at the actual removed text.

While it's related to Israel, it's an odd bit of text for them to be interested in.

[orleans]

23. someone seems to be a big fan of tv & film at the doj

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKcIi_3oEA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQI5PiUx9c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDFzD8I0gKg&feature=related

http://moviequeens.net/

[Fox Mulder]

24. That's really odd...

[Cerridwen]

25. Kick. n/t