WikiScanner (also known as Wikipedia Scanner) was a publicly searchable database that linked anonymous edits on

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read ref ...

to the organizations where those edits apparently originated. It did this by cross-referencing the edits with data on the owners of the associated block of

IP addresses An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface iden ...

, though it did not investigate edits made under a username. It was created by

Virgil Griffith Virgil Griffith (born 1983), also known as Romanpoet, is an American programmer. He worked extensively on the Ethereum cryptocurrency platform, designed the Tor2web proxy along with Aaron Swartz, and created the Wikipedia indexing tool WikiScan ...

and released on August 13, 2007. In his "WikiScanner FAQ" Griffith stated his belief that WikiScanner could help make Wikipedia more reliable for controversial topics. He also indicated that he had never been employed by the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

and claimed his work on WikiScanner was "100% noncommercial". On December 21, 2012, a research group from 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 Preview^New!" led to a "failure to load the page due to

timeout Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an engine ...

" error. In 2007, Virgil Griffith said he had to take wikiscanner.gr down, as it was costing him "several thousand USD per month."

Design

The tool's

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

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. 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." 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 Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

, computer expert Kevin Curran was quoted by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

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." 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. The likelihood of such intrusions depended upon an organizations' network security; organizations such as the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

have public access terminals or networks.

Media coverage and reaction

According to ''Wired'', which first broke the story on 13 August 2007, most edits were "fairly innocuous". ''Wired'' asked users to submit "The most shameful Wikipedia spin jobs", which generated many news stories about organizations, such as the Al-Jazeera network,

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...

, staffers of Democratic Senator Robert Byrd and the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

, that had edited Wikipedia articles. On August 21, 2007, satirist

Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program '' The Colbert Report'' from 2005 t ...

who had long featured stories about Wikipedia and its "

truthiness Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Truthiness can range from ig ...

" on his program mocked WikiScanner creator

's ambivalent stance on anonymity on Wikipedia, declaring it the "right" of corporations and governments to participate in the

democratic process Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose g ...

of deciding what is and is not true on Wikipedia. According to the

from August 15, 2007, WikiScanner found that some editorial contributions to Wikipedia had originated from computers operated by the

Diebold Diebold Nixdorf is an American multinational financial and retail technology company that specializes in the sale, manufacture, installation and service of self-service transaction systems (such as ATMs and currency processing systems), point ...

company, the

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is the Democratic Hill committee for the United States House of Representatives, working to elect Democrats to that body. The DCCC recruits candidates, raises funds, and organizes races in ...

, as well as the

. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'' reported that an IP address at the BBC had made edits to Wikipedia. The BBC's Head of Interactive News,

Pete Clifton Pete Clifton is Editor-in-Chief at the Press Association (PA). Prior to the appointment he was Executive Producer for MSN in the UK and former Head of Editorial Development at BBC News. Career Clifton was previously the editor of Ceefax, and befo ...

published a blog on August 16 acknowledging the earlier omission, but characterized the BBC's edits of Wikipedia in this manner: "Some of the examples are pretty unedifying, but for every dodgy one there are many, many more uncontroversial edits where people at the BBC have added information or changed a detail in good faith". The Associated Press reported on August 15, 2007, that computers owned by the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious ...

had been used to remove criticism from articles about

Scientology Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data i ...

on Wikipedia, including edits to the article

Cult Awareness Network The Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was an anti-cult organization created by deprogrammer Ted Patrick that provided information on groups that it considered to be cults, as well as support and referrals to deprogrammers. It was founded in the wake ...

. The Associated Press admitted that edits to Wikipedia had been made anonymously from its own computers, though the news organization did not describe the content of the edits. In its story on WikiScanner, the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' too admitted that edits had been made from its own computers.

Wired.com ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

reported that the office of former Republican Senator

Conrad Burns Conrad Ray Burns (January 25, 1935 – April 28, 2016) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Montana and later was a lobbyist. He was only the second Republican popularly elected to represent Montana in the Senat ...

had also edited critical passages. According to Maltastar.com from August 16, WikiScanner has shown edits by other large organizations, including Amnesty International,

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

ChevronTexaco Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in San ...

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atla ...

, the British Conservative Party,

Dell Computers Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

EA Games Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

Exxon Mobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30 ...

, the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'',

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

, MySpace, the

National Rifle Association of America The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent gun rights lobbying organization while cont ...

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, sin ...

, ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...

'', the ''

'', the

Government of Portugal The Government of Portugal is one of the four sovereignty bodies of the Portuguese Republic, together with the President of the Republic, the Assembly of the Republic and the courts. It is both the body of sovereignty that conducts the general p ...

, the US Republican Party,

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

, and a dog breeding association. The Canadian television network

CTV CTV may refer to: Television * Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet North America and South America * CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media ** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...

reported edits by other organizations including

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and the

Canadian government The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federation, federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the Corporation sole#The Crown, corporation sole, assuming distinct ro ...

. On August 24, 2007,

headline The headline or heading is the text indicating the content or nature of the article below it, typically by providing a form of brief summary of its contents. The large type ''front page headline'' did not come into use until the late 19th centur ...

reports in the Australian

print Printing is the process for reproducing text and images using a master form or template Print or printing may also refer to: Publishing * Canvas print, the result of an image printed onto canvas which is often stretched, or gallery-wrapped, o ...

and

electronic media Electronic media are media that use electronics or electromechanical means for the audience to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which today are most often created digitally, but do not requir ...

were made of anonymous edits to Wikipedia by staff in the Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in order to remove potentially damaging details from articles related to the

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...

. Information found using WikiScanner showed 126 anonymous edits from the department to articles on sometimes controversial issues and on government ministers. The department responded by saying that

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the ...

did not direct his staff to modify the articles, and later that day the head of the department said that the changes were not made by anyone in his department or the Prime Minister's office, but by another user with the same

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privatel ...

. Wikiscanner also identified

Australian Department of Defence Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

(DoD) employees as having made over 5,000 edits, prompting an unprecedented announcement from the DoD to block Defence staff from editing Wikipedia in case edits were interpreted as official comment. On August 26, 2007, ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' published an editorial about Wikipedia, described as a "democratic fountain of facts" and related WikiScanner technology, reporting as among those companies found to have edited Wikipedia were

Pepsi Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi was ...

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarte ...

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November ...

and

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

, in which specific case "In 2005, someone using a computer inside Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company, rewrote a benign description of the company, claiming it is 'run by a group of geriatrics who find it impossible to make timely decisions and have an aversion to highly-profitable ventures.'" The WikiScanner story was also covered by ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'', which stated that many "censorial interventions" by editors with vested interests on a variety of articles in Wikipedia had been discovered. 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 Philip Frederick Anschutz ( ; born December 28, 1939) is an American billionaire businessman who owns or controls companies in a variety of industries, including energy, railroads, real estate, sports, newspapers, movies, theaters, arenas and mu ...

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

, while someone at ''The New York Times'' added the word 'jerk' 12 times to the entry on George W. Bush." During the period of May 27 to June 4, 2008, edits originating from an IP address belonging to

Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; french: Innovation, Sciences et Développement économique Canada; french: ISDE, label=none)''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal ...

were made to the

Jim Prentice Peter Eric James Prentice (July 20, 1956 – October 13, 2016) was a Canadian politician who served as the 16th premier of Alberta from 2014 to 2015. In the 2004 federal election he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a candidat ...

(Federal

Minister of Industry The industry minister is a cabinet position in a government. The title may refer to the head of the governmental department that specializes in industry. This position may also be responsible for trade and employment, areas that fall under the min ...

) article on Wikipedia. The edits included the removal of references to new copyright legislation and the addition of two passages about Prentice's recent accomplishments as Minister of Industry.

Wikipedia reaction

Wikipedia co-founder

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikip ...

spoke enthusiastically about WikiScanner, noting that "It brings an additional level of transparency to what's going on at Wikipedia" and that it was "fabulous and I strongly support it." 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." In responding to the edits from the Canadian Ministry of Industry, spokesman for the

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." 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."

References

External links

WikiScanner
Virgil Griffiths page about wikiscanner.

to an

RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...

news piece on WikiScanner (RealPlayer required).16 August 2007
A new website unmasks Wikipedia's vandals
- by Michael Agger, ''

Slate.com ''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former ''The New Republic, New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as p ...

'',24 August 2007 *
How the Wikipedia Scanner Works
on

howstuffworks.com HowStuffWorks is an American commercial infotainment website founded by professor and author Marshall Brain, to provide its target audience an insight into the way many things work. The site uses various media to explain complex concepts, termino ...

wikiwatchdog
tests if an organization edits Wikipedia using their IP address * {{Use mdy dates, date=September 2012 Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia Internet memes Internet privacy Internet Protocol Computer-related introductions in 2007

Design

Media coverage and reaction

Wikipedia reaction

See also

References

External links