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Now this isn’t a new tool, and it’s not quite up to date as the author hasn’t updated it for a while – but it’s still exceedingly cool!
As you know most IP addresses are registered to companies or organizations in blocks, so you can identify which network an edit is coming from as Wikipedia logs the IP address when an anonymous edit is made.
WikiScanner (also known as Wikipedia Scanner) is a tool created by Virgil Griffith and released on August 14, 2007, which consists of a publicly searchable database that links millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to the organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on the owners of the associated block of IP addresses. WikiScanner does not work on edits made under a username. The Associated Press reported that Griffith wanted “to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations [he] dislike[s].”
Source: Wikipedia
You can check out your current company, your previous company, your college or university and anything else that tickles your fancy.
There are some very interesting edits, you can see some here:
http://wired.reddit.com/wikidgame/
You can try it out here:
razta says
Them scientologist’s are dodgier than I thought!
Pantagruel says
@razta
You’ll be amazed when running fortune 500 companies through this wiki scanner. It appears to be quite ‘normal’ for them (and other bigger organizations with quite some exposure) to edit Wiki in their favor.
Navin says
@ razta
This is “legal” especially since wiki is a site run “for the people, by the people”….Its up to the “good guys” if there are any left to make sure that stuff on wiki is verified
Why only companies?? I recently came accross a wiki of a college which claimed it was “among the best in India” (I’ve read all possible lists of top 100 instutions in India carried out by NGO’s and none of them feature this institute….I feel an ex-student or an employee of the institute must’ve edited the article!!!
With this tool, if U use a proxy while editting then wikiscanner points to the owner of the proxy right??
Sleepy says
Kinda silly, but worth a look. I got a few laughs, thanks for making a day in the lab less dreary.
zupakomputer says
There’s people paid to sit on their asses all day long and change internet details, wipe forum posts, create many accounts on message boards so it looks like loads of other people agree with them.
I have direct personal experience of this kind of rubbish (not the paid side) – one example, many years ago I find this UFO-related bb that is attached to a very-well-known (in those circles) conference, organisation that has been around for a long time etc; so they are obvioulsy wanting to push certain explanations they favor over other types, cause everytime I posted a specific post on their forum, the next day it’d be wiped (not just mine, they’d make it so that it looked like no-one else was there either). So I’d put it back on again, then the forum would vanish. Then it would come back, so I’d put it back on again……..and this went on for a while, until they actually removed the whole board. Just so what I wrote wouldn’t be on it.
I’ve seen that exact pattern happen online scores of times.
It’s ridiculous.
I mean, what do they think – in that case, I’d even said in the post what books I was referring to; the books already existed! How can they hope to censor things that so many people heard of before.
Navin says
haha man
thats absolutely funny…removing an entire board simply coz they din’t want your view…and they say the net is a place tht promotes free speech..hah!!