CIA editing Wikipedia? And what could they possibly have to say about Oprah?

Hey guys, Lisa Chiu here, this is one of my shameless last-minute blog postings.

There was a great story Wednesday by the BBC about this new tool called WikiScanner, which lets users of Wikipedia search the database to find out who is editing what on the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which lets anyone post and edit entries.

Among the things the BBC foud were:

* Someone at the CIA edited entries on the page on the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They reportedly added "Wahhhhhhh!" in part of the entry.

* Someone at the CIA edited made small changes to the entry for Oprah Winfrey.

* Someone at the Vatican edited entires on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopaedia that can be created and edited by anyone.

* Someone using a computer at the U.S. Democratic Party made changes to right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh calling him "idiotic," a "racist", and a "bigot". An entry about his audience now reads: "Most of them are legally retarded."

* Someone at Diebold, the company that supplied electronic voting machines for the controversial US election in 2000, removed paragraphs about Walden O'Dell, chief executive of the company, which revealed that he had been "a top fund-raiser" for George Bush.

The story clearly says that the program allegedly found out where these edits were coming from. And that could mean anyone with access to a computer at any of these organizations.

Still I think it's pretty cool that the Internet is being both used as a educational sharing platform (Wikipedia) and that is such an open source that anyone can write a program to find out who is writing what. I have to admit, I've edited stuff on Wikipedia, I wonder if they can find me on WikiScan.

Look up people on WikiScan yourself at:

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

Check out the BBC article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6947532.stm