US Military Caught "Vandalizing" Wikipedia, Others

We have all seen the stories of political campaigns or companies changing the Wikipedia articles, but this is interesting.

Wikileaks (which some of you consider to be a CIA dis-information project) reports that they have caught the US military changing Wikipedia articles and other websites.

Read the article:
secure....__._/wiki/Wikileaks_busts_Gitmo_propaganda_team

Traceroute was used to find the "perpetrators", but as we discussed in the NSA AT&T article, it seems to obvious and immature. I personally believe that the modifications talked about in the Wikileak article are the result of rogue personnel making changes of their own accord, and not based upon orders. It's too obvious and easy to trace, which to me suggests that it was done by an individual(s).

I, for one, reluctantly admit to agreeing with, and supporting, disinformation campaigns in the name of national security. Of course, 99% of people here will disagree.

Does anyone else agree? Who else thinks it was someone in the DoD messing around, and not the result of a larger conspiracy?

Greetings to Rhose Island Grozny and Welcome to ATS.

I saw you opening a few threads today. I didnt respond to them, because they have already been discussed thoroughly on ATS (except for the Mafia-Tennis one, I think thats actually a FRESH topic).

Tip: Use the "search" function to see if a topic has already been over-used.

Hi, thanks for the welcome. I haven't yet found anything on this site about NASA SWAT, or CIA Close Protection. The article above just came out today, but I know that Wikipedia vandalism has been posted in the past.

I'm a big believer in the search function...my first introduction to forums was over at militaryphotos.net, where if you don't use the search function...you are flamed to no end.

I would think that if people could control exactly what dis-info could do for the positive, then it would be okay... but that's impossible. This government is too full of unclean cosciences. Give the government an inch, and they'll take it a mile. Dis-info confuses everybody, including government itsself, and since they've taken that inch and gone a mile with it, they are using dis-info to dumb citizens down, confuse them about important issues, and cause general chaos for the benefit of their political and economic advantage... and that's just what happens when you give people permission to be disingenuous. It doesn't work in anybody's favor, except for the liars, cheaters, and all around evil do-ers.

Lies attract liars. Secrets attract people who've got something to hide.

National security is a cop-out. A major cop-out... and I can see where people can buy into it, even people in the know, good people mostly... it's just that the logical side of the country's brain has taken over, and people forget about the often bad morality of "good" logic. Logic doesn't have morals.

Originally posted by Grozny07
Hi, thanks for the welcome. I haven't yet found anything on this site about NASA SWAT, or CIA Close Protection. The article above just came out today, but I know that Wikipedia vandalism has been posted in the past.

I'm a big believer in the search function...my first introduction to forums was over at militaryphotos.net, where if you don't use the search function...you are flamed to no end.

Oh I see. OK. I was too quick in assuming... . I rest my case.

Interesting how the some agencies think they can actually control the internet. They can try to but to do it succesfully, they´d need to recruit a few million more employees.

reply to post by Skyfloating

Interesting how the some agencies think they can actually control the internet. They can try to but to do it succesfully, they´d need to recruit a few million more employees.

Hi Sky,
I imagine that government does watch the internet mainly by keyword monitoring. Possibly the ATS management could give us some hints on that! The government probably doesn't act until they see something that relates to security as they see it. Do I think they fiddle with Wikipedia? Hard to imagine that they don't knowing the government (or the MIBs)!

I agree that it is keyword filtering. Programs like Carnivore/DCS1000 (which has been done to death here) are then used on people who have a higher-than-average keyword "hit count". Magic Lantern (which can be installed remotely) could also be run in place of, or in conjunction with, Carnivore.

Programs like ECHELON (which is a multi-nation collaborative effort) can intercept things coming into the US and probably leaving, if the person tapped for surveillance is deemed a target of interest.

My point is this: These are just the programs that they allow us to know about, or are leaked to us. Perhaps these programs were released as part of a disinformation campaign to make us think the intelligence community can do more than they really can (and thus act as a deterrent to conducting communication detrimental to national security). Perhaps they can do everything they say and more. Either way, modifying Wikipedia articles and websites in such a way that anyone who has even a beginner's knowledge of computers can trace it is just too obvious. It all points to a couple of employees who really believe in what they are doing and don't want to hear public opposition to it, so they use their work computer to change things. Anyone can modify Wikipedia; it doesn't take special knowledge. Traceroute runs straight back to a DoD computer. In other words, it's amateur (as the article says) because it isn't in any way an official attack.

Edit: Typing error

[edit on 13-12-2007 by Grozny07]