/Interview/ The brains behind: WikiScanner
20/11/2007 | Filed under Discover > Interview
WikiScanner exposes anonymous Wikipedia edits and thus proves that many company entries are changed the companies themselves. We talk to the creator, Virgil Griffith
.net: How did you come up with WikiScanner?
VG: I came up with the idea when I heard about Congressmen getting caught for whitewashing their Wikipedia pages. Every time I hear about a new security vulnerability, I think about whether it could be done on a massive scale and indexed. I had the idea back then. I’ve been busy with scientific work, so I sat on it until a few weeks ago when I started working on WikiScanner.
.net: What do you hope to achieve with it?
VG: To create a fireworks display of public relations disasters in which everyone brings their own fireworks, and enjoys.
.net: How does WikiScanner work?
VG: When you make an edit to Wikipedia, you have two options. First, you can register and leave your username, or you can edit anonymously. But, when you edit anonymously, it uses your IP address in lieu of a username. Wikipedia does this for convenience to distinguish your anonymous edits from someone else’s. In essence, WikiScanner combines two databases: First, the list of all IP addresses that have made edits to Wikipedia, and second, what IP addresses belong to which companies. So with WikiScanner, you can type a company name, and it shows you what edits have come from IP addresses owned by that company.
.net: What kind of information can the tool find?
VG: Anonymous Wikipedia edits.
.net: What do you think about the effect WikiScanner had so far?
VG: I’m delighted with the harvest of PR disasters thus far, and there are plenty of disasters waiting to be found.
.net: What’s the most interesting edit you’ve discovered through WikiScanner?
VG: I can’t comment on that for legal reasons.
.net: What kind of feedback do you get from people? Do you get hate mail, or any job offers?
VG: About 95 per cent of the feedback has been positive. A few job offers and a little bit of hate mail. However, I’m quite happy as a graduate student at Caltech. They treat me well, and deep down I’m a scientist, not a computer programmer.
.net: You’ve been sued before when Blackboard Inc alleged that Billy Hoffman and you had stolen trade secrets, as well as violated both the DMCA and the Espionage and Sedition Act. Do you think the WikiScanner will get you into trouble?
VG: Using my experience from last time as a guide, I’ve been very careful with WikiScanner to make sure I’m clean when it comes to the legal system.
.net: What needs to be done to fix Wikipedia?
VG: Wikipedia isn’t broken. It isn’t perfect, but overall it does remarkably well. A better question is “What can be done to make Wikipedia better?” And I believe doing clever back-end analyses of the vast amounts of data for alerting people to potential disinformation is a promising path.
.net: What plans have you got to improve WikiScanner?
VG: Everyone wants to know what’s next. Sorry, but I have to tell them all that I don’t talk about things until they’re done.
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Comments
gabs / 26/11/2007 / 20:45 / http://www.seohome.co.uk
Nice find...
The other great way of finding your links or competitors is the new link search..
Here is an example for .net mag:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=www.netmag.co.uk
