Talk:Congressional staff actions prompt Wikipedia investigation

Congressional IP ranges

Please add information about IP ranges owned and operated by the US Congress here, please. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 01:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

this is a good place to start — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I did a traceroute on some ip addys. here are the results.Tthey timed out toward the end but the results are interesting. I pasted ONLY a minimum amount of the info. Contact me for more.

• 156.33.148.107:

http://www.nwtools.com/default.asp?prog=express&host=156.33.148.107 OrgName: U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms OrgID: USSAA Address: 2 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, N.E. 6TH FLOOR City: WASHINGTON DC StateProv: DC PostalCode: 20510 Country: US NameServer: SEN-DMZP.SENATE.GOV NameServer: SEN-DMZS.SENATE.GOV NameServer: DNSAUTH1.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: DNSAUTH2.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: DNSAUTH3.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: AUTH03.NS.UU.NET NameServer: AUTH50.NS.UU.NET

• 156.33.150.38

http://www.nwtools.com/default.asp?prog=express&host=156.33.150.38 OrgName: U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms OrgID: USSAA Address: 2 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, N.E. 6TH FLOOR City: WASHINGTON DC StateProv: DC PostalCode: 20510 Country: US NameServer: SEN-DMZP.SENATE.GOV NameServer: SEN-DMZS.SENATE.GOV NameServer: DNSAUTH1.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: DNSAUTH2.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: DNSAUTH3.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: AUTH03.NS.UU.NET NameServer: AUTH50.NS.UU.NET

• 156.33.43.214

http://www.nwtools.com/default.asp?prog=express&host=156.33.43.214+ OrgName: U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms OrgID: USSAA Address: 2 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, N.E. 6TH FLOOR City: WASHINGTON DC StateProv: DC PostalCode: 20510 Country: US NameServer: SEN-DMZP.SENATE.GOV NameServer: SEN-DMZS.SENATE.GOV NameServer: DNSAUTH1.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: DNSAUTH2.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: DNSAUTH3.SYS.GTEI.NET NameServer: AUTH03.NS.UU.NET NameServer: AUTH50.NS.UU.NET

Jason Safoutin 03:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Which 50 Senators?

The article states you investigated computers of "all 50 senators". I know what "all 100 senators" would mean, but don't know which 50 you might be referring to.209.161.166.94 06:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)JPG

• I've checked the Administrator's Noticeboard. Rick Block checked all senators. Uncle G 10:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • My apologies, I meant to write Senators from all 50 states Achille 11:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

more information at RFC

There is currently an RFC going on concerning the entire US Congress which also have results (may warrant being in the report) at w:Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/United States Congress. Natalinasmpf 10:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• If there is a significant outcome, Wikinews will carry another story. Uncle G 10:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Another article

• George Ou Congressional staffers caught abusing the Wikipedia ZDNet, 2006-01-29

It's mainly sourced from the same Lowell Sun article, however. Uncle G 10:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Examples moved here

I don't think the actual examples should be used in the actual article, but instead be sourced here. They should be described, however, in the article. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 11:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that saying "Major Section on Israel & military removed" in the article and requiring readers to come to the talk page to find the actual hyperlink to follow is needlessly burdensome on readers. Also note that we are already summarizing the edits in the article. The full raw list, per the source cited, is a lot longer. Uncle G 11:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, it looks pretty good as is. Nyarlathotep 13:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• I just it somewhat tacky (for lack of a better term) to include them in the article, especially how they look at present. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 20:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ongoing stuff

At some stage I'll be going over all the relevant IPs with CheckUser to give the Board a list of all usernames used from these IPs for their consideration. That probably isn't actually news yet, as I need to get around to it ... - 212.85.21.254 11:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC) (w:user:David Gerard)

If you do manage to get the user names, let me know...I would like to write that article. I wish we knew exactly WHO was making these edits. That would be some interesting information. Jason Safoutin 11:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

A checkuser was done by Fred. User names should not be published unless agreement by the board (see privacy policy). Thanks User:anthere 10:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure of the policy on this, but to the degree that the website has been violated, im considering a permenant ban on the proxy, is this feasable? p.s. I have a huge list of government operated servers and proxys around here somewhere, ill post when i find -Andy

Andy...I have this link. I don't know if it is helpful: Government & Military IP Ranges Jason Safoutin 17:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Local edits

Is there any easy way to query contributions for an IP block here on Wikinews? I'd like to make sure these folks haven't been editing the news too. I don't want to go through thousands of addresses by hand, or are there a small list of proxies in use by house.gov that can be checked? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny you should mention that, I was thinking the same thing and even looked at the Block list to see if we blocked any of them for vandalism and we have NOT. But if worst comes to worst I will help look at that info if I am able to Brian...how do we do that? Jason Safoutin 12:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The rather prolific Wikipedia contributor 143.231.249.141 has edited here, but the edit I found was deleted. You can see this from the talk page. The story was 31 travelers from Rwanda die in terrible horrible bus crash. See: [deletion log]. Admins can see the last version before deletion...

Quote

---

June 8, 2005

A bus collision with a truck in Uganda has resulted in at least 31 fatalities and has left a furture 21 injured. The bus, which was heading for Nairobi in Kenya, crashed in the Kabale district of Uganda near the Rwandan border. Of the 31 fatalities, 25 died instantly upon impact while the remaining 5 died later in hospital.

The survivors of the accident were initially taken to Kabale Hospital in Uganda, but were later flown back to hospitals in Rwanda. It remains to be seen what exactly caused the accident

I'm trying to think up ways to check if there is content on any of the other user talk pages for the IP block. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Brian, I'm currently checking all known IP ranges for the Senate. Please note that this takes quite a long time (I'm looking at about 4 - 5 hours per range of 65,025 IP's each, and I currently have 4 ranges, bringing the total to over 260,000 IP addresses. I hope to have the results by Wednesday, or at the very latest, Saturday. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 20:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

MrM; I suggest you check the IP ranges for the NSA if you can; that would be the more likely origin of manipulation with respect to our project,imo. Neutralizer 02:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok here is a list of known IP ranges for the gov't. Unfortunately, there are hundreds if not thousands and I CANNOT paste them here. Only the link....and theres a lot there MrM. Take a look: http://www.governmentsecurity.org/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t5818.html Jason Safoutin 12:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Jason Safoutin. The recent psyops articles indicate the Pentagon should definitely be checked, I think. Neutralizer 12:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I must warn you. Be very calrewful with these and watch what you scan them with if anything, because they will trace you and could possibly come after you. I have checked several otehr pages witht eh same info and they all say to NOT scan them...whatever that means? Jason Safoutin 12:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC) BTW... The Pentagon IS listed on there.

Here is the PARTIAL IP range for The White House: 213.122.*.* -I cannot find thew rest of the address. Jason Safoutin 12:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Edits on 2003 Invasion of Iraq

This is a nice one from the Wikipedia investigation, but it would require that someone establish who was using housegate10.house.gov (IP:143.231.249.141) at the time. Here are the edits...

[1] and [2]

Quote

---

Links between al Qaeda and Iraq were often mentioned in the run-up to war. Before the invasion, journalists were generally skeptical -- an about-face from years prior when the media generally trumpeted Iraq / al Qaeda connections.

Quote

---

In 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, concluded that there was no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had assisted al-Qaeda in preparing for or carrying out the 9/11 attacks. Such a link was never suggested by President Bush or the Bush administration as a justification for the invasion; rather, that such a relationship existed at all is seen as compelling.

(bold is their addition).

--Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Trace route for that IP address from: http://www.nwtools.com/default.asp?prog=express&host=143.231.249.141

DNS servers:

chyron.house.gov [143.228.129.38]

mercury.house.gov [143.231.1.67]

Authority records:

house.gov 1 NS chyron.house.gov 86400s

house.gov 1 NS mercury.house.gov 86400s

chyron.house.gov 1 A 143.228.129.38 86400s

mercury.house.gov 1 A 143.231.1.67 86400s

Network IP address lookup:

Results returned from whois.arin.net:

OrgName::Information Systems, U.S. House of Representatives

OrgID: :ISUHR

Address: :2nd and D St SW

City: :Washington

StateProv: :DC

PostalCode: :20515

Country::US

Jason Safoutin 14:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Edits on [ 9/11 history]

Have any of the large number of edits to the 9/11 entry been made from the House IPs? Investigation of this would probably yield some very interesting results.

Matt Yancey

I just had a lengthy telephone conversation w/ Matt Yancey of AP, he the head for national stories regarding the U.S. Congress. He repeatedly said he does not see anything important, he does not see a story here. He said "that's a problem with your website, if you allow anyone to do this then there's something wrong with security on your website". I told him AP already had a story out and he dismissed that as a local story. *shakes head* I'm a newcomer to Wikinews and now I understand its potential. Achille 14:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I wonder what he would say if a senator would bribe a Britannica or Encarta writer to sanitize his entry. --Deprifry|+T+ 14:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a story here. Senators possibly trying to change their own history and or their employees? That a story to me. Especially if these people violate policy...Dismissed the article that AP did? Do we have a link or something for this AP story they did not do? Deprifry, I wonder too...wouldn't that be something if they did. Jason Safoutin 15:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a good story, but it's like fishing trut, don't break the line ! ;) Jacques Divol 15:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

and i asked to the french wikipedia admin if there's cases in french (i know one case but from a political party) Jacques Divol 15:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Is that case in english? Jason Safoutin 15:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

There has actually been a case in the German Wikipedia where IPs originating from the Bundestag edited the pages of candidates competing for the May 2005 state legislature election in North Rhine-Westphalia. --Deprifry|+T+ 15:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Are there links to any of these cases or edits? I think this could make a even bigger story if we postively link the gov't(s) purposely editing their biographies and such to mislead the "people"...hhhmmm....sounds exciting already. Jason Safoutin 15:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

IPs belonging to the Bundestag are for example 193.17.243.4 or 193.17.243.1. You can see quite a lot of edits from these to articles concerning MPs, most of them are positive though. (Well, maybe not this one. A literal translation of that edit would be "You gotta fuck more. We need more eggs." ;) ) The real controversy however, with extensive press coverage, occured in May 2005 when the article of Jürgen Rüttgers (then candidate for governor in North Rhine-Westphalia) was sanitized. You can read an extensive discussion by the community on this here (in German). --Deprifry|+T+ 16:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok my next question is, when was the most recent edits done with all of the IP addresses in question? If there is a place and I missed it let me know. Jason Safoutin 16:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC) Also, are there any other governments or organizations that can be linked to unusual edits elsewhere? Jason Safoutin 16:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

(Not sure if you're talking to me) About 6 hours ago, but it was a good edit. You can actually see the contributions if you click on the IPs in my previous post. --Deprifry|+T+ 17:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

A partial response, nothing like that in French somes cases but nothing we couldnt manage (i asked to admins just one answer) Jacques Divol 16:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Confirmed by spokesman

Jon Brandt, spokesman for the Committee on House Administration confirmed House ownership of the IP http://www.thetranscript.com/headlines/ci_3452611

• It's official, you can stop doing IP-arin-checks. -- Achille 18:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • It already was official. ARIN is authoritative. Uncle G 20:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
    • For whatever reason people kept disputing this. That same news story also metions that 10 000 employees go through that account. (blame it on the Janitor) Achille 05:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
      • The janitor? sorry only Senators and employees of senators (aka assistants etc) have access to the IP's mentioned in this article. Jason Safoutin 03:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
        • It was just a joke... 10K is a lot of people. Achille 05:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

What's to prevent "Wikipedia Sanitation Services" from being a product for sale?

Any PR firm could include it in their list of services, I suppose; in which case the whole thing would be legal,I think, and this issue would be moot,perhaps. Neutralizer 21:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• According to reports recived by wikipedia some companies already market a bit more dirrectly as part of thier viral marketing stuff.Geni 23:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Please use w:Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/United States Congress or a web site such as this one if you wish to discuss the issue, rather than the article. Wikinews is not a discussion forum. Uncle G 11:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Good faith

Despite the fact that such edits and "sanitation services" only prove that the Wikimedia Foundation is doing a good job, it's painful to realize that, to maintain the quality of that job, one has to spend a lot of energy, because more and more it's impossible to rely on the good faith of some users. Nevertheless, Wikipedia and all of the sister projects have the potential to help Humanity (if only Humanity didn't resist such efforts...) --193.136.128.14 09:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Interresting time ... i don't know why but remember me "The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth. The translation in French is "Planète à gogo", something like "Nuts' World" ;) Jacques Divol 09:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Please use w:Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/United States Congress or a web site such as this one if you wish to discuss the issue, rather than the article. Wikinews is not a discussion forum. Uncle G 11:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Further sources

• Frederic J. Frommer. "Web site's entry on Coleman revised: Aide confirms his staff edited biography, questions Wikipedia's accuracy" — Associated Press, 2006-01-31
• "Coleman staff changes Web encyclopedia bio" — Duluth News Tribune, 2006-01-31

This source post-dates this article, but covers the Coleman edits that we mention here and includes a response from Coleman's chief of staff, Erich Mische, on the subject, arguing with Jimbo Wales. Uncle G 11:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Press coverage

Germany's most visited website just put an article about this event as one of their lead stories up at [3] (Google translation). So much for "not an important story". --Deprifry|+T+ 15:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I would love to see the media outlets here (aka Fox News, CNN etc) pick this up...Whats the latest on the investigation anyway? Jason Safoutin 15:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC) BTW see above for recent discoveries and additions. Jason Safoutin 15:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Report today on CNN

CNN's Situation Room just had a segment on the story. Their "internet reporter" said that Senate majority leader Frist's Wikipedia bio had been upgraded and also that Wikipedia had blocked House IP addresses for a couple of days but could not block the Senate's because they are not easily defined. Neutralizer 22:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

And again

NRP's "Day to Day" has a report: [4] 68.39.174.238 01:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

and here: Byrd, Rockefeller biographies targets of 'vandalism'

What?

I find the fact that there is a 15-year old Wikipedia Administrator disturbing. Isn't there criteria?

I assume the criteria are similar to those for becoming a Wikipedia administrator; mainly the accumulation of a track record of quality contributions. Why should age matter? Ike9898 22:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do not use article talk pages for conversations NOT related to the article. Please User Talk pages for personal discussions. Jason Safoutin 00:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

.ru

{{Editprotected}}
Hi! Please add ru:Действия сотрудников конгресса вызывают исследование Википедии interwiki link. Thanks, ×α£đ~^es 23:47, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Done — Gopher65_talk 06:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Grammer Errors

The following grammar errors were discovered when reading the article. To find them more quickly look under the bold text which reads "Editing from U.S. House computers".

1. The word "refering" should be "referring"

1. Also "adamently" should be "adamantly"

To better help you find these words you can press and hold "Ctrl+F" This will bring up your internet browser's word finder, from there simply type in the misspelled word. TheSoftwareManiac (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Done the first. Not done the second; it's a quote from typed text. Sic is used. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:22, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ohh, okay I see what you mean about the quote, well thanks for the fix; and I hope it helped.