Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2018/August

Botnet of Trolls

In a low level, non-classified brief from the Department of Homeland Security which I was attending, has advised all social media and social media like organization, like the various wiki-projects, are at risk of influx from high-functioning botnets of trolls. These botnets are unique and difficult to disseminate on a technical level since they are using short lived mirror IPs which is not like tor's onion network. The high functioning part comes from using machine learning to mimic sentence structure and commonly used words in an effort drum up false media, identity theft, and overall corruption.

These botnet are state built, run, and controlled mainly by Russia but all modern nations have similar programs. This particular botnet can be directed at any nation, not just the US. Also, any language can be used. Bots can interact with each other, making it seem as though there is real dialog making it very difficult to identify. DHS has said there is some signatures of these botnet during this early development as clusters of accounts with low variability in opinions, promoting each other through a social media's hierarchy. Also the language skills will be elementary to functional, but not extensive.

Be advised, these botnets are not going away and will be harder to determine through software development and continued machine learning. Quick identification of these accounts and closing them is the first line of defense. Second is identifying the intended targets. Lastly is monitoring activity internationally, which is out of the scope and ability of wiki-projects. AZOperator (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@AZOperator: Is there any sort of on-line source link that can be provided for this? --Pi zero (talk) 22:55, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pi zero: The general report that covers this was actually done by the Department of Commerce but all intelligence would be added you can see it here. The briefing I received was updated from the May report to today. Also, getting input from multiple analysts is great but I just got two. Asking for some policy or running around with your head on fire is premature, especially when it is far out of the scope of wikinews this is only an advisory to keep a cautious eye out. AZOperator (talk) 00:49, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pi zero: Earlier this week there was an article from a short lived account with horrible grammar and nothing to say, I believe you were the speedy deleter on that. Anyway, before it was deleted I did a quick IP mapping to see where it originated. According to the trace, it resided in Romania which is the home of Guccifer and has many sympathetic Wikileaks proponents. From some less than reputable sources there is a huge amount of I/O internet traffic coming out there. That may have been one of the bots I was talking about. I got shut out when I tried to pull a MAC or Serial number off of it after I got the geo mapping. AZOperator (talk) 02:13, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-32

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• Special:NewPages now has the OOUI look. [1]

Problems

• The MediaWiki version that was released two weeks ago was late to some Wikimedia wikis. This was because of bugs. It was on all wikis 30 July. [2][3]

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 7 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 8 August. It will be on all wikis from 9 August.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 7 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 8 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

19:39, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-33

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• CSS in templates can now be stored in a separate page on all wikis. This is called TemplateStyles. This is to make it easier to edit how templates look. [4]

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 14 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 15 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The developers are planning more ways to block users. This could be blocking someone from just a page or a namespace. You can read more. You can leave feedback on the talk page. [5]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

17:52, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-34

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 21 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 22 August. It will be on all wikis from 23 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 22 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• The 2018 Community Wishlist Survey begins on 29 October. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals from 29 October to 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 16 November to 30 November.
• Legacy JavaScript global variables have been deprecated for seven years. They will soon be removed from all wikis. Gadgets and scripts that use them will stop working. You can test your community's gadgets on "group0" wikis. For example Test Wikipedia or mediawiki.org. The legacy JavaScript global variables are already disabled there. You can read the migration guide to fix old scripts. [6]

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

16:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Does the last line affect gadgets here? Gryllida (chat) 02:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Editing of sitewide CSS/JS is only possible for interface administrators from now

(Please help translate to your language)

Hi all,

as announced previously, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed: only members of the interface-admin (Interface administrators) group, and a few highly privileged global groups such as stewards, can edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage). This is done to improve the security of readers and editors of Wikimedia projects. More information is available at Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS. If you encounter any unexpected problems, please contact me or file a bug.

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 12:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)

New user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS

(Please help translate to your language)

Hi all!

To improve the security of our readers and editors, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed. (These are pages like MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Vector.js which contain code that is executed in the browsers of users of the site.) A new user group, interface-admin, has been created. Starting four weeks from now, only members of this group will be able edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage).

You can learn more about the motivation behind the change here.

Please add users who need to edit CSS/JS to the new group (this can be done the same way new administrators are added, by stewards or local bureaucrats). This is a dangerous permission; a malicious user or a hacker taking over the account of a careless interface-admin can abuse it in far worse ways than admin permissions could be abused. Please only assign it to users who need it, who are trusted by the community, and who follow common basic password and computer security practices (use strong passwords, do not reuse passwords, use two-factor authentication if possible, do not install software of questionable origin on your machine, use antivirus software if that's a standard thing in your environment).

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 13:08, 30 July 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)

I'm offended by the misrepresentation of this as a security measure. --Pi zero (talk) 14:19, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Maybe we need to add all our sysops to Special:ListUsers/interface-admin, Pi zero. --Gryllida (chat) 05:35, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I added myself to the group some time ago, on the grounds that the Foundation was otherwise removing a privilege from me that the community had given to me as part of adminship and the community had not voted to remove. Over on Wikibooks, we had a discussion and agreed, explicitly, that any admin in good standing who requests the interface priv is to be given it. That way, admins who don't want the priv aren't on the list, which theoretically reduces the attack surface.

Say the word and I'll give you the interface admin priv. --Pi zero (talk) 11:16, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Btw, an interesting development: your edit showed up for me as two separate notifications, one for the ping in the content of the edit, and another for the ping in the edit summary. --Pi zero (talk) 11:23, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Tech News: 2018-35

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes

• You can now see moved paragraphs in diffs in the mobile view. It also works on all languages in the desktop view. [7]
• Bureaucrats on all Wikimedia wikis can now remove the interface admin user right. [8]

Problems

• Some diffs show lines in the wrong order. The developers are working on fixing it. [9]

Changes later this week

• The message you see when you thank a user will change. This is to make it easier to understand. [10]
• AWB will stop adding using AWB in the edit summary. Instead it will add a tag that says AWB. [11]
• Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says Deprecated. Use ... instead. An example is article_text which is now page_title. [12]
• Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is page_age. [13]
• The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 28 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 29 August. It will be on all wikis from 30 August (calendar).

Meetings

• You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 28 August at 18:30 (UTC). See how to join.
• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 29 August at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.

Future changes

• Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour. You can read more about this.

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16:15, 27 August 2018 (UTC)