Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
From our article: "Intellipedia. It's been written up. It's the Wikipedia
on a classified network, with one very important difference: it's not anonymous. We want people to establish a reputation. If you're really good, we want people to know you're good. If you're making contributions, we want that known. If you're an idiot, we want that known too."
-----Original Message----- From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net To: fredbaud@fairpoint.net; English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, 26 May 2009 5:04 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Intellipedia
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add
Value
for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
From our article: "Intellipedia. It's been written up. It's the Wikipedia on a classified network, with one very important difference: it's not anonymous. We want people to establish a reputation. If you're really good, we want people to know you're good. If you're making contributions, we want that known. If you're an idiot, we want that known too.">> ---------------------
Corollary 1: On Wikipedia you can hide that you're an idiot.
Will Johnson
-----Original Message----- From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net To: fredbaud@fairpoint.net; English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, 26 May 2009 5:04 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Intellipedia
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add
Value
for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
From our article: "Intellipedia. It's been written up. It's the Wikipedia on a classified network, with one very important difference: it's not anonymous. We want people to establish a reputation. If you're really good, we want people to know you're good. If you're making contributions, we want that known. If you're an idiot, we want that known too.">>
Corollary 1: On Wikipedia you can hide that you're an idiot.
Will Johnson
Viewed as a whole, we are not an elite.
Fred
wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
From: Fred Bauder
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value
for Information User
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
From our article: "Intellipedia. It's been written up. It's the Wikipedia on a classified network, with one very important difference: it's not anonymous. We want people to establish a reputation. If you're really good, we want people to know you're good. If you're making contributions, we want that known. If you're an idiot, we want that known too.">>
Corollary 1: On Wikipedia you can hide that you're an idiot.
That's an oxymoron. If it were true that one could hide one's idiocy, no sock-puppet would ever be caught.
Ec
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Clarification...
The Intellipedia does not belong to the CIA, but all IC community users, that use it. It is actually managed by the ODNI. Additionally, two of the three wiki s are classified. The third is SBU, which is not a classification. Users must still be cleared for such use however. Note that access to classified material is not permitted remotely on the other two Wiki's.
(according to publicly available sources.)
Best, Jon
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Clarification...
The Intellipedia does not belong to the CIA, but all IC community users, that use it. It is actually managed by the ODNI. Additionally, two of the three wiki s are classified. The third is SBU, which is not a classification. Users must still be cleared for such use however. Note that access to classified material is not permitted remotely on the other two Wiki's.
(according to publicly available sources.)
Best, Jon
From the presentation at last years LISA conference, the three wikis
are integrated, with a classification level access control along the lines of WP access controls but much more robust, as the security classifications business is fairly rigidly controlled...
You can look down from a higher classification level and have links to and across lower classification level info.
Funny snippet - one of their major internal organizational issues is that a lot of stuff in Wikipedia on some subjects is still formally highly classified, even if well known in public. They had cases where people reported "You can't say that! Classify it to Top Secret immediately!", and the response was "We imported that article straight from Wikipedia, that's what the public sees out there already...". Which was in some cases not good enough, and they had to remove things and link out to us (though they indicated they were now generally winning those fights).
George Herbert wrote:
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Clarification...
The Intellipedia does not belong to the CIA, but all IC community users, that use it. It is actually managed by the ODNI. Additionally, two of the three wiki s are classified. The third is SBU, which is not a classification. Users must still be cleared for such use however. Note that access to classified material is not permitted remotely on the other two Wiki's.
(according to publicly available sources.)
Best, Jon
From the presentation at last years LISA conference, the three wikis are integrated, with a classification level access control along the lines of WP access controls but much more robust, as the security classifications business is fairly rigidly controlled...
You can look down from a higher classification level and have links to and across lower classification level info.
Funny snippet - one of their major internal organizational issues is that a lot of stuff in Wikipedia on some subjects is still formally highly classified, even if well known in public. They had cases where people reported "You can't say that! Classify it to Top Secret immediately!", and the response was "We imported that article straight from Wikipedia, that's what the public sees out there already...". Which was in some cases not good enough, and they had to remove things and link out to us (though they indicated they were now generally winning those fights).
I don't believe they are integrated. The publically available descriptions of the three networks state they do not co-mingle. They might link to one another, but I think integration might be pushing it. I'll research any available press releases and what not from the DoD, but I do I've derailed the conversation topic from it's original intent, and for that, I apologize. :)
Jon
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:20 PM, Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Jon scream@nonvocalscream.com wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Clarification...
The Intellipedia does not belong to the CIA, but all IC community users, that use it. It is actually managed by the ODNI. Additionally, two of the three wiki s are classified. The third is SBU, which is not a classification. Users must still be cleared for such use however. Note that access to classified material is not permitted remotely on the other two Wiki's.
(according to publicly available sources.)
Best, Jon
From the presentation at last years LISA conference, the three wikis are integrated, with a classification level access control along the lines of WP access controls but much more robust, as the security classifications business is fairly rigidly controlled...
You can look down from a higher classification level and have links to and across lower classification level info.
Funny snippet - one of their major internal organizational issues is that a lot of stuff in Wikipedia on some subjects is still formally highly classified, even if well known in public. They had cases where people reported "You can't say that! Classify it to Top Secret immediately!", and the response was "We imported that article straight from Wikipedia, that's what the public sees out there already...". Which was in some cases not good enough, and they had to remove things and link out to us (though they indicated they were now generally winning those fights).
I don't believe they are integrated. The publically available descriptions of the three networks state they do not co-mingle. They might link to one another, but I think integration might be pushing it. I'll research any available press releases and what not from the DoD, but I do I've derailed the conversation topic from it's original intent, and for that, I apologize. :)
Jon
I'm basing this on the talk given at LISA - their description was that they did interact, and that there was plenty of linking from above down into lower levels.
That could be our equivalent of "cross-wiki" - but they did indicate they'd gone to great lengths to add additional security clearance verification features for info and for user access, and implied it was in the same wiki instance. I didn't get a chance to ask that directly, though I did get a chance to ask him in passing if he'd contact Brion and see if any of their code could be released back to the community (which I gather hasn't happened, so I guess not).
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
I've always had an eye for Freudian typos. Thus: "Prion to Intellipedia the analytical report was the primary method for combining information and intelligence." Analytical reports are thus the infectious proteinaceous bits that leave the intelligence community susceptible to mad-cow disease.
Ec
Jack Bauer was here.
- Chris
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
I've always had an eye for Freudian typos. Thus: "Prion to Intellipedia the analytical report was the primary method for combining information and intelligence." Analytical reports are thus the infectious proteinaceous bits that leave the intelligence community susceptible to mad-cow disease.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Fred Bauder wrote:
Why Wikipedia and Intellipedia (CIA's version of Wikipedia) can add Value for Information Users
http://www.birdsonginfo.com/blog/2009/05/in-addition-to-analysis-we-need-peo...
Fred Bauder
I've always had an eye for Freudian typos. Thus: "Prion to Intellipedia the analytical report was the primary method for combining information and intelligence." Analytical reports are thus the infectious proteinaceous bits that leave the intelligence community susceptible to mad-cow disease.
The CIA guy talking about Intellipedia at Wikimania 2008 had a less dramatic, more credible kind of example of how the wiki editing "churned": some editor would grab text off some intranet web page, only to be told "you shouldn't have done that, we were going to update it but hadn't got round to it yet". I certainly find the wikifying/copy editing phase of adapting old text to place in WP the most stringent form of critical fact-checking I do. But for Intellipedia what seems to go on is that they build articles that are still for background, and link to live WP pages also (rather than importing), so forming a layer between us and the actual hard intelligence.
Charles
2009/5/27 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
But for Intellipedia what seems to go on is that they build articles that are still for background, and link to live WP pages also (rather than importing), so forming a layer between us and the actual hard intelligence.
Charles
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
geni wrote:
2009/5/27 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
But for Intellipedia what seems to go on is that they build articles that are still for background, and link to live WP pages also (rather than importing), so forming a layer between us and the actual hard intelligence.
Charles
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
Not risky, again, available resources report that the CIA is not the only user of the product. :)
Best, Jon
On 27/05/2009, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
If they're bothered about it they could maintain their own copy of the wikipedia.
-- geni
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
The IP addresses used by the CIA are not secret.
$ whois 198.81.129.100 ANS Communications, Inc BLK198-15-ANS (NET-198-80-0-0-1) 198.80.0.0 - 198.81.255.255 Central Intelligence Agency OIT-BLK1 (NET-198-81-128-0-1) 198.81.128.0 - 198.81.191.255
# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2009-05-26 19:10 # Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
11.0.0.0/8 is allocated to "DoD Intel Information Systems". Defense Information Systems Agency is assigned 22.0.0.0/8, 26.0.0.0/8, 29.0.0.0/8, and 30.0.0.0/8. DoD Network Information Center gets 55.0.0.0/8. The CIA assuredly has a variety of ranges assigned to it through various levels of registrars that anyone with a whois database could look up. Even if they tried to keep them secret, they'd be figured out sooner or later by anyone who cared, if they remained static. Get access to one router near a known CIA installation and watch the traffic.
If the CIA cares about this, they presumably don't permit outgoing traffic to the public web without some layers of indirection. If you're already allowing your employees free access to the unencrypted public web, letting them link to Wikipedia is not going to worsen matters.
2009/5/27 Aryeh Gregor Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com:
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
The IP addresses used by the CIA are not secret.
No some of them are not secret.
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
The IP addresses used by the CIA are not secret.
It would, nevertheless, be an abuse of checkuser to run those searches, without cause.
Fred
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
The IP addresses used by the CIA are not secret.
It would, nevertheless, be an abuse of checkuser to run those searches, without cause.
Maybe all the checkusers have been served National Security Letters (or double-secret International Security Letters) and are themselves under surveillance. Any checkusers who are under gag orders from the US intelligence community, just say nothing to acknowledge it.
-Sage
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
The IP addresses used by the CIA are not secret.
It would, nevertheless, be an abuse of checkuser to run those searches, without cause.
Maybe all the checkusers have been served National Security Letters (or double-secret International Security Letters) and are themselves under surveillance. Any checkusers who are under gag orders from the US intelligence community, just say nothing to acknowledge it.
-Sage
If someone there starts engaging in juvenile vandalism and creates a lot of socks, we'll check the hell out of them and put a range block on them, just like we would on an elementary school.
Fred
2009/5/27 Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net:
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 7:36 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Linking to wikipedia pages would be kinda risky. One leak of what CIA IPs are and we can then use server logs to track what the CIA and simular are interested in.
The IP addresses used by the CIA are not secret.
It would, nevertheless, be an abuse of checkuser to run those searches, without cause.
Fred
Edits aren't the issue. The reason I think it is unlikely that their links are truly external is well consider the following.
Suppose a developer pulled up the server logs for today and found a bunch of CIA IPs looking at North Korean related articles. Wouldn't mean much since with the nuclear test we would expect the CIA to have a heightened interest in that subject right now. Now suppose they found a bunch of views of Mauritania and related. That would be an information leak.
Now sure the CIA will have access to IPs registered through front companies and the like (the web is too useful to cut yourself off from completely) but there is always a risk of those being compromised so I would again expect them to have an internal copy of wikipedia at least as a first port of call.
On the separate issue of trying to get CIA code there is still the question of how certain are you that you can beat a CIA attempt to insert an obfuscated back door?