Wikimedia-l August 2013

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

148 participants
100 discussions

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Disinformation regarding perfect forward secrecy for HTTPS
by James Salsman 02 Aug '13

02 Aug '13

Ryan Lane wrote: >... > Assuming traffic analysis can be used to determine your browsing > habits as they are occurring (which is likely not terribly hard for Wikipedia) The Google Maps example you linked to works by building a huge database of the exact byte sizes of satellite image tiles. Are you suggesting that we could fingerprint articles by their sizes and/or the sizes of the images they load? But if so, in your tweet you said padding wouldn't help. But padding would completely obliterate that size information, wouldn't it?

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The Global Economic Map is looking for somebody with experience making bots
by Alex Peek 02 Aug '13

02 Aug '13

The top goal for the Global Economic Map right now is to make bots that will create empty articles for every country and region. I think this would be a good first step right now. Here is an empty article for spain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mcnabber091/sandbox/Economic_Summary_of_S… Does anybody want to help out or have any advice on this topic? Here is a link to the project page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Economic_Map Thank you, Alex

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[Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 9, Issue 30 -- 31 July 2013
by Wikipedia Signpost 02 Aug '13

02 Aug '13

Op-ed: The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/Op-ed News and notes: Gearing up for Wikimania 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/News_a… Featured content: Caterpillars, warblers, and frogs—oh my! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/Featur… Discussion report: Defining consensus; VisualEditor default state; expert and layperson terms in article titles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/Discus… WikiProject report: Babel Series: Politics on the Turkish Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/WikiPr… Arbitration report: ''Race and politics'' case closes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/Arbitr… Traffic report: Bouncing Baby Brouhaha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/Traffi… Recent research: Napoleon, Michael Jackson and Srebrenica across cultures, 90% of Wikipedia better than Britannica, WikiSym preview http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31/Recent… Single page view http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost/Single PDF version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-31 http://identi.ca/wikisignpost / https://twitter.com/wikisignpost -- Wikipedia Signpost Staff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost _______________________________________________ Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list WikimediaAnnounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l

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Disinformation regarding perfect forward secrecy for HTTPS
by James Salsman 02 Aug '13

02 Aug '13

With the NSA revelations over the past months, there has been some very questionable information starting to circulate suggesting that trying to implement perfect forward secrecy for https web traffic isn't worth the effort. I am not sure of the provenance of these reports, and I would like to see a much more thorough debate on their accuracy or lack thereof. Here is an example: http://tonyarcieri.com/imperfect-forward-secrecy-the-coming-cryptocalypse As my IETF RFC coauthor Harald Alvestrand told me: "The stuff about 'have to transmit the session key I the clear' is completely bogus, of course. That's what Diffie-Hellman is all about." Ryan Lane tweeted yesterday: "It's possible to determine what you've been viewing even with PFS. And no, padding won't help." And he wrote on today's Foundation blog post, "Enabling perfect forward secrecy is only useful if we also eliminate the threat of traffic analysis of HTTPS, which can be used to detect a user’s browsing activity, even when using HTTP," citing http://blog.ioactive.com/2012/02/ssl-traffic-analysis-on-google-maps.html It is not at all clear to me that discussion pertains to PFS or Wikimedia traffic in any way. I strongly suggest that the Foundation contract with well-known independent reputable cryptography experts to resolve these questions. Tracking and correcting misinformed advice, perhaps in cooperation with the EFF, is just as important.

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Open call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals and committee members
by Siko Bouterse 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

Hi all, The Wikimedia Foundation and the Individual Engagement Grants Committee invite you to submit proposals for grants of up to $30,000 to support 6-month projects that improve the Wikimedia community. These grants fund individuals or small teams to organize, build, create, research or facilitate something that enhances the work of Wikimedia’s volunteers. The deadline to submit a proposal for this round is 30 September 2013: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG We’re also seeking new committee members to help review and recommend proposals for funding. The round 2 committee will be finalized 31 August 2013: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee You can read more about what the previous round of grantees have been working on here: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/08/01/ieg-learnings-call-new-proposals/ Hope to have your participation! Best wishes, Siko -- Siko Bouterse Head of Individual Engagement Grants Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. * *Donate <https://donate.wikimedia.org> or click the "edit" button today, and help us make it a reality!*

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WMF 2013 elections post-mortem
by Bishakha Datta 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

Dear all, Risker has prepared a detailed report of the 2013 elections outlining several of the challenges that the Elections Committee faced this year. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Post_mo… My report as board liaison is on the talk page at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2013/Po… Both these need serious movement-wide discussion. Please add your thoughts and comments so that we may consider various possibilities and act to strengthen the election process before it recedes from our consciousness. Best Bishakha

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Invitation to WMF July 2013 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, August 1, 18:00 UTC
by Praveena Maharaj 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

Dear all, The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday, August 1, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream. The current structure of the meeting is: * Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also specialized reports and analytics * Review of financials * Welcoming recent hires * Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority initiatives * Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further information about how to participate. We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting. Thank you, Praveena -- Praveena Maharaj Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development +1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689 www.wikimedia.org

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Changes at the Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Team
by James Salsman 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

I know I've been critical of Zack Exley for technical reasons over the past year, but I think very highly of him as a person. If I was recruiting colonists for an interstellar colonization mission, he would likely be in the top 100 based on his accomplishments, orientation, drive, and social skills alone. But even if he weren't, his new project is outstandingly spectacular on its own merits, and I want to urge everyone reading this in or from the U.S. to sign up and join it: http://www.fivethirtysix.org/ I predict that anyone with even a passing interest in U.S. politics who doesn't follow FiveThirtySix will first regret it, and then end up following it afterwards to prevent further such regret. Also, congratulations to Megan and Lisa! Sincerely, James Salsman

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] NSA
by James Salsman 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

Nathan wrote: > >... It seems that most of the data they > collect is wiped within 3 days; that the data itself can only be > analyzed under a fairly specific set of minimization rules.... Are you referring to the 2009 Holder minimization rules which per http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/06/how-many-americans-do… sharing records on anyone who has ever sent or received email or chat from a foreign national with the FBI, or the more recent "three hop" minimization rules which require permanent storage of the records pertaining to the roughly one billion people who are connected to people connected to people connected with suspects?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] NSA
by Fred Bauder 01 Aug '13

01 Aug '13

I think it's more reasonable to assume that > Wikipedia (which shares many features with Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks) has been the subject of this kind of demand than that it hasn't. No one with direct knowledge would be able to do anything other than deny it, but we can easily see why data held by Wikipedia (including partially anonymized e-mails, file > uploads, talk page communication, etc.) would be of interest to > intelligence agencies. The capacity of the Wikimedia Foundation to keep a secret of this nature is low. Simply too many outlaws; something NSA could probably figure out; they are not called intelligence for nothing. Fred Changed "law" to "low"

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Wikimedia-l August 2013