Juan Mourep
Vital 1st Team Regular
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/05/27/parliamentary-insiders-clean-up-mps-wikipedia-pages/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nakedsecurity+%28Naked+Security+-+Sophos%29
The online encyclopedia has earned whatever trust it now enjoys because of an assumption that, ideally, its content is edited, vetted, and can be reasonably relied on to be more than a collection of marketing puff pieces.
But while anybody can edit entries, those edits aren't anonymous.
In fact, each one of those edits can in turn be tracked and linked to an IP address.
The Telegraph reports that it's checked out edits made to MPs' Wikipedia entries and traced the associated IP addresses to computers owned by the Houses of Parliament in what it says looks to be "a deliberate attempt to hide embarrassing information from the electorate."
Some of the edits the Telegraph has traced to somewhere inside the Commons:
Former Conservative minister Stephen Hammond's page has been edited to no longer show sentences revealing he was one of the most frequent users of chauffeur-driven cars while in government.
Somebody erased links to headlines about Tory MP Robert Blackman having been "caught with his pants down" after conducting an 11-year affair. (Headlines like this!)
Labour MP Geraint Davies's entry was sanitised of some unsightly facts regarding the £2285 he spent on his kitchen and the £1500 he spent on his living room at taxpayers' expense, charged through parliamentary expenses.
A local newspaper's criticism of Tory MP Gavin Barwell's "persistent attempts at headline-grabbing" have been deleted.
Fellow backbencher Stewart Jackson's profile was wiped of references to how David Cameron was "appalled" by Tory expenses claims.
In addition, many MPs' pages were plumped up with flattering chunks of text ahead of the general election, the Telegraph reports:
Former Tory frontbencher Bill Wiggin's biography was augmented with a 121-word section explaining how he improved local broadband connections.
Tory MP George Freeman's defeat in 2005 got a nice spin, being recast as "narrowly missing overturning the 8000 majority".
The page of Gordon Birtwistle, a former Liberal Democrat MP, got an entire 298-word "record of delivery" added on 14 January, four months before he unsuccessfully sought re-election.
We can't tell who made these changes, be it a given MP, his or her staff, or some other computer user within the Commons' network.
But why anybody besides MPs or staffers would bother polishing the entries from within Parliament is a question worth asking.
Spokesmen for the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats declined to comment
All as bad as each other, our Gov needs a real spring clean.
The online encyclopedia has earned whatever trust it now enjoys because of an assumption that, ideally, its content is edited, vetted, and can be reasonably relied on to be more than a collection of marketing puff pieces.
But while anybody can edit entries, those edits aren't anonymous.
In fact, each one of those edits can in turn be tracked and linked to an IP address.
The Telegraph reports that it's checked out edits made to MPs' Wikipedia entries and traced the associated IP addresses to computers owned by the Houses of Parliament in what it says looks to be "a deliberate attempt to hide embarrassing information from the electorate."
Some of the edits the Telegraph has traced to somewhere inside the Commons:
Former Conservative minister Stephen Hammond's page has been edited to no longer show sentences revealing he was one of the most frequent users of chauffeur-driven cars while in government.
Somebody erased links to headlines about Tory MP Robert Blackman having been "caught with his pants down" after conducting an 11-year affair. (Headlines like this!)
Labour MP Geraint Davies's entry was sanitised of some unsightly facts regarding the £2285 he spent on his kitchen and the £1500 he spent on his living room at taxpayers' expense, charged through parliamentary expenses.
A local newspaper's criticism of Tory MP Gavin Barwell's "persistent attempts at headline-grabbing" have been deleted.
Fellow backbencher Stewart Jackson's profile was wiped of references to how David Cameron was "appalled" by Tory expenses claims.
In addition, many MPs' pages were plumped up with flattering chunks of text ahead of the general election, the Telegraph reports:
Former Tory frontbencher Bill Wiggin's biography was augmented with a 121-word section explaining how he improved local broadband connections.
Tory MP George Freeman's defeat in 2005 got a nice spin, being recast as "narrowly missing overturning the 8000 majority".
The page of Gordon Birtwistle, a former Liberal Democrat MP, got an entire 298-word "record of delivery" added on 14 January, four months before he unsuccessfully sought re-election.
We can't tell who made these changes, be it a given MP, his or her staff, or some other computer user within the Commons' network.
But why anybody besides MPs or staffers would bother polishing the entries from within Parliament is a question worth asking.
Spokesmen for the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats declined to comment
All as bad as each other, our Gov needs a real spring clean.
