From technology to politics to video games; these are the random thoughts of a geek with too much time on his hands
They know who you are...
Published on August 16, 2007 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

In recent weeks, there's been growing controversy over companies and government agencies editing wikipedia articles anonymously, usually trying to improve their own articles, or removing information from articles on competitors.  Fortunately, Wikipedia at least tracks the IP address of all editors if they're not logged in so if you're feeling diligent enough, you can trace the IP back yourself to who it belongs to.  This is time-consuming though and sometimes a bit tricky.

To that end, a new site has sprung into existence.  WikiScanner will let you identify where an anonymous editor is from.  It works by searching the entirety of the XML-based records from Wikipedia and comparing it against public IP records.

It's a reminder that even when you think you're anonymous, you're really not and "they" can still find you!


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