Wikiversity: When Breaching Experiments Attack Options

[WR Editorials]

One of the biggest problems with Wikiland, at least for me, is that the funniest things that happen are often based on events and relationships that are too complex and involved to make for an easily-digestible humor piece. This is one of those times...

http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20100406/w...riments-attack/

[Moulton]

Very well-written, Somey. It's not an easy story to tell.

[RDH(Ghost In The Machine)]

I second that emotion.
Well done oh Somey one!

[Jon Awbrey]

I'm a little surprised to see Leigh Blackall getting stuck in that deletionism-inclusionism rut. Here's my comment on his comment.

As a general rule, in my experience, talking about del-ism vs. inc-ism is the mark of a very noobish observer of Wikiputian Politick. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, but I just can't see how.

The only real rule in Wikiputia is "What We Wanna" (WWW) — that applies to WWW Bee In vs. WWW Bee Out as much as anything else — and the only real determinant of the ever-e-phemeral outcome is Whose We Wins for the nonce.

— Jon Awbrey, 07 Apr 2010, 3:12 AM (DUT)

[John Limey]

"...and some believe that this minority can be persuaded by statistics" was this a backhanded slap at On Wikipedia? On the whole, an excellent piece though.

[thekohser]

"...and some believe that this minority can be persuaded by statistics" was this a backhanded slap at On Wikipedia? On the whole, an excellent piece though.

I didn't read it as that. It was admonishing many of us who try to "prove" corrupt ethics with data.

[Moulton]

Proving corruption of IDCab didn't require any statistics, as their corruption was massive and blatant. But I suppose a lot of casual observers remained skeptical until ArbCom slapped down FeloniousMonk for egregious abuse of power.

[Ottava]

"This was deleted well over a month later, on Feb. 28, by User:Ottava Rima"

Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments/planning/howto

Created: (diff) 00:57, 1 March 2010 . . Privatemusings (Talk | contribs | block) (6,383 bytes) (add essay)

Deleted: 01:38, 1 March 2010 Ottava Rima (Talk | contribs | block) protected "Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments/planning/howto" [create=sysop] (indefinite) ‎ (hist | change)

That page was the "socking guide". It was never restored - I locked it when I deleted it (salted the earth).

This post has been edited by Ottava: Fri 9th April 2010, 7:41pm

[Moulton]

MZMcBride has confirmed it was his socking guide, which is reproduced on Kelly Martin's site and on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

It doesn't tell how to conduct a breaching experiment. Rather it summarizes well-known ways to avoid being recognized as the sock of another user.

[Moulton]

Leigh Blackall asks,

What became of the evidence that Wales was drawn into a hoax? That it was a set up? A breaching experiment within a breaching experiment - if you will?

To which I reply,

The evidence is still there, as summarized in Somey's editorial on Wikipedia Review. As far as I know, nothing of substance has been done with the evidence beyond publishing it.

As you know, there are discussion threads about it on Wikiversity, on Meta, on Wikipedia Review, and on a handful of personal blogs (including this one).

To the best of my knowledge, neither Jimbo Wales nor Sue Gardner have acknowledged or admitted that Jimbo was bamboozled by User:RTG.

In the most recent remarks of Jimbo Wales on Wikiversity, he writes, "SJ is right that I didn't seek - nor should I have, nor will I ever in similar cases - a vote of the board before taking right action in defense of Wikiversity."

So it sounds to me that Jimbo still believes what he did was "right action in defense of Wikiversity."

[Jon Awbrey]

Is Social Engineering a Legitimate Form of Penetration Testing?

And, we might ask, vice versa?

Penetration testing is an important means of assessing the strength of an organization's informaton security program. A security system may look good from the inside, but a test is the old true way to determine if it will hold up under pressure. These tests can range from simple port scans, to all out hacking attacks.

John Orlando, Register Whitepaper