[Infowarrior] - U.S. military command hacks Wikipedia

[Richard Forno]

U.S. military command hacks Wikipedia

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Thursday, December 13th 2007, 4:00 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/12/13/2007-12-13_us_military_c
ommand_hacks_wikipedia-1.html

WASHINGTON - Wikipedia sleuths Wednesday exposed the U.S. military hackers
who labeled Fidel Castro an "admitted transsexual" and deleted sensitive
information about Gitmo detainees from the Web site.

Volunteers working for the online encyclopedia traced digital fingerprints
found on Wikipedia.org to Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, the U.S. military
command running the Camp Delta terrorist prison in Cuba.

The volunteer team discovered that people using military computers
registered to the Gitmo task force edited the ailing Cuban president's
biography on Wikipedia to say, "Fidel Castro is an admitted
transexual(sic)."

Anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, but the site expects facts to be linked
to credible sources, such as documents or news reports.

The Gitmo hackers also deleted prisoner identification numbers from entries
about several terror suspects held at Camp Delta, such as Prisoner No. 766,
Canadian-born Omar Khadr. Khadr, 21, has been held since 2002 and accused of
killing a Special Forces medic in Afghanistan.

On another Wikipedia page, the same Gitmo computers were linked to someone
who changed the phrase "invasion of Afghanistan" to "war in Afghanistan."

By tracing unique identifying numbers found on Wikipedia computer logs, the
sleuths found they were registered to Gitmo and the U.S. Southern Command.

Military officials did not respond to requests for comment.

jmeek at nydailynews.com