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Judge protects Wackypedia hackers
IN A LANDMARK CASE, a judge has ruled that it is okay for public servants to post political statements on Wackypedia because identifying them would cause security problems for the government.
Two Associated Press hacks sued the Arkansas state government to find out which state computers were used to change Wikipedia entries about Governor Mike Beebe, former Governor Mike Huckabee and another former elected official during the leadup to the last election.
However Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey said that "for reasons of security" he would not order the disclosure of the physical locations of five computers used to edit the online profiles about the politicians.
Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell found that the Wackypedia edits were made by someone using a state computer. Information about a controversial pardon and Huckabee's use of a state-owned airplane was deleted from Huckabee's entry. An inaccurate reference to Beebe having a male 'life partner' - rather than his wife, Ginger - was deleted from Beebe's entry.
Arkansas policy dictates that state resources are not to be used for political purposes, but it seems that state employees with political agendas were using Arkansas computer gear for just such purposes while former governor Huckabee was seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
However Claire Bailey, director of the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, said that if the information was released it would give hackers ways to pinpoint specific parts of the state's computer network.
The Judge agreed, choosing to ignore evidence from Bullzi Security, which testified that computer networks should be protected by firewalls, employee training and intrusion-detection services, and that keeping IP addresses secret would not deter hackers in the slightest.
The ruling means that it is now possible for people paid by the taxpayers to use state computers to do anything they like because their identification will be deemed to create a security threat to the state government network.
We're not really sure the judge thought this one through properly. The Associated Press said it plans to appeal. µ
L'Inq
AP
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That way the wackypedia meddlers cannot make changes to protect the guilty (or innocent).
If AP had their own site I would have a look at it from time to time. It could become huge. A real money spinner for them.
Mike, hack is a very misunderstood term. It basically refers to text editing without much care. Originally in the context of making programming changes to software quickly without much forethought. Later it expanded to quickly developed software which is inclusive of quickly developed software to defeat or workaround things in other software they would rather not be there.
hey mike,
it doesn't say 'people employed as civil servants'.
I find this kind of article interesting yet slightly disturbing: How willing the judicial system is to protect the government from its own laws.
The article opened with 'IN A LANDMARK CASE, a judge has ruled that it is okay for public servants to post political statements on Wackypedia...', which implies that the use of Wackypedia by public servants was in question. This idea would be upsetting, to say the least. At no time does a public servant give up their legal rights.
You later state, more accurately, that 'Arkansas policy dictates that state resources are not to be used for political purposes...' and explain that the issue is not one of public servants using Wackypedia for political reasons, but for anyone to use state reasons for political reasons.
Thanks for clarifying later on, but the article as a whole reeks of sensationalism due to the opening.
Also, a better title might be 'Judge Protects Mis-users of State Computer Resources'. Not as flashy, but more accurate. I'm not sure how editing a Wackypedia article is considered 'hacking'.
And yes, I read the inq, I get the jokes, and I know it's not really 'Wacky'pedia. So there, haters.
So imagine a world where you can be legally adept and yet technologically inept. The courts (worldwide) seem to be behind the times. Is it a case of needing to over turn some of the old guard or are we edging in to a time where one person simply cannot be informed enough on enough subjects in order to make competent decisions? Clearly this case begs a lot of technical questions.
GZ