Court Allows Arkansas To Hide Wikipedia Edits 145
rheotaxis writes "A circuit judge in Arkansas will not order the state to reveal where its computers were used to edit Wikipedia articles about former governor Mike Huckabee while he was running for President. Two Associated Press journalists used WikiScanner to track the edits to IP addresses used by the state. Writer Jon Gambrell and News Editor Kelly P. Kissel filed a suit in October 2007 asking the state to reveal which state offices used the IP addresses, because state rules don't allow using computer resources for political purposes. The director of the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, Claire Bailey, claimed in court that releasing this information would allow hackers to target these state offices."
That's a great BSA/MPAA/RIAA/APB defense! (Score:1, Interesting)
Judge, next time the RIAA comes about some IPs, just think about how the evil hax0rs would be able to target those persons if their information were released. It just makes sense!
Re:Secrecy or Transparency? (Score:0, Interesting)
That doesn't give you the right to turn into big brother. The government works for the people, but it is not slave to the people.
IMHO anonymity is getting an undeserved bad reputation. Anonymous contributors are hunted down everywhere. People try to reveal identities instead of accepting that certain contributors are only willing to contribute if their identity remains secret. If you don't want anonymous contributions, don't take them. What is the problem with taking verifiable information? Isn't that the goal of Wikipedia anyway, to collect facts and leave opinion to the blogs? Well, if there is a real problem here, it only shows that there is a lot of wishful thinking regarding the quality of Wikipedia articles. In other news, it's been 23 minutes since I last successfully posted a comment. Slashdot thinks I need to wait longer, so this is it for today from this anonymous contributor. Discuss (without me).
A bit short-sighted... (Score:1, Interesting)
As opposed to the hacking they will likely get as a response to trying to hide the information? Throw down the glove, why don'tcha?
Huckabee 2012 (Score:3, Interesting)
When Reverend Huckabee runs for president again in 2012, just remember then that you can't see how much of his Wikipedia entry was cooked by his staffers still buried in the Arkansas government he controlled up until he ran for 2008.
Consider how Reverend Huckabee destroyed evidence [computerworld.com] on many state computers to cover probable crimes [dailykos.com] (hard to prove when he's destroyed the evidence) when he left office in Arkansas to start campaigning for president.
Reverend Huckabee stands for faith based government [dailykos.com]. Why shouldn't he rely on a "mysterious hand" to improve his image?
And keep in mind just how much power he'd have with a covert government built on the foundation installed by Bush/Cheney.
Re:Next question (Score:2, Interesting)
After all, he's blatantly participating in a cover-up of illegal activities in the Arkansas state government.
Either that, or it's just not the job of citizens to go around doing "investigations" into relatively minor breaches of state law.
Look at it this way. Is it more likely that these journalists are true sentinels of fairness and democracy and are about to uncover a massive and elaborate plot to illegally elect Huckabee in '08, or is it more likely that they need someone concrete to point the finger at for a tabloidesque story on an ultimately inconsequential Wikipedia edit.
But if it only appears to be secure... (Score:4, Interesting)
But the architect's drawing of the bank could reveal it's actually not very secure at all, if it reveals a point of attack that's easier than going after the vault door.
Re:Secrecy or Transparency? (Score:4, Interesting)
Gorshkov (932507) said: ...there's a butt load and a half of network administrators working for the state that need to be fired - and the sooner, the better.
Unless Arkansas' IT department is radically different from those of states I'm familiar with, this is pretty much a given. You didn't really need the qualifying "if".
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not exactly sure how that would be corruption or how it was an actual investigation. In Arkansas, you need to be licensed by the state or bonded with a company who is licensed to perform an investigation. If the people looking into if state computer use weren't licensed in either of those ways, calling it an investigation could possibly open them up for charges.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
A link to opensecrets [opensecrets.org] would have been sufficient. Most of the Media money goes to Democrats, most of the Oil money goes to Republicans.
Pointing this out is not particularly insightful; the troll mod is justified. Making Democrats out to be particularly heinous because they accept money from the RIAA is disingenuous. As far as leeches on society go, the MPAA/RIAA are not the greatest, and the issue of bribery crosses all party lines.