Wikipedia Entry Scanner

A Caltech graduate student, Virgil Griffith, has written a program which the popular free online encyclopedia Wikipedia can be searched for edits. 

Wikipedia is a very popular source of information that can be edited by everyone.   The theory is people who know information about "The Report of 1800" or some obscure topic, can update and change entries.  Ideally these changes are for the better.   Those who edit entries only have their IP address recorded.  This is where what Griffith did gets interesting.

Most IP addresses of government agencies, companies, organizations are public information.  So what Griffith did was write a program that would search know IP address sources (Democratic Party, Republican Party, Fox News, New York Times,  ACLU, Vatican) so that the entries that were changed from a computer inside these organizations can be viewed.   This is a brilliant idea - and will definitely get some traction since it can be searched by anyone.  Here are some entries to get started:  The links show the actual differences in pages.  The left side is the old page - the right side is new revisions highlighted in red.

New York Times - IP address 199.181.174.146

What inspiring did they have to say about Bush

Changes to NYT liberal bias. Looks like they wanted to soften it.

The NYT thought Tom Delay's entry was inaccurate.

Remember all this is taking place on computers at New York Times offices - not at the home of a journalist.

What pages did the Democratic Party need to update:

Rush Limbaugh

How about the ACLU:

Pope Benedict XVI

Lots of fun.  These are just a few examples.  Of course most are "real" changes to pages, but it is interesting to see what changes groups are making - while they are "unbiased."