[LINK] Wikipedia editing by the Australian government

[Tom Worthington]

At 05:34 PM 24/08/2007, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
>Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>>stephen at melbpc.org.au quoted:
>>>... <http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22299260-2,00.html>
>>>Wikiscanner tracks 126 edits by PM's staff ...
>
>Seems that some of these may not have been official changes, just 
>people using company resources...

According to a later report, Dr Peter Shergold, head of the 
Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, claimed the network address 
used for editing the Wikipedia was not a PM&C one and no one in his 
department, or the PMs office, made the changes 
<http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22301926-5005961,00.html>.

However, the Wikipedia records show that a change was made to the 
entry for Peter Costello on 28 June 2007 to remove "(AKA "Captain 
Smirk")" using the IP address 210.193.176.115 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Costello&diff=prev&oldid=141096645>.

The Australia Pacific Network Information Centre has this address is 
allocated to "Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet" 
<http://wq.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl>.

In 1995/96 I wrote the Defence Department guidelines on the use of 
the web and Internet, as cited at  SEARCC'98: 
<http://www.acs.org.au/president/1998/past/dodweb.htm>. It was a 
tricky business, not just a matter of banning web sites on how to 
play golf or make bombs, as both these activities were part of 
official defence jobs. I don't know if the rules have been revised 
since them to cover Wikipedia, but use of a government computer 
system for party political purposes is clearly inappropriate.

Isolated incidents by misguided middle level or junior staff could be 
dealt with by internal disciplinary procedures. But if senior staff 
are involved either in sanctioning the work, or later covering it up, 
this will need investigation by the AFP. Misuse of a government 
computer system is a crime.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd           ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au                PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617