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Someone seemingly using an IP address associated with the House of Representatives added Donald Trumps name to a Wikipedia article on obstruction of justice Thursday morningat the same time former FBI Director James Comey took the stand to testify in front of theSenate Intelligence Committee investigating the presidents possible collusion with theKremlin.

@CongressEdits, an automated Twitter bot that announces all edits made to Wikipedia pages with IP addresses from within the U.S. Congress, noted the "Obstruction of Justice"Wikipedia article had been anonymously edited at about 11:00 a.m. EDT, just one hour after Thursdays open hearing on Capitol Hill kicked off. A major focal point of Comeys blockbuster testimony is whether Trump fired the ex-director to intervene and weaken an investigation into his campaigns ties to Russia, as well as whether he obstructed justice by asking Comey to let go of a probe into his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

The edit was removed from Wikipedia within the hour.

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The debate as to whether Trump actually obstructed justice when asking for the director's loyalty or firing him to ease the burden of the Russian investigation will wage on for years on Capitol Hill. But someone in the House has clearly already made up their mind, adding Trump's name to a list of "notable examples" of obstruction of justice being performed by elected officials.

Related: How Trump Could Actually Be Impeached

The list begins with former President Richard Nixon, who the Wikipedia page notes was "being investigated for obstruction of justice for his alleged role in the cover-up of the break-in at the Watergate hotel during his re-election campaign in 1972,"before he ultimately resigned to avoid impeachment.

Wikipedia's edit was quickly noticed by the Twitter bots over 40,000 followers, receiving nearly 1,000 retweets in a matter of minutes.

Whereas each bullet includes a summary of each example, Trump's name was added Thursday to the list without any back links or pointed opinions. As of Thursday, the latest notable example of obstruction of justice listed on Wikipedia simply stated: "Donald Trump."

It remains unclear whether Trump obstructed justice at any point during his nine conversations with Comey during his tenure as FBI director. The former head of the federal agency, who was serving a 10-year contract before Trump fired him in May, said Thursday, "I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct."

"I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but thats a conclusion Im sure the special counsel will work towards to find out the intention and whether thats an offense,"Comey added.

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Someone in the House Is Trolling Trump on Wikipedia's Obstruction of Justice Page - Newsweek

Published on: Jun 8, 2017 | by Lelde Smits

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales reveals the future of news, media and journalism at Sydneys World Business Forum, discusses plans for soon to be launched Wikitribune and shares where he looks for headlines, including BBC and The Guardian. Speaking with The Capital Networks Lelde Smits.

Lelde Smits: Hello Im Lelde Smits for The Capital Network and joining me at The World Business Forum in Sydney is Jimmy Wales, the founder of online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. Jimmy, welcome to Sydney.

Jimmy Wales: Thank you for having me.

Lelde Smits: Youve just given a presentation on disruption. Youve also recently announced plans to launch a news site. If we combine the both, what do you believe is the future of news?

Jimmy Wales: With Wikitribune we are trying to bring together paid professional journalists and community, working together in a new way. Because, I think the future of news is going to be a return to very high quality news. I think people are tired of clickbait headlines and the things that have been really polluting our newsfeeds for the last few years. So, Im very hopeful that we will see something new.

Lelde Smits: Do you believe the old model of news therefore is dead?

Jimmy Wales: I think that some of the old model is what we need to bring back. A combination of revenue from leaders, some revenue from advertisers, were [Wikitribune] not having advertising. But, I think we need good strong journalism and we need people to pay for it.

Lelde Smits: When you hear terms such as alternative facts and fake news are you concerned by these terms or do you view it more as an opportunity?

Jimmy Wales: It is an opportunity but it is not a happy opportunity. It is an opportunity in the same way that a tornado might be an opportunity for a builder. No, I am very concerned about it, concerned about people pushing the idea that we dont know what is true or we cant know what is true because I think that is a path to tyranny and I think it is something that we need to resist.

Lelde Smits: When can we expect Wikitribune to launch and what makes you optimistic about its survival let alone success in this rapidly changing land of the internet?

Jimmy Wales: Well be doing the soft launch in the next few weeks with people who have signed up as monthly supporters, we are going to invite them in to test it and to work with us.

Well be launching fully later in the fall. One of the things that leaves me hope that we will be successful is that weve had such an enormous outpouring of support in our crowd funding campaign. And, we see other outlets like the New York Times digital subscriptions has gone from 1 million to 1.8 million. That is exciting news. So, I think the public is ready for it.

Lelde Smits: Final question, this is a question that I always like to ask people who love the news as much as I do. What news are you currently reading and where do you go for your headlines?

Jimmy Wales: I read The Guardian newspaper in the UK and the BBC. I live in London. And, Im a big fan of the media landscape there.

Lelde Smits: Thank you so much for your insights and enjoy the rest of your time in Sydney.

Jimmy Wales: Thank you.

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Wikipedia Founder: The Future of News - Finfeed

Wikipedians want to give users the ability to access the world's most popular encyclopedia in the most secure way possible: On the dark web.

Cristian Consonni, Former Vice President of Wikimedia Italy, proposed Monday that Wikipedians should create a dark web version of the site accessible only via the Tor Browser.

It's possible now to access Wikipedia via the Tor Browserwhich is popular with activists and among people living in countries with censored web traffic because it encrypts web traffic and routes it through a series of different IP addresses called "nodes"but the connection is less secure than it would be if the site was accessible as a "hidden service" on the dark web.

As a hidden service (also called an onion site), Wikipedia would not need to direct its traffic through an exit node, a point where internet traffic "emerges" from the Tor network and connects to sites on the regular web. Exit nodes are known to be a seriously vulnerable portion of Tor's security.

Consonni shared the proposal on Wikimedia-L, a listserv where prominent Wikipedians discuss the future and internal politics of the site.

There, several editors, like David Cuenca Tudela, endorsed the idea, but many disagreed with Consonni on one major point. Consonni believes Tor users should have the ability to edit Wikipedia articles, which is currently not allowed, except under special circumstances.

A number of Wikipedians don't want Tor users to have the ability to edit, "due to high volume of known abuse from that vector," as one user put it.

Abusive editors have been known to use Tor to circumvent being banned. Wikipedia blocks problematic users based on their IP address, but the encrypted browser can be used to quickly obtain a new one.

Creating a dark web version of Wikipedia would make the encyclopedia available securely in the many places where it's censored. Countries like China, Iran, and Russia, have chosen to block their citizens ability to view a significant portion of the site's entries, or sometimes even the entire encyclopedia altogether.

Even seemingly liberal countries like the United Kingdom and France have attempted to censor portions of the site in the past.

It would be far more difficult for governments to censor or monitor Wikipedia's dark web version. But Consonni and like minded editors aren't just concerned with surveillance.

He hopes bringing Wikipedia to the dark web will also help improve Tor's reputation. The browser is often thought of as a tool for drug dealers and other criminals, instead of say, encyclopedia readers trying to avoid government surveillance.

"...providing Wikipedia over Tor would promote awareness of Tor itself as a technology for protecting user privacy," Consonni wrote in his proposal.

Wikipedia wouldn't be the first mainstream website to move towards the dark web. In 2014, Facebook launched a version that runs on Tor. ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism outlet, followed suit last year.

"It can be argued that the privacy gain of having an onion service over visiting Wikipedia with HTTPS over Tor is minimal, but I think it is worth having this option," Consonni told me via Twitter DM.

"I think that all major websites should serve a version over Tor," he went on.

If Wikipedia were to build a Tor version, Consonni hopes the project would be organized through the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, instead of through a third party that could potentially "be evil and snoop on users."

Building a darknet version of any site isn't terribly difficult. Easy-to-use tools even exist to help streamline the process, if you want to get your own open source encyclopedia on Tor while Wikipedians continue to debate the idea.

The Tor Project had no comment.

Excerpt from:
Wikipedians Want to Put Wikipedia on the Dark Web - Motherboard

God knows theres probably a lot to say in Courtney Loves forthcoming memoir. On Tuesday Love told Seth Meyers that while she has a lot of secrets she has to keep, its totally fair game to include them in her book if theyve already leaked on her Wikipedia page.

So youre not the first person to leak information but if someone has already leaked information, youll put it in your book? Meyers asks.

Probably, Love says, laughing.

Love says the book is already on its second ghostwriter because the first was too tell-all. I was like, Lets make it tasteful, she says. I want someone to make it funny and true.

In 2015 Loves ghostwriter Anthony Bozza actually sued the artist for failing to pay him the $200,000 he was owed for writing the book, which was tentatively titled Girl With the Most Cake. In an interview with the Telegraph Love said that she didnt like Bozzas version because it painted her in a bad light. Its like me jacked on coffee and sugar in a really bad mood, she said. I said keep your bloody money. Id rather keep my friends.

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Courtney Love's Going To Use Wikipedia To Help Write Her Long-Due Memoir - Jezebel

Internet providers should be able to experiment with giving subscribers free stuff, such as access to Wikipedia and other public information and services on their smartphones. Unfortunately, confusion about whether todays net neutrality regulations allow U.S. providers to make content available without it counting against your data plana practice called zero ratinghas discouraged many companies from doing so, even though zero-rating experiments are presumptively legal under todays net neutrality regulations.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already taken steps to clear away the discouragement of such experiments. After Ajit Pai took over as FCC chairman in January, he moved to end theinvestigations, begun under his predecessor, into companies that have tried to go down that path. And of course Chairman Pai also opened a rulemaking proceeding in April aimed at rolling back those rules, which invited and allowed the FCCs Wireline Bureau to start those investigations. But these steps alone havent sent the kind of staunch, affirmative encouragement thats really needed.

The lack of clarity about zero-rating could change overnight, however, and it wouldnt require any new laws, any new regulations, any new quasi-formal inquiries from the commissionersor even Pais proposed rollback of the 2015 regulatory order. All it would take would be for Pai to call openly (in speeches or interviews, say, or other public appearances) and frequently for internet providers to experiment with adding zero-rated public information to their offerings.

Zero-rating experiments can be a win-win-win: Customers get access to more useful content for the same price; companies have more options for attracting users and expanding their business; and society at large benefits when greater numbers of people are exposed to valuable resources such as Wikipedia, public-health information, and other noncommercial apps and websites.

But the big fear among some net neutrality activists is that commercial zero-rating will favor well-heeled incumbents over lean new innovators. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)put itin 2016, The most dangerous of these plans, such as the AT&T and Verizon offerings, only offer their users zero-rated data from content providers who pay the carriers money to do so. Such pay for play arrangements favor big content providers who can afford to pay for access to users eyeballs, and marginalize those who cant, such as nonprofits, startups and fellow users. Even noncommercial zero-rated offerings may a problem, EFF argued. These include the risk of distorting content consumption in favor of already-popular nonsubscription services (think Googles search engine or Facebook) or the walled garden effecti.e., that some price-sensitive customers may choose never to venture outside of the zero-rated services sponsored by the internet provider.

But what evidence we do have suggests that zero rating enablesnet new traffic, because people visit destinations that they would not otherwise. Roslyn Layton of Aalborg University has shown that at least10 million peoplein developing countries use free data to access pregnancy and AIDS information.

The fact is, information sources like Wikipedia regularly drive traffic to the larger internet. A zero-rated, stripped-down, low-bandwidth version of the free online encyclopedia, called Wikipedia Zero, is already offered in dozens of developing countries around the world, which actually makes it easier to find relevant information and services on the non-zero-rated web. For instance, theWikipedia entry for Wikipedia Zeroincludes links pointing users to both nonprofit sites and for-profit, advertising-supported sitesincluding many sources that are themselves critical of the Wikipedia Zero platform for being inconsistent with certain conceptions of network neutrality.

As Ivewritten herebefore, I favor both net neutrality as a general principle, understood as an evolution of the common-carriage rules that have long governed telephone service and traditional mail as well as an evolution of the internets history as an open platform that anybody can provide new content or services for. But Ivealso writtenin favor of a zero-rating as a tool (though hardly the only one) that I believe could help bring the rest of the world online in my lifetime.

I can hold both positions because I reject the prevalent view that net neutrality means internet providers have to treat different types of web content absolutely identicallyespecially if it stops someone from giving free but limited web access to those who wouldnt otherwise have internet access at alland who could learn about the larger internet through the external links embedded in free, open resources like Wikipedia.

The digital divide isnt just aglobal problem. Its also an issue much closer to home: Pew Research Centerdata indicatethat Americans who rely on their mobile devices for their sole or primary source of internet access are disproportionately from the lowest income groups. Pew identifies a broad group of Americans (about 15 percent) as smartphone dependent, and concluded in a comprehensive 2015 paper that even as a substantial minority of Americans indicate that their phone plays a central role in their ability to access digital services and online content, for many users this access is often intermittent due to a combination of financial stresses and technical constraints.

Editing or otherwise contributing to Wikipedia may crowd your data cap, because if you write or edit an entry, you typically have to reload (and maybe keep reloading) it to see how the changes look. This can require two or more orders of magnitude more bandwidth than just consulting Wikipedia does. But Wikipedia as an informational resource depends on ongoing contributions from everyonenot just users who can afford to pay for unlimited data.

The best-case scenario is a world in which every American is motivated to take advantage of the internet, in which we all have access to the whole internet, and in which internet providers can afford to offer that level of service to everyone. The best way to get to that point in a hurry, though, is to get more people online and sampling what the web has to offer. Encouraging noncommercial services like Wikipedia Zero and FacebooksFree Basicscan help make that happen.

Pai and, ideally, other commissioners should come out strongly and expresslyvia speeches and other nonregulatory forums, including responses to press inquiriesin favor of internet providers offering zero-rated services, especially those that arent pay-for-play. Repeatedly sending the right message can do as much as deregulation to encourage innovation of this sort.

Id also want the commissioners to urge U.S. internet providers to share their data about whether zero-rated services improve internet adoption, both among smartphone-only users and in general. With more information, the FCC can make more informed decisions going forward about what kinds of open-internet regulations to adoptor to remove.

Image byM-SUR

http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/04/everyone-should-be-getting-wikipedia-for

Reason

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Everyone should be getting Wikipedia for free - R Street