October 19, 2007

The Wiki Watcher

Scanner catches colleges embellishing their online-encyclopedia entries

Boosters beware: An online database developed by Virgil Griffith, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, makes it easier than ever to catch self-interested parties polishing their own Wikipedia entries. Computer IP addresses serve as a kind of electronic signature. Mr. Griffith's WikiScanner correlates those addresses with the institution that owns the network, identifying who made changes in