Spies and the Wikipedia

There is a big debate swirling around Wikipedia, and an administrator called SlimVirgin. Basically this admin was quite abusive towards other Wikipedia users. This was done to the point a group banded together to form a website called Wikipedia Review. This group, led by Daniel Brant, used thier collective investigative skills to reveal the identity of SlimVirgin, apparently a woman named Linda Mack. Read a lengthy, but informative piece on this here. 

In the investigation, some interesting things were learned about Linda Mack. She apparently went to school at Cambridge, and worked for ABC news in the investigation of PanAm 103 terrorist attack. Her boss became suspicious of Linda working for MI5, and fired her.

John K. Cooley, one of her bosses expresses this in a letter.

A news source in Korea broke a story about Intelligence agencies infiltrating the online encyclopedia. The basically unknown OhMyNews ran a story called "Wikipedia and the Intelligence Services."

There is a big debate to wether Mack, aka SlimVirgin, was or is a dis-information plant that infiltrated wikipedia. Looking at this from the standpoint of Information Economics, then using that to understand Intelligence Services will show a few things. While the value of information economics in the academics setting is relativley new, Intelligence Services have long known the value it.

Information is a strange good, it cannot be consumed or used up like a gallon of milk. Information seeking, to provide insight can be costly. Intelligence services basically control information the best they can. Wikipedia is something that many people use and greatly reduce information seeking costs. Information is easily found on Wikipedia, and is usually the first result of a google search.

While more on this saga will come in future posts, one thing should be said:

It is naive to assume that the various intelligence services around the world are not involved in Wikipedia. (At least in some way)