Mike Barson, keyboard player of the great ska group Madness, had his Wikipedia entry amended by “Philip Cross” to delete his membership of Momentum and interview with The Canary.
This apparently trivial incident raises an important question. How does the “Philip Cross” Wikipedia monitoring operation work? “Cross”‘s systematic attack on Momentum and The Canary is a matter of record, and his twitter feed proves it is motivated by a visceral hatred of the anti-war movement. But how would “Cross” discover that a reference to Momentum had turned up somewhere as improbable as the page of a member of Madness?
To get this by Google just would not work – try it yourself if you don’t know it relates to Barson, to Madness, or anything about them. To do a daily Wikipedia site specific Google search for the word Momentum might get you there after hours of effort. Are there tools within Wikipedia itself that could alert “Cross” to this sort of reference being added anywhere on Wikipedia, and if so are they available to the general public?
A number of people have opined in reply to my posts that the time spent to make all of Cross’s daily edits, as per the number of keystrokes, is not great. That ignores the colossal effort that goes into research and above all monitoring of Wikipedia by the “Philip Cross” operation.
Finally, this is an excellent example of the bias of Wikipedia. The information about Barson is totally true. He is a proud member of Momentum. It is also quite interesting and an important bit of his life. But according to Wikipedia’s pro-MSM rules, “Philip Cross” can indeed delete it because the information is not from an MSM source. In the unlikely event of the Times or Telegraph ever writing about Barson’s Momentum membership, it would of course be in a hostile attack to which “Philip Cross” could then link.
I hope you are understanding the Jimmy Wales methodology by now.
So, to add to the mysteries of how “Philip Cross” works every waking hour, never takes a single day off and is followed on Twitter by few people but including half of Fleet Street, we can add the mystery of how he has omniscience of left wing references appearing in unlikely places on Wikipedia. Go figure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mike_Barson&diff=next&oldid=842420041
According to the last revision, it’s in.
> Are there tools within Wikipedia itself that could alert “Cross” to this sort of reference being added anywhere on Wikipedia, and if so are they available to the general public?
They have a recent changes feed so they could be parsing this and scanning for references to the Canary or other left wing web publications.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:RecentChanges
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=feedrecentchanges&format=json&feedformat=atom&days=14&limit=50&hidebots=1
So there is the potential these could be monitored (unlikely to be manual).
It seems there are no shortage of tools for monitoring updates generally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Recent_changes_patrol#Monitoring
Analysis necessarily have to be crude algorithm matching some predefined keywords.
I am not so well versed in the nature and motivations contributors, but I would presume most contributors tend to make edits on areas of personal interest.
As such it is likely to train a machine learning model to calculate degree to which an edit is considered hostile or friendly.
Moderators: Please merge/delete comment above for convenience if possible. I made a mess of it.
Analysis wouldn’t necessarily have to be crude algorithm matching some predefined keywords either.
I am not so well versed in the nature and motivations of contributors, but I would presume most tend to make edits on areas of personal interest.
As such it is likely to train a machine learning model to calculate degree to which an edit is considered hostile or friendly.
Your affix to “defined” is pleonasm.
From a quick look: Given that RSS feed of recent changes, it would be a cinch to filter on certain changes. Job done.
I would be tempted to have a go at it, if it weren’t for my personal circumstances right now.
Btw. I happened to come across changes to the Emma Barnett article in there.
Well wikimedia is based on the mediawiki system, and I have ran a knowledge base powered by mediawiki.
You can watch pages etc… In it, but also with the right level of access you can text search every page in it, plus their is nothing to stop you adding in your add-ons/extension s to do whatever you can code, but again this would require system admin level access. So defo could be done… Even from an outsider perspective, you could have crawlers or boots going through the articles but imagine that would be slow and a big overhead to run….
Then the likelihood is that Philip Cross is employed as part of wikipedia
Good to hear Marks and Spencer are closing some stores. It’s always scared me shitless that they have had stores at major London railway stations.
Where are MI5 when you need them?
Oh wait a minute, former MI5 chief Stella Rimington is a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer.
I think the general idea seems to be that an operation on this scale has to be either GCHQ or the MOD unit – most likely the former. They can clearly monitor the obvious entries to keep them under control. How do they find the others like Madness and Momentum? I think it’s a reciprocal matter. There are plenty of journalists who are actual MI5/MI6 employers and others who are regarded as trustworthy. When they come across something they pass it on to ‘Philip Cross’ and the unit deals with it. In return the ‘journalists have their profiles protected.
Agree. This seems fairly obvious to me.
Interesting to see what happens now they’ve been found out.
SCL Group
Project DUCO analysis on modifying behavior for target audiences with eye toward countering destabilizing social influences.
Initial study was run between May-December 2013 for private-public clients. Redacted report is available on web.
I am uncertain whether Philip Glass is one person or one person as front for GCHQ/MOD/SCL Group operation. The evidence so far presented is consistent with either. But the identity of Glass’s twitter followers–particularly James Le Mesurier–suggests something organized to me. Le Mesurier’s outfit is likely highly coordinated with the UK 77th Brigade, which specializes in psychological warfare and public communication technology/operations. The White Helmets are a propaganda outfit designed to control narrative of Syria War by feeding independent entities (Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, mainly) their “reports.” Philip Glass’ edits to Wikipedia are not dissimilar attempts to control specific outputs of an independent “reputable” media source so as to counter destabilizing (anti-war, anti-Euston) voices in UK. The focus and aim of Glass is obviously limited in the main to UK domestic politics.
i find his music a bit hard to digest enall. darkly mularky
wj – you have been listening to too much music obviously! philip cross, not philip glass, lol…. otherwise i fully agree with the gist of this mini thread and would include the gchq/mod/scl in the central office running this operation… philip glass will remain alive in new york working on more of his compositions, i would hope!
Philip Glass is a 20th century minimalist composer. 😉
“To get this by Google just would not work”
Try using Google advanced search and search Wikipedia (English) only.
Laborious but achievable by an obsessed individual.
I am but a naïve newcomer to these revelations regarding ‘Philip Cross’. However, two personal experiences come immediately to mind, though neither has to do with Wikipedia directly.
First are the opening scenes from the Robert Redford film, ‘Three days of the Condor’, a prophetic glimpse into the darker motives of the CIA, during which Redford’s character explains the role of his ‘department’: “We read everything”.
The second experience occurred only last night – a ‘Timewatch’ repeat bringing to light the extraordinary achievements of lesser known characters associated with Bletchley Park during WWII, when GPO Engineer Tommy Flowers designed and built the first digital computer, without which tool the cryptanalysts working on the Lorenz cipher could not have succeeded.
In essence the many observations made here so far, as to the frequency/extent of biased editorial intervention across umpteen seemingly unconnected Wikipedia pages, suggest that it would require the oversight of an organization like GCHQ to be effective. Were that to be the case then, as George Galloway has already observed, it would cast the Philip Cross issue in an altogether more sinister light.
“However, two personal experiences come immediately to mind”
Amazing. I suspect you may have very many similar personal experiences to share with us.
The book had an alternative title “Six Days of the Condor” so obviously the CIA nobbled half of the story.
I think the answer to the question of tools that wiki editors can use is fairly simple, they have their own ‘bots’ or software tools to comb the site to do minor corrections, a lot of “Philip Cross” edits seem to be of this type, he/she/they/it seems to have a wikipedia prolix house-style fetish. Bots can run at any time and 24/7/365.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bots
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bots#Example_implementations
These automated tools would have no trouble combing the 5 million odd wikipedia entries to search and destroy anything they did not like.
Editors can have their own watchlist, as revealed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mass_message_senders “Editors who are interested in a given topic may have the corresponding page on their watchlist”
Then there is the Village Pump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump “This set of pages is used to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia,”
Which has a Miscellaneous page: “The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category” where editors can discuss stuff “Cautiously editing or removing another editor’s comments is sometimes allowed” just in case something is embarrassing. Oh and editors need to be vigilant, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Complete_bollocks “Some giveaway signs of complete bollocks are phrases such as emerging theory and widely disputed”
It is not important to understand any of this, only to gain a picture of an system that is vastly arcane, bureaucratic and not without its own dissidents, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered who quotes a critic: “its obvious you are stupid and you have no PH.D.” “This brilliant rejoinder deserves to be famous; I love it very much and intend to use it at every possible opportunity to quell dissent in editorial debates…. This in so many ways represents the True Spirit of Wikipedia™.”
Wikipedia has its own system of rewards for its contributors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars Craig imagine how good things would get if you awarded stars like that.
Remember only this; Wikipedia is a secondary source, useful only as a tool to use with caution, always compare the original page with the final page to see what has been edited out.
As a Part-Time editor myself, I recently browsed through a wiki Admin page debating if this Cross affair is seriously damaging or not. Cross ist spoken of as a “prolific Editor” without irony and many Wiki editors are seemingly incapable of grasping the horrifying Idea that this is in all probability a front for GCHQ.indeed they were trying to suspend an editor for citing too much Galloway, Craig, RT and Sputnik, and there is more than an aromatic whiff of Russophobia present in all of this. The fact that Cross used his Twitter feed to attack subjects he was writing/editing on in Wiki will mean he will fall on his? sword. It’s just a question of time. Wiki editors sometimes do remind me of a Scientology cult, with a homemade jargon of Authentizität.
Link? I’d cast a vote.
Just one flaw with the bots running 24/7 the pattern of edits are not spread out across all 24 hours
Having been subjected to the Grauniads ‘Comments Standards beng violated’ tactics, at silencing posters and ‘disappearing’ them and their posts, over the last year, the suspicion of something being rotten in the heart and bowels of that Kings Palace is being proved daily.
How many ever knew of Mr Wales’ role? Or his background? Or any of the others in the senior roles?
It is time for the senior mangers/witers and the whole board of that rotting organisation to resign and the Scott Trust to be wound up – the stated mission, being an abject failure: not facts, not free comments – a new, relevant, social democratic, untainted daily news souce for the millions of like minded, progressives would easily succeed in satisfying that now shoddy ‘tabloids’ long suffering readership.
They could even set-up, somewhere else in the country, away from the easily reached centres of power. Just need a catchy name and font for it. Any suggestions?
“a new, relevant, social democratic, untainted daily news souce for the millions of like minded, progressives”
________________________________________________________________________________________________
It’s a great idea – make it online only. Something that bridges the credibility gap between the Guardian (where ‘liberal’= neoliberalism/neoconservatism abroad and hyper-personalised identity politics at home) and the Canary/Skwawkbox, etc, covering a wide range of global and national news.
Everything comes back to the question of ideology.
Just as in the realms of mathematics and the natural sciences each branch came to be integrated within State power only as its benefits (usually initially in the area of military technology) outweighed its threat to the dominant ideology (biology being the last to be so integrated due to its continued threat to religious ideology), so in the realm of social life (giving the vote to the Great Unwashed, the legalisation of trade unions, the control of access to/content of the media, etc.), each threat to State power has proved to be illusory. Why? Simply because the power of ideology has been consistently underestimated by both the governed and the governing.
How many people reading this blog are nationalists, religious, non-Communist? A large proportion I would estimate, and yet to fall within any one, let alone all, of these groups is to identify as a subject of the dominant Capitalist ideology.
The Internet’s effect on the media has been one of decentralisation and democratisation, but all it has done is amplify the amount of bullshit (to use the technical term) being shovelled. OK, there are good sites picking away at, for example, the corruption of what is left of the ‘traditional’ media, one can now access thousands of hours of lectures by Noam Chomsky, David Harvey and their ilk or the entire archives of New Left Review or the Socialist Register and so on, but the fractionalisation of online media means that these sites are still basically preaching to the converted. Imagine instead the situation, and State’s reaction, had the CPGB tried to buy The Sun in 1980 at the height of the latter’s power and before such diversification and dilution took place.
It’s not inconceivable that something like “site:wikipedia.org momentum (organisation, group, campaign)” (without quotes) would turn it up.
Madness, they call it madness
I think this is an important post below in the link:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross-msm-promotion-operation-part-3/comment-page-2/#comment-750640
1. So this “Philip Cross” page is created by that “172. IP adress.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Philip_Cross&offset=&limit=500&action=history
2. And how does he present “PHilip Cross”?
“UK based user, who has modified or created pages related to the media, film, jazz and politics concentrating on individuals and organisations rather than thematic articles.”
Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Philip_Cross&diff=11168820&oldid=10286340
3. The same 172. IP adress, didnt make many entries,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/172.202.56.12
The first entry is for the now deceased Spectator journalist Simon Hoggart, barely an hour later
“172. Ip adress” made an entry for “Philip Cross”.
Within the hour he made entries for the a jazz recording companty
and made an entry for “Tony Hancock”, a british actor/comedian.
For the Spectator Hoggart wrote/mentioned Hancock multiple times:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2008/03/hancocks-hubris/
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2011/10/tale-of-the-unexpected/
Simon Hoggart was apaprently no friend of Corbyn, this piece he wrote in 99′:
“Commons sketch: Po-faced pacifist offers hostel to fortune”
Now, clicking on the Wikipedia history page of Simon Hoggart shows that “Philip Cross” have been there making edits
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simon_Hoggart&action=history
Go back to the earliest entries and “Philip Cross” was editing Simon Hoggart’s wikipedia page already in 2005 (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simon_Hoggart&offset=&limit=500&action=history),
and “Philip Cross” seems quite eager to edit out personal stuff related to Hoggart’s personal life of some reason..
Interestingly Simon Hoggart and Oliver Kamm both went to Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyggeston_and_Queen_Elizabeth_I_College
Simon Hoggart’ s Wikipedia page is currently inaccessible.
Just tried again. Still inaccessible. No problem accessing Brendan Bracken’ s page.
Hoggart page now accessible.
There are some weird comments made by Philip Cross,
Take this cryptic one in his bio:
”'”Julian””’ = (pseudonym) will not edit this project’s websites until further notice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Philip_Cross&diff=841817657&oldid=841723164
Or take this weird editing and sentence, Philip Cross change his bio info, just to change it again – 10 minutes later,
” (Undid revision 842255725 by Philip Cross (talk) stick with the earlier version)”
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Philip_Cross&diff=842256434&oldid=842255725
Note above how Philip Cross saying to…Philip Cross “stick with the earlier version” – like his talking with someone? Multiple users behind the nick or an attempt to make you belive just that?
And so it goes on, past week the guy/group/ behind Philip Cross changes the bio info constantly,
”’Andrew Philip Cross”’ will not edit this project’s website for an indefinite duration.
”'”Julian””’ = (pseudonym) will not edit this project’s website until further notice.
”'”Julian””’ (pseudonym) will not edit this project’s website until further notice.
”’APC”’ will not edit this project’s website until further notice.
”’Andrew Philip Cross”’ will not edit this project’s website until further notice.
”’Andrew Philip Cross”’ will not edit this project’s website for an indefinite duration.
”’Andrew Philip Cross”’ (born 1963) is a British-based Wikipedian.
and so it goes on..
Maybe time to end this, “his” reputation are already destroyed.
So it looks like Cross could be some kind of wikipedia ‘fixer’ for mainstream media journalists, both to prune their own profiles of negative material and to attack their enemies?
Somebody here (thanks!) posted the link I am repeating here, because it is important.
https://inforrm.org/2018/05/17/the-problems-with-eu-measures-against-fake-news-emiel-jurjens-and-jens-van-den-brink/
It’s a short read, titled “Some problems with EU measures against fake news, Dutch Media v EU”
There is only one legitimate opinion, no matter the evidence.
It is the opinion we provide you with.
I announced less than a week ago on this blog that I would be using a certain, friendly and excellent mosque for nightly Ramadhan tarawee prayers. I was out of town on the second night but on the third night a spook I recognised approached me. Does anyone think spying and monitoring is restricted to political parties? Spying is the entire economy, from corporations, to football, to pro-terrorist groups that work for Mrs May’s government.
Any conceivable human activity which involves lying, instead of convincing people by sincere and honest debate requires money spending on the spy/alter/threaten/exterminate budget. Somebody is interested in what you are writing now, not unlike a fly sitting on the wall of the toilet. The human capacity to lie is not remotely connected to human intelligence. The spiers are completely unemployable in any ordinary job.
The human mind traditionally uses intuition, the ability to connect to information non-laterally. Computers so far operate laterally but incredibly fast. Human minds then perform a conscience check and dismiss any thoughts that cross barriers of decency. The spiers’ minds are wired differently, like the flies, to accept the clean and the dirty, food and filth, equally and to avoid anything that smells of bleach.
It’s no good asking contributors to a truth-seeking blog to program their minds to criminalality. The closest I have found to counteracting lies without engaging with criminality is to reverse it. Put a not in the sentence and see what it looks like. The result will never be the truth , but it will indicate the moral status of the sentence. Blair saying he did not know about the torture of Belhaj and his wife becomes he was aware of it. I leave it to others to decide whether he perceived it as food or shit.
** but on the third night a spook I recognised approached me***
Over-vivid imagination. Or paranoia.
Why do you think someone cannot know a spook? Craig for eg noted during the Scottish IndyRef that he saw an MI5 officer going in and out of an anonymous building in Glasgow.
I expect a Muslim who travels to know at least one MI5 officer as they are often stopped and interrogated on reentering the country. We know a Syrian academic, my wife works with him, who builds in such things in his travel timings. He is involved in student recruitment from Middle Eastern countries and occasionally goes to see family members in Lebanon or more recently Syria itself. I know he recognises some MI5 people too.
Oh dear I got my lateral and longitudinal mixed up. Speaking from a small raft somewhere in the ocean, you get my drift.
Oh dear, it doesn’t bode well for this Tory government if nobody i n t h e w o r l d believes their tripe about the Skripal poisoning, nobody believes any election results especially electronic, nobody believes anything they utter especially when they ask for trust. Capitalism is based on lies and we are entering a moment of history at which nobody believes any of it. We’ll all have to abandon our keyboards and go back to hanging politicians on Westminster Bridge. I really don’t have time for any of that stoopid stuff.
Wish you were more interested in what Trump is doing to denuclearize North Korea and end the Korean War. Or what he is differently doing to promote one with Iran.
Why doesn’t he abolish US noocular weapons? He’s the Pres of the US, not North Korea….
What we are seeing is a loss of control and the internet is the main driver in that collapse, understandably the internet is also a major weapon in the arsenals of the control freaks to reassert their lost power.
Fear, Greed and the Promise of Security is all that is needed to control the craven politicians and civil servants, it also works for about 50% of a population. The other half are a far more fickle bunch and are the ones causing the Elites the problem. Or did do until the bleedin’ obvious occurred to them.
Love, Resistance to Change, Curiosity and Contempt for Authority provide some of the headaches making the New World Order more likely to become a reality by death and destruction rather than the passive Unquestioning Loyalty craved for my some of the less psychopathic lunatics. I think that it is generally accepted however by all the inmates of the asylum that the former mechanism (Perpetual War) carries the unquestionable benefit of a bloody good clear out.
They lost the Perception is Reality battle amongst the Strident 50% mainly because of their Love for Truth. Truth in the Rule of Law, Justice, Democracy, Humanity and Reason, all of which the string pullers have no interest in and the other 50% don’t see how any are relevant in their lives.
So the tactic has changed. It changed in 2003, now it doesn’t matter a jot if the 50% Awkward Squad believed the Evidence of; WMD, Kelly Committing Suicide, Jean Charles de Menezes being Killed by police because they thought he posed a threat or that Only the Russians could have poisoned the Skripals with a Weapons Grade Nerve Agent for which we have been told on “good” authority that they are now Safe, Recovering and Free to live their lives where and how they like.
And its because the official record shows that that is what happened and there’s nothing we can do about it ……… Except Disbelieve and they don’t care about that. Forcing the Perception is Reality Meme is no longer a priority, certainly 100’s of millions of $/£’s are spent doing it but that is only for the benefit of half of us.
The Elite will continue to promulgate lies, the MsM will publish and Wiki with endorse. It’s what they do!
A society a large part of whose population has lost faith in its institutions is in a prerevolutionary situation. It is one serious crisis away from real revolution.
Lysias, Oh how I wish really wish this to be true.
RT too
I didn’t know’: Tony Blair refuses to apologize to man kidnapped, tortured thanks to UK intel
22 May 2018
Tony Blair has refused to apologize to rendition victim Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was tortured in Libya after MI6 intel led to his kidnapping and that of his then pregnant wife, Fatima Boudchar, while the ex-Labour PM was in power.
Blair, speaking about the Belhaj case for the first time since the current UK government issued an apology and awarded an out of court settlement to the family, said he was “content to go along with” the apology. Blair but did not express any personal remorse over Belhaj’s rendition.
/..
https://www.rt.com/uk/427426-belhaj-blair-apology-rendition-lybia/go
Blair is still insisting that Iraq has WMDs
Charles
May 22, 2018 at 14:53
” What we are seeing is a loss of control … ”
The British government is not going to panic so long as the EU is on script, but it may not remain on script for much longer. Venezuela is hitting back at US lies and Italy is hitting back at the EU. Trump tore up the Syria script and it remains to be seen whether as a businessman he sees any advantage in repressing South America. Mrs may is worried about Syrians swapping their EU visas with Daesh in Turkey. The whole castle of cards is starting to wobble. Nobody accepts the US pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.
I know I know, smack their bottoms and give them some ice cream. In a bi-polar world, with Russia / China on one side and the West on the other, a world after parental divorce, the kids get to play the parents off against eachother . Kids as young as four tell their mum you’re niot allowed to hit me because the teacher told us to report you. Oh dear says mum, maybe their dad will get given custody and I’ll have to give him back his 3 bed house. I’ll have to go back to my parents and no more tax credits for me.
Without wishing to sound like Bugs Bunnie alias Boris Johnson, I do believe that common sense is about to prevail. The very rich pretend they don’t care, but they do care and they have so much more to lose.
A quite Brilliant Expose of this Craig Great work indeed, and So Important – Logic implies – It’s without doubt a group, or state operation.
Ioannis
May 22, 2018 at 14:53
” ** but on the third night a spook I recognised approached me***
Over-vivid imagination. Or paranoia. ”
I don’t feel even remotely paranoic about what Philip Cross sees while cleaning the Overton Window. But it’s nice to see you panic when you realise we know your little games.
Try http://www.philipcross.com/
A single quote from Ayn Rand. Wales is a devotee of Rand.
The Rand quote has been taken down since the link was posted on this thread, so that strongly suggests that is our Philip Cross. I have a screenshot of the original.
The quote was as follows: “No thought, knowledge, or consistency is required in order to destroy …”
And now it’s back:
“No thought, knowledge, or consistency is required in order to destroy…” 2
Someone’s ‘avin’ a larf.
Whois has this data on philipcross.com:
Domain Name: PHILIPCROSS.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1589301137_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
Updated Date: 2018-02-21T19:56:37Z
Creation Date: 2010-03-18T18:46:58Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2020-03-18T18:46:58Z
Registrar: NameCheap Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 1068
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6613102107
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Name Server: ADI.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
Name Server: STAN.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
DNSSEC: unsigned
URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2018-05-22T15:30:19Z <<<
How does the timeframe of late March 2010–the date the site was registered–line up with Cross’ wiki activity? How does it line up with other known political events/ intelligence operations in the UK around the same time?
Might be more useful to check a change in edits after that date. But this does seem to much of a coincidence.
Namecheap was hacked some time ago, so the identity of this Philip Cross is probably out there for a price: https://www.csoonline.com/article/2600773/security/namecheap-says-accounts-compromised-in-hacking-incident.html
There’s not the slightest doubt that “Philip Cross” has evolved into a right wing online counter propaganda machine, and undoubtedly involves multiple people’s input. Given the current state of the U.K. media at this moment, it might well be that there is collusion in the form of shared information between some journalists, or other associated press employees, and Philip Cross.
craig – this is great work you are doing here.. thank you..
It seems highly relevant whether the proverbial Mr. Cross is an individual – unlikely, given the persistence of his addiction to modifying Wiki entries – or a group acting under the real or fictional persona of “Philip Cross”. Why he, it or they expends such effort is equally important.
I think Craig has highlighted the narrow range of issues Mr. Cross feels compelled to “correct”, just as he has highlighted the narrow criteria Wiki employs when allowing “corrections” to its entries.
Pooh, poohing the supposed effort and resources this takes seems misguided. It would require substantial effort to set up the search process for the issues “Mr. Cross” religiously follows, to compose the entries it wants, and to follow and “correct” contrary entries it disagrees with. That this looks like a Fleet Street cum security service effort is pure coincidence.
An individual or two may be doing the edits for a bigger group so that there aren’t obvious stylistic variations.
@EoH 16:49
“That this looks like a Fleet Street cum security service effort is pure coincidence.”
What does it look like to you?
Who and what is Andy Pryce?
Who are East StratCom Task Force?
EU External Action anyone?
Andy Pryce Head of Counter Disinformation at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office
UKColumn today about 27 mins – just what are they all up to????
Given what we know about Western intelligence operations used to influence web based activism (see Snowden documents below), Philip Cross is most likely simply the name used for an entire cadre of government paid web trolls rendering any and all material unsuitable in the eyes of “Big Brother” to the “memory hole” a la 1984. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, well, it just might be a duck – eh?
https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/