Borders schools scribble racist graffiti on Wikopedia
An investigation by The Southern Reporter revealed computers in Border schools were used to post racist and anti-gay comments with dozens of illicit entries submitted to Wikipedia between October 2005 and January 2007 and, despite having since been removed from the site's main pages, can still be accessed by the general public.
19 October, 2007
Scottish Borders Council admitted it was unaware of any such activity and said a full investigation would be launched using information uncovered by The Southern. Police also confirmed they would take any matter of this nature seriously and would be working with the education department to identify offenders.
The entries, which were all made during school term dates and between the hours of 8am and 4pm, were originally linked to the local authority using software which tracks computers by their IP address, the unique tag which identifies a particular computer or network.
And SBC yesterday confirmed the IP address used by the offenders belonged to the council’s curriculum network.
Leona Bendall from the education department said: “This appears to have originated from two small groups of S3 and S5 pupils at two different schools. We will be looking into this and discussing appropriate disciplinary action with the schools immediately after the October break."
“The council’s corporate IT team is looking at ways to better manage access to Wikipedia, but we would not want to block the site as it provides a valuable education and business resource.”
Sources: http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/Schools-in-web-racism-shocker.3365984.jp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/7039911.stm