> Checkusers can monitor e-mails

Yehudi

There's been a change in the message you get when you send an e-mail via a wiki. Here's the WP change; there are similar changes on WQ and WS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=232345311

QUOTE

A (non-public) log of this action will be kept for abuse prevention purposes via the [[Wikipedia:CheckUser|Checkuser]] function. The log entry for an email does '''not''' identify the recipient, title, or contents of the email. In cases of serious abuse, [[m:System administrators|Wikimedia server administrators]] ("developers") can verify the recipent account, which CheckUsers can only see in encrypted form.

In other words, if you send an e-mail, a checkuser can see that you have done so and presumably has the IP and useragent as for an edit. I don't know if this is an enhancement to the checkuser system or just an outbreak of transparency.

KamrynMatika

QUOTE(Yehudi @ Wed 20th August 2008, 11:17am)

There's been a change in the message you get when you send an e-mail via a wiki. Here's the WP change; there are similar changes on WQ and WS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=232345311

QUOTE

A (non-public) log of this action will be kept for abuse prevention purposes via the [[Wikipedia:CheckUser|Checkuser]] function. The log entry for an email does '''not''' identify the recipient, title, or contents of the email. In cases of serious abuse, [[m:System administrators|Wikimedia server administrators]] ("developers") can verify the recipent account, which CheckUsers can only see in encrypted form.

In other words, if you send an e-mail, a checkuser can see that you have done so and presumably has the IP and useragent as for an edit. I don't know if this is an enhancement to the checkuser system or just an outbreak of transparency.

They can also see an encrypted version of the recipient - so if you email the same person a lot, they'll know, although they won't know who it is

(I just hope it's not a plain md5)

wikiwhistle

I always assumed someone can read those emails sent, at least if they think a need arises, So if I want to keep what I'm saying private, I write "hi, just checking you can receive mails from wiki?" or something, and if the person responds, use normal email to reply to them.

Anonymous editor

yeah, saw this yesterday. They just changed it.

Random832

diff in case anyone was wondering when this actually went into effect. relevant section of history. Note that #39249 which had it briefly enabled with more information stored may not necessarily have ever actually gone live at all; not every revision does so according to this page. The fact that Brion was the one disabling it leads me to believe that it did not.

Rootology

If anyone wants to read the presently used checkuser.php:

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/...pe=text%2Fplain

If you want to see what is being checked.

I never realized the present live development trees were all public. But then, they have to be. Neat. Unless production WMF sites are using secret versions, which I don't believe they are, and that would be kinda unethical I'd think.

Gold heart

QUOTE(Yehudi @ Wed 20th August 2008, 11:17am)

There's been a change in the message you get when you send an e-mail via a wiki. Here's the WP change; there are similar changes on WQ and WS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=232345311

QUOTE

A (non-public) log of this action will be kept for abuse prevention purposes via the [[Wikipedia:CheckUser|Checkuser]] function. The log entry for an email does '''not''' identify the recipient, title, or contents of the email. In cases of serious abuse, [[m:System administrators|Wikimedia server administrators]] ("developers") can verify the recipent account, which CheckUsers can only see in encrypted form.

In other words, if you send an e-mail, a checkuser can see that you have done so and presumably has the IP and useragent as for an edit. I don't know if this is an enhancement to the checkuser system or just an outbreak of transparency.

Who has access to the decrypted form? Sounds all very CIA/KGB-ish. They'll keep Jimbo busy reading, and entertained, could that happen?

Random832

QUOTE(Gold heart @ Wed 20th August 2008, 4:50pm)

QUOTE

A (non-public) log of this action will be kept for abuse prevention purposes via the [[Wikipedia:CheckUser|Checkuser]] function. The log entry for an email does '''not''' identify the recipient, title, or contents of the email. In cases of serious abuse, [[m:System administrators|Wikimedia server administrators]] ("developers") can verify the recipent account, which CheckUsers can only see in encrypted form.

Who has access to the decrypted form? Sounds all very CIA/KGB-ish. They'll keep Jimbo busy reading, and entertained, could that happen?

Like it says, no-one. It's a one-way hash.

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/...=39322&r2=39324

A plaintext form of the recipient information does not appear to be stored at all; I assume that the sysadmins have access to the value of $wgSecretKey, which can be used to verify that a given hash corresponds to a username/email-address combination (They need the presumed receipient's username and e-mail address to check it).

N. Impersonator

If you send an e-mail through WR, the staff can see it, text and all. If you send a PM, the ordinary staff can't see anything but Selina can and I bet Somey can too.

gomi

QUOTE(Rootology @ Wed 20th August 2008, 9:41am)

If anyone wants to read the presently used checkuser.php:

http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/...pe=text%2Fplain

If you want to see what is being checked.

I never realized the present live development trees were all public. But then, they have to be. Neat. Unless production WMF sites are using secret versions, which I don't believe they are, and that would be kinda unethical I'd think.

While I don't have any evidence, I have a different assumption than you. I think they are very likely using a different version than the public software, and would point out that nothing in the GPL, etc, would prevent this. The Wikipedia "version" page reports Version r39668 for Checkuser, which is the immediately-previous version to the current one, but that doesn't mean it isn't privately tweaked.