Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

wikimediastatus.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 405 posts

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#31

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

m4tthumphrey wrote: post #16
Dwedit wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP is the language where "return flase" causes it to return true. https://danielc7.medium.com/remote-code-execution-gaining-do...

Also the language that runs half of the web. Also the language that has made me millions over my career with no degree. Also the language that allows people to be up and running in seconds (with or without AI). I could go on.

I use it on the backends of my stuff.

Works great, but, like any tool, usage matters.

People who use tools badly, get bad results.

I've always found the "Fishtank Graph" to be relevant: https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/programmin...

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#33

Post by onion2k »

m4tthumphrey wrote: post #16
Dwedit wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP is the language where "return flase" causes it to return true. https://danielc7.medium.com/remote-code-execution-gaining-do...

Also the language that runs half of the web. Also the language that has made me millions over my career with no degree. Also the language that allows people to be up and running in seconds (with or without AI). I could go on.

Also the language that runs half of the web.

The bottom half.

;)

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#34

Post by skrtskrt »

gadders wrote: post #7
yabones wrote: post #6

[flagged]

"The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, reported a total revenue of $185.4 million for the 2023–2024 fiscal year (ending June 2024). The majority of this funding comes from individual donations, with additional income from investments and the Wikimedia Enterprise commercial API service." (Unless this was satire and I missed it)

I think the question might be how much money, effort, and expertise is going into the platform itself.

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#35

Post by gadders »

josefresco wrote: post #25
gadders wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, reported a total revenue of $185.4 million for the 2023–2024 fiscal year (ending June 2024). The majority of this funding comes from individual donations, with additional income from investments and the Wikimedia Enterprise commercial API service." (Unless this was satire and I missed it)

What's the operating budget for other websites with comparable traffic? Without context $185 million seems like a lot , but compared to what? Reddit's operating budget for the same timeframe was $1.86 billion.

I agree, but it's not a shoestring budget. They also seem to run a surplus every year:

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) maintains a significant financial surplus and a growing, healthy balance sheet, with net assets reaching approximately $271.5 million in the 2023–2024 fiscal year. This surplus is largely driven by consistent, high-volume, small-dollar donations, with total annual revenue often exceeding $180 million.

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#36

Post by dheera »

nhubbard wrote: post #18

Wow. This worm is fascinating. It seems to do the following: - Inject itself into the MediaWiki:Common.js page to persist globally, and into the User:Common.js page to do the same as a fallback - Uses jQuery to hide UI elements that would reveal the infection - Vandalizes 20 random articles with a 5000px wide image and another XSS script from basemetrika.ru - If an admin is infected, it will use the Special:Nuke page…

Wouldn't be surprised if elaborate worms like this are AI-designed

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#37

Post by 256_ »

pKropotkin wrote: post #27
256_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone on the Wikipediocracy forums pointed out, basemetrika.ru does not exist. I get an NXDomain response trying to resolve it. The plot thickens.

Yeah, basemetrika.ru is free now. Should we occupy it? ;)

I'm half-tempted to try and claim it myself for fun and profit, but I think I'll leave it for someone else.

What should we put there, anyway?

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#38

Post by nhubbard »

dheera wrote: post #36
nhubbard wrote: post #18

Wow. This worm is fascinating. It seems to do the following: - Inject itself into the MediaWiki:Common.js page to persist globally, and into the User:Common.js page to do the same as a fallback - Uses jQuery to hide UI elements that would reveal the infection - Vandalizes 20 random articles with a 5000px wide image and another XSS script from basemetrika.ru - If an admin is infected, it will use the Special:Nuke page…

Wouldn't be surprised if elaborate worms like this are AI-designed

I wouldn't be surprised either. But the original formatting of the worm makes me think it was human written, or maybe AI assisted, but not 100% AI. It has a lot of unusual stylistic choices that I don't believe an AI would intentionally output.

Re: Wikipedia was in read-only mode following mass admin account compromise

#39

Post by ramon156 »

m4tthumphrey wrote: post #16
Dwedit wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PHP is the language where "return flase" causes it to return true. https://danielc7.medium.com/remote-code-execution-gaining-do...

Also the language that runs half of the web. Also the language that has made me millions over my career with no degree. Also the language that allows people to be up and running in seconds (with or without AI). I could go on.

The language is not what makes you nor the product. You could've written the same thing in RoR, PHP was just first and it's why it still exists
Post reply on HN