A Wikipedia scanner invented by an American student has made it easy to see who is editing entries in the popular online encyclopaedia.

Virgil Griffith took Wikipedia's records of who was editing entries and matched the IP addresses to a database of companies and organisations.

The student has organised this into a searchable database that has highlighted some interesting cases of organisations editing information pertaining to themselves.
Griffith cited several examples, including the CIA recently editing a page on the invasion of Iraq to highlight the speculative nature of civilian casualty figures, as well as an edit to Oprah Winfrey's page.

Meanwhile, a user at the Democratic party headquarters was responsible for editing right-wing radio DJ Rush Limbaugh's entry to describe him as a "racist" and a "bigot", while describing his audience as "legally retarded".

In the UK, someone at Conservative central office has been heavily editing Oliver Letwin's details, removing mentions of his suggestion that public spending could be cut by £20bn.

The Wikipedia scanner allows users to search by company or organisation, revealing, for example, what edits Apple has made to Microsoft's entry.