As others, I see several problems
1. If the code is public, someone can duplicate it and bypass our internal
'safekeeping', because it uses public data.
2. Risk of misuse by either incompetence or malice
3. Risk of accidentally exposing legitimate sockpuppets even in the most closed
off situations.
4. Give ppl insight into how the AI works
My answers to those:
1. I have no problem with keeping this in a private repo (yet technically
opensourced) code. We also run private mailinglists and have private repos for
configuration secrets. Yes it is a bit of a stretch, but.. IAR. At the same
time, from the description, seems like something any AI developer with a bit of
determination can reproduce... so... for how long will this matter ?
2. NDA + OAuth access for those who need it. Aggressive action logging of usage
of the software. Showing these logs to all users of the tool to enforce social
control. "User X investigated the matches of account: Y", User Z investigated
match on previously known sockpuppet BlockedQ"
3. Usage wise, I'd have two flows.
1. Matches: Surface 'matches' that match previously known sockpuppets
(will require keeping track of that list). Only disclose details of a match
upon additional user action (logged).
2. Requests: Enter specific account name(s) and request if there are
matches on/between that/those name(s). (logged)
Those flows might have different levels match certainty perhaps...
If you want to go even further.. Requiring signoff on a request by another
user before you can actually view the matches.
4. That does leave you with the problem of how you can give ppl insight into
why an AI matched something.. that is a hard problem. I don't know enough about
that problem space.
DJ
> On 6 Aug 2020, at 04:33, Amir Sarabadani <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hey,
> I have an ethical question that I couldn't answer yet and have been asking
> around but no definite answer yet so I'm asking it in a larger audience in
> hope of a solution.
>
> For almost a year now, I have been developing an NLP-based AI system to be
> able to catch sock puppets (two users pretending to be different but
> actually the same person). It's based on the way they speak. The way we
> speak is like a fingerprint and it's unique to us and it's really hard to
> forge or change on demand (unlike IP/UA), as the result if you apply some
> basic techniques in AI on Wikipedia discussions (which can be really
> lengthy, trust me), the datasets and sock puppets shine.
>
> Here's an example, I highly recommend looking at these graphs, I compared
> two pairs of users, one pair that are not sock puppets and the other is a
> pair of known socks (a user who got banned indefinitely but came back
> hidden under another username). [1][2] These graphs are based one of
> several aspects of this AI system.
>
> I have talked about this with WMF and other CUs to build and help us
> understand and catch socks. Especially the ones that have enough resources
> to change their IP/UA regularly (like sock farms, and/or UPEs) and also
> with the increase of mobile intern providers and the horrible way they
> assign IP to their users, this can get really handy in some SPI ("Sock
> puppet investigation") [3] cases.
>
> The problem is that this tool, while being built only on public
> information, actually has the power to expose legitimate sock puppets.
> People who live under oppressive governments and edit on sensitive topics.
> Disclosing such connections between two accounts can cost people their
> lives.
>
> So, this code is not going to be public, period. But we need to have this
> code in Wikimedia Cloud Services so people like CUs in other wikis be able
> to use it as a web-based tool instead of me running it for them upon
> request. But WMCS terms of use explicitly say code should never be
> closed-source and this is our principle. What should we do? I pay a
> corporate cloud provider for this and put such important code and data
> there? We amend the terms of use to have some exceptions like this one?
>
> The most plausible solution suggested so far (thanks Huji) is to have a
> shell of a code that would be useless without data, and keep the code that
> produces the data (out of dumps) closed (which is fine, running that code
> is not too hard even on enwiki) and update the data myself. This might be
> doable (which I'm around 30% sure, it still might expose too much) but it
> wouldn't cover future cases similar to mine and I think a more long-term
> solution is needed here. Also, it would reduce the bus factor to 1, and
> maintenance would be complicated.
>
> What should we do?
>
> Thanks
> [1]
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Word_distributions_of_two_users_in_fawiki_1.png
> [2]
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Word_distributions_of_two_users_in_fawiki_2.png
> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SPI
> --
> Amir (he/him)
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> Wikitech-l mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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