> It's more concerning that Congress is that stupid

Congress was looking at evidence of what that particular user was doing online at the time, because /u/stonetear posted questions that look rather incriminating in retrospect based on what we've learned since then.

This kind of thing is why it's important to establish a chain of custody for evidence.

This episode makes clear that uttering "Reddit" and "chain of custody" in the same sentence should get one laughed out of court.

Maybe. It depends on what internal controls they have (or don't) and whether it was evident to other admins that the comments had been altered.

There's a lot we don't know without knowing the internal workings of Reddit, though I agree that you can't have to think that if one rogue person (even someone like that) can just do such things, they don't have robust internal controls at all.

The reason being Wikipedia is a summary made by a constantly changing group of people out of actual sources with a real name attached to it, which are the ones you're supposed to link.

In any case, a permalink to a specific revision that includes a sha256sum of the article is a good way to ensure you're getting a reliable link to information which can not be tampered without failing the checksum.

If they control the checksum check they can alter it too. Maybe, if you are careful enough to store all the checksums of everything you do online you will be able to tell, but others that see your posts won't even notice.

Merkle trees can help here. Basically a tree of hashes. If you keep track of the root hash, it's easy to prove any individual leaf has not been altered.

>If they control the checksum check they can alter it too.

This could be done via an open source browser add-on.

so what you really need are pgp signed messages

Reddit isn't meant to be a source nor is Wikipedia, but it's a place to find information. They can be seen as central hubs to get information.

If a person comments on Reddit with a valid point and sources all his facts, why does it matter where said comment is made, and honestly, it doesn't matter if admins can edit it or not, really.

Look at it like posting an EXE and also linking to a credible site containing it's checksum. As long as you trust the linked site, then it doesn't matter where the EXE is posted and if someone has access to modifiying the EXE, all that matters is that 1. you got the data, 2. the data checksum matches the source.

When a website receives a court order or congressional subpoena to preserve data, they are under penalty of perjury and contempt of court/congress to not alter it. Physical evidence can be just as subject to tampering as digital data. For both, the integrity of the court system is enforced with strong penalties for those who are dishonest.

The problem isn't tampering after a request -- it's before.

If the reddit admin edits of comments aren't appropriately stored in comment history, the logs turned over won't tell the whole story, but reddit will (mistakenly) testify that it's the complete history.

You can even add a dash of malice: an exec edits a rival's post, but the subpoena is filled by a line tech (possibly unaware of the admin tools, even).

Unless the defense knows to press reddit on the actual veracity of their logs and ways they could be compromised, the erroneous data seems a fact to the court.

Wait, they can't just delete the parts they don't like and then claim the data was "personal"? ducks

No, but Wikipedia's sources usually are. I feel like there's a world of difference between a well-sourced encyclopedia entry and a comment on a somewhat anonymous forum.

Wikipedia's sources are usually terrible (a blog post), unverifiable (I don't have access to the actual book), or they 404.

Sometimes, Wikipedia editors don't understand the source so the Wikipedia article and the source are actually at odds with one another. I've witnessed this a few times when I investigated dubious claims.

One time while studying for a final exam, I did a final review of the Wikipedia article and noticed a quote which was an exact match for a paper that I had just read, and it was followed by [citation needed].

Adding that citation is one of my proudest Wikipedia edits ever.

You're not supposed to cite Wikipedia because it's an encyclopedia! You're supposed to cite the sources that it cites.

Rule #1 that all students are taught: Don't cite Wikipedia, it's not Authoritative!

And then you get out of high school and you start to actually do research and learn the real answer: Primary sources are always better than secondary or tertiary, so use them when you can.

But Wikipedia IS good for finding those primary/secondary sources. And, depending on the topic, wiki is great for getting a quick primer to a subject or to have an example and is often cited in lectures to students who are expected to be old enough to not stop you and say "Teacher! Teacher! You said to never use Wikipedia!"