Talk:Walter O'Brien

Who caught the Boston Bombers

I'm only seeing a report that this scenario generator was used for video forensics and O'Brien referring to Scorpion Computer Services and the team.DavidWestT (talk) 00:30, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The originator of the claims seems to be O'Brien and these claims got picked up by entertainment sites and bloggers as part of the PR offensive intended to launch the show. That's the big problem with many of these sources. They are not reliable as they are not, typically, fact checked journalism. They are just recycling O'Brien's claims without any analysis, fact checking or verification. There's a timeline from the interview with the LA TV station, (where it is claimed in the introduction that O'Brien's company develops video analysis software of the type apparently used by the FBI), to the interviews around the time of the show's launch. By the time the show is launching, this is forming into a claim of "helping" the FBI in some way (the Boston affiliate station with the article). The "scenario generator" appears to be just some decision tree software rather than video forensics software. There is no corroborating evidence for O'Brien's claim. There was no verification of the claim by any of the media that interviewed him. Jmccormac (talk) 05:17, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that analysis. The evolution seems bizarre. As a result I see two possibilities:

1. The journalists fed off of each other. With each iteration, CBS and Irish Times stretched the original claim, which was merely that O'Brien's Scorpion Computer Services, a government contractor that develops video-forensics software, was brought in as an expert to explain how the technology works. The bombers were caught using similar forensics software. CBS Boston and outlets exaggerated an analogy of "developing similar software" into a claim. In other words journalists not only didn't check the facts, they made them up. As a capstone, Asher Langdon comes in and runs with the misreporting, creating a straw man on an O'Brien that never made the claim that he caught the bombers, and nonetheless shoots that claim down.
2. O'Brien changed his answer to claim more and more credit for the Boston bombers' capture each time he was interviewed, but not a single journalist caught it on camera or got an audio quote of him claiming credit directly.

Right now 2) is looking less and less likely. I don't see a single direct quote from the CNET interview or elsewhere where he actually says he contributed to the Boston bombers' capture. It's always a journalist or fast, exciting editing that slips it in. Just my two cents.DavidWestT (talk) 16:16, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Kilkenny People

This appears to be a new source:

• "Computer genius from Kilkenny briefs top US Army Officials", Kilkenney People, 16 July 2015

I'm concerned about the reliability. For example:

• "Mr O’Brien made international headlines when he reportedly hacked into NASA’s computer systems at the tender age of 13."

I have searched for hours for this incident in deep news archives, through millions of scanned newspapers from that period. I found many hacking incidents but none of them match up. If this really "made international headlines" then it would have been easily found. The statement doesn't add up, and no one has ever provided evidence for it. It is the same story O'Brien keeps telling reporters over and over.

• Kilkenney People is a local paper whose interest is in lauding its local people, it's not entirely neutral.
• "For over two decades, Scorpion Computer Services has contributed to the greater good by managing geniuses as they transform Scorpion client ideas into reality. "

Is it a news article or an advertisement?

• "The Chairman of Aerospace Defense Systems at US Army Base Fort Stewart Georgia confirmed in a written reference.. Another written reference from an RAF Architect"

These are very official sounding and specific claims, but he told every other source he can't talk about it due to NDA. This is an odd contradiction.

What is needed is a second truly independent source (independent of O'Brien's influence) that has some kernel of evidence, no matter how small. Like a mere mention of ScenGen on a US military website. It's not classified as O'Brien is openly talking about it. Otherwise all we have is a local newspaper that often reads like an advertisement and O'Brien making claims that earlier he said were covered by Non Disclosure Agreement and he couldn't talk about. O'Brien has been known to embellish stories in the past, telling another local Irish newspaper he was an "American billionaire". -- GreenC 20:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Looks like another PR uptick for the launch of the second series. It is a 'local boy does well' piece. A civilian rank on a military base? An "RAF architect"? Typically unreliable and unverified buzzword bingo claims. Jmccormac (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Further problem. The article states:

• "The Chairman of Aerospace Defense Systems at US Army Base Fort Stewart Georgia"

"Aerospace Defense Systems, Inc" is a corporation, not a government position. A Google search finds the company came into existence on June 24, 2015, less than 30 days prior to the Kilkenney People article. It has almost no presence anywhere and looks like a shell company. The given address maps to the airport terminal building. There is no phone number.

• The article claims Lockheed Martin uses a program called ScenGen. I have confirmed this also [1] on page 68. It says the developer is a company named CAS, Inc., which has nothing to do with O'Brien. "Scenario Generator" is a generic name used by a number of companies.

None of this proves anything except that the source is questionable. Questions and concerns about its reliability. -- GreenC 20:50, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

There really should be a "questioned sources" category or tag for these PR pieces. Jmccormac (talk) 21:19, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Could use {{Unreliable source?}} sparingly to generate attention to this discussion for that particular source. Maybe wait a day or two to see what the regular O'Brien watchers think first. -- GreenC 21:44, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Looks like the Mayor of LA did not nominate him as Irishman of the Year. It seems to be some Irish association thing rather than an official nomination. The PR fluff about O'Brien that was cut in previous versions is being added back. Jmccormac (talk) 18:31, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

That is sourced to the Kilkenny People article again which is proving to be highly unreliable. Is there evidence he was not nominated by the Mayor of LA, something to counter Kilkenny People? -- GreenC 16:17, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Here is the nomination form. Anyone can nominate anyone, so there could thousands of nominations. Since it is presented by the Mayor, it is incredulous that the Mayor would make a nomination since it is a conflict of interest. Furthermore nominator info is optional so it can be made anonymously (like by O'Brien or CBS). This looks like one more case of puffery that is impossible to validate but easy for CBS and O'Brien to inject into gullible sources like Kilkenny People who have no reputation for verifying anything. -- GreenC 16:25, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks like a bit of a PR fluffing campaign is underway with the article. Jmccormac (talk) 21:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Siliconrepublic.com is another Irish media outlet repeating the same canards about Homeland Security existing in the 1980s. That gaft, some others and unrestrained puffery ("America's top hacker" headline) make it unreliable. -- GreenC 23:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Unreliable Source on Irishman of the year claim

The sources on WOB winning the "Irishman of the year" claim are problematic. The main source on this seems to be O'Brien again. Here's the press release: [2]. Here's the website for the Irish Fair Foundation organisation: [3] and now look at the image [4] where all the entrants and the caption. It says "Irishman of the year Hon. Tom LaBonge and Irish woman of the year Geraldine Gilliland". Looks like it might be better to replace the press release with the facts and a link to the Irish Fair Foundation organisation page. Jmccormac (talk) 19:50, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Our article says he was nominated by the Mayoral office but that makes no sense as the Mayor is the one who presents the award, it is a conflict of interest for the mayor to both nominate and present the award. O'Brien's press release says he was nominated by President of the L.A. City Council, Herb Wesson, Jr., and Councilmember of the fourth district, Tom LaBonge.[5] This gaff underscores how unreliable a source Kilkenny People is (they conflated the nominator with the presenter). And what to about reporting who nominated him. -- GreenC 21:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The source for all this seems to be another self-published press release from WOB/SCS. This has been picked up without verification. That Irish Fair Foundation has Hon. Tom Labonge captioned as the Irishman of the year. This inflation seems to be a characteristic of much of the coverage of O'Brien. There was a mention of him claiming to have been invited to speak at a seminar when all that happened was that he was just invited. There was also the claim of being offered a job which didn't actually happen. The Professor who invited O'Brien was cited in Techdirt or Fastcompany commenting about this inflation (can't remember which publication at the moment without checking back). The unreliability of self-published press releases or self-made claims concerning third parties without corroboration is mentioned in WP:RS. The sources on this article are seriously problematic because they are primarily press release recycling, or puffery (and/or possibly relating to the fictional character Walter O'Brien as in the supposed NASA hack). Many seem to have O'Brien as the single source for the claims about third parties/events and that's a serious problem in WP:RS terms. Jmccormac (talk) 21:35, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you're confusing winner with nominee. WOB was nominated, all the sources say. None say he won. The mistake was by Kilkenny People, they conflated the nominator with the presenter (Mayor of LA). -- GreenC 23:02, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

No. Without the mention of the winner (it appears to be Tom LaBonge from the Irish Fair Foundation image caption), the spin is that it was O'Brien who was Irishman of the year. It is the typical half-truth style of claim that is all too common with this article. Technically, O'Brien was a nominee for Irishman of the year in the Irish Fair Foundation competition. He did not win the Irishman of the year award as is implied by the press release and its recycling. By claiming that he was "nominated Irishman of the year" by the mayor of LA, without making any reference to the fact that it was a competition rather than an official award, implies that he won and uses the authority of the LA mayor as some kind of official imprimatur. The self-published press release was recycled without verification and any mention of who actually won. Thus instead of merely being an entrant in a competition, the implication becomes that O'Brien was nominated as (basically awarded or appointed) Irishman of the year by the mayor of LA. Jmccormac (talk) 04:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

You say "He did not win the Irishman of the year award as is implied by the press release and its recycling." Could you please quote the text in the press release that implies he won? -- GreenC 13:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

"Walter O'Brien Nominated Los Angeles 'Irishman of the Year' 2015" No reference to the fact that it was an open competition or that he was not Irishman of the year. He was merely a nominee rather than the winner (nominated as). Jmccormac (talk) 14:29, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia often reports on nominees, short-list, runner-ups etc.. But I see what's you're saying, since in this case the nomination wasn't an honor. Anyone could be nominated by anyone. The nomination didn't come from the event organizers rather outside parties, there is no honor involved. If his name appears on the Irish Fair Foundation website with the other nominees of 2015, would that be acceptable? It would be documented by a reliable source at that point. -- GreenC 14:34, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The main thing is the context. It is accurate to say that he was a nominee and that his certificate/award was presented by Irishman of the year, the Honourable Tom LaBonge (the the caption for the Irish Fair Foundation image has LaBonge as Irishman of the year). The self-issued press release is not an RS. The nomination wasn't an appointment as such. However when the context is left out in favour of the LA mayor etc, it is inflated into something completely different. Jmccormac (talk) 14:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Silicon Republic

This trade pub Wikipedia relies upon for Notability and as an RS, for example, here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Imagine_Communications. It's just this one particular article? The journalist? Or certain parts of the article?DavidWestT (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

It has some genuine reporting but it relies on a lot of press release recycling for content. Most of these online publications do this because real journalism is expensive and recycling press releases as industry news fills pages. In this respect, it is no different to most print publications covering the same sector. It is obvious that Wikipedia was used to pad out the press release. On the Imagine Communication article, the Irish Times or the Irish Independent might have been better sources. However the Irish Times has most of its historical articles behind a paywall and the Irish Independent's information architecture is, to say the least, neither informational or architecture. I think that Silicon Republic was supplying packaged (white label) technology news content to some of the Irish newspapers at one stage. It is not a trade publication. Trade publications target the trade and not the public. Silicon Republic tries to be the equivalent of Cnet (news.com) or similar for the Irish market. Articles that largely recycle Wikipedia artices are not considered reliable sources due to their circular referencing nature. Jmccormac (talk) 15:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Hearing about its aim to be CNET, but not being CNET, the solution here is to use it only where there's another source that backs up the same. And not use it for anything controversial. Reading a few of SRs other articles, it's treatment of its subjects is thorough and roughly as error prone as the major pubs, if not less.DavidWestT (talk) 14:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

No. It is largely just press release recycling with a few researched articles. These online publications have a target number of articles to reach each day and typically don't have the number of journalists necessary to research every article. This means that press releases form a large part of the output. Apart from major local and international news events and the odd gadget review, this class of online publication has very little locally generated content. The Scorpion Studios thing is not notable. People start companies every day and they don't get listed in Wikipedia. There is a real issue with Wikipedia content being used in that article and the same content being fed back into Wikipedia as a "reliable source". Jmccormac (talk) 19:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I've cut the Scorpion Studios link at the top (for which SR was cited as the source) as it is a non-notable company that has no track record on producing anything. O'Brien is not known for that. He is primarily known for the show and his SCS company. Jmccormac (talk) 19:48, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Guess I forgot to mention the size of the Shuttle .DWG file. Nice to see that the information from Wikipedia is being recycled to journalists who haven't the knowledge or expertise to verify or understand such claims. There does seem to be a bit of reputation management going on with this article with some details being removed in order to puff up the subject of the article. Jmccormac (talk) 21:42, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

CBS' claims

Per discussion on the talk page above, I see issues on this page that relate largely to CBS fabricating a few things to draw attention to its show, or making contemporary adjustments. One good example is the so-called "homeland security claim", made by Elyse Gabel, the actor. It's as if he's making the claim about a different person, which he is. The claim is about the character he plays. If that is the case, then why wouldn't we place the Homeland Claim on the Scorpion show page? I anticipate if the show goes on, we'll end up with a separate page on Walter O'Brien that relates to the show, that belongs here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Fictional_characters_based_on_real_people DavidWestT (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Probably the most logical solution. There's a danger of the WOB article degenerating into a fanzine page with all sorts of links of varying relevance getting added. That Irishman of the year thing was a classic of the unreliability of claims. As Green Cardamom, pointed out, the initial award was far less impressive (was a certificate awarded to Irish people active in various fields but was open to public nominations) but by the time it got to the Kilkenny People, it had been inflated to the mayor of LA nominating O'Brien. The other claims in that article about usage of the Scenario Generator program and the locations/companies were extremely iffy. The problem with some of these claims is that when Wikipedia editors or people with some experience and/or expertise examine them, many quickly fall apart as puffery and PR. The technological claims are the worst in this respect because most journalists don't have the technological expertise or background to know if the claims being made are true or accurate. There will be more PR fluffing for the new series of Scorpion (September) so there will be an uptick in coverage in less questioning media. Jmccormac (talk) 15:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The Homeland Security mention is from the reporter. It’s because the team’s handler in the show works for DHS. But the opening clearly states the FBI is the agency that arrested 13yo WOB, meaning Cabe worked for them at the time and transferred later. 198.168.108.122 (talk) 22:53, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Once we have notability for Walter O'Brien (fictional character) I'll create that page and carve out all of the claims about the character. Reviews on the show itself mark a significant departure. And that's expected with Hollywood script writing.DavidWestT (talk) 14:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Removed the KCLR mention as it is O'Brien claiming something rather than a Reliable Source. (The Irish Fair Foundation is an example of why this kind of unquestioned and unverified type of claim is a problem with this type of Wikipedia article. The article needs reliable sources for claims and there's a lot of fluff and puffery that really has no place in an encyclopedia article. Jmccormac (talk) 00:22, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Puffery/PR or Encyclopedia Article?

The puffery on this article is beginning to overtake the facts and verifiable data. All adverse details on O'Brien are being cut from the article. Even the Wikipedia detail about Autocad's SHUTTLE.DWG file ended up being recycled, inaccurately, in the Silicon Republic interview. The actual file was much smaller than the 2MB claimed in the interview. And the "400 Baud modem" is another inaccuracy and it is the kind of mistake that people who really did use the technology in those years would not make. The story about the raid started off with DHS (Homeland Security) raiding a farm in county Kilkenny but now it is being spun as NSA via Interpol. (It was the US Secret Service that was tasked with dealing with possible computer crimes at the time.) It is not clear if it was NASA via Interpol and the journalist made a transcription error. The whole uber hacker story seems to be unravelling. But this whole article is becoming less an article in an encyclopedia and more like a PR press release. Wikipedia isn't a PR billboard. Jmccormac (talk) 02:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

• The "400 baud" is laughable but what does it tell us? That probably it is a younger person at work here (more on that below). No one who used 300 baud modems would mistake it for a 400 baud. It's like a Mercedes lover saying they once owned a J-Class -- a car that never existed!
• Question: how do you know the DWG file was smaller than 2.1MB? I'm sure it was but wondering if there is a source. BTW the very specific size (2.1 not 2.2 etc) is suspect given how much time has lapsed someone would remember down to the fraction.
• The confusion between DHS, NSA, NASA and Interpol is absolutely hilarious. It's like they can't keep their story straight and when caught in one lie make up another one and then have to backtrack with more outlandish made up stories.

-- GreenC 16:58, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Autocad included the shuttle file with its software as a demonstration. People in the Autocad forums would be a definitive source on this as the program has been in use for decades. Basically, these files were small and quite efficient because they had to be. One version of the file would have been below 100KB. Floppy disks were the main way of transferring files between PCs. The PCs of the era were limited in memory (PCs would have had anything from about 128KB to 2MB of RAM as RAM was quite expensive), storage (floppy disks were more common than harddrives). The space on floppy disks in use then varied from 360KB to about 1.44MB. But these were on PCs rather than the claimed Amstrad or, in later coverage, Commodore C64. The Amstrad CPC used an audio tape recorder as its storage device with 360K floppy disks being a later addition. Harddrives back then, for home computers, would have had to have had an interface card. But the cost of even a 10MB or a 30MB HD was more than the cost of a typical home computer and there was a number of different formats/specifications.

The Compuserve "detail" is a bit odd for Ireland. While Compuserve was branching out, the one thing that people fail to realise is that services like Compuserve used a combination of subscription and per use/per data downloaded fees so that connecting to these services was an extra layer of cost on top of the phone call charges. And that's another element that is problematic. Long distance phone calls in Ireland at the time were high and calls to the UK, where Compuserve was initially targeting, were extremely high. Going into a UK service on 300 Baud modem back then was an extremely expensive thing and the quality of the phone lines in rural Ireland was not great. That 300 Baud could often drop down to 30 Baud depending on the connection. (When you were really making such a connection back then, you always watched the data rate and the clock because the lower the data rate, the more expensive the call. Making too many such calls would result in a phone bill of hundreds of Pounds.) That's approximately 30 characters per second. While there were Bulletin Board Systems operating on the internet at the time, they were quite rare. (The Internet was still largely an academic operation back then.) Dialup Bulletin Board Systems were more widespread in the US and the UK. However in Ireland, the cost of setting one up and getting a separate, dedicated phoneline was well beyond most families. This was a time when people could be waiting for six months for a phoneline to be installed. The cost of running a BBS, including the dedicated phone line, the computer, a hard drive, software and files (so that users would have something to download) limited their operation to well paid hobbyists or people who thought that they could make a business from it. At the time, there was only a handful of BBSes in Ireland and it remained that way until the commercialisation of the internet and the Web in the early to mid 1990s.

The Interpol thing is meant to sound impressive but such matters would have been handled via the local police (Garda). So first there was the big raid by the DHS using helicopters and what appeared to be the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. (The mid 1990s movie "Hackers" also opened with a such an armed police raid on a fictional young hacker.) Then the people behind the show had it pointed out to them that DHS did not exist at the time. The FBI was part of the backstory with the main law enforcement character, I think, having an FBI background prior to DHS. But FBI didn't handle computer crime back then to the same extent as the US Secret Service. NSA is not primarily a Law Enforcement Organisation. And FBI did not have jurisdiction in Ireland. On the main Irish TV chat show, O'Brien was asked if events went down in the manner portrayed and he would not answer.

Wikipedia has its own time line of computer security events Timeline of computer security hacker history. In 1985/86, Cliff Stoll tracked breakins at various computer services. The attacks originated in Germany. The book detailing these events, The Cuckoo's Egg was published in 1989. It is worth reading because it details the struggle that Stoll had to get any law enforcement agency interested and these were NASA and US government and military sites that were being targeted and these events occurred during the Cold War. Jmccormac (talk) 20:19, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I've owned a PC since 1984 and remember the dual 5.25" floppies, hard drives became affordable around 1985-86, I think it was around 10MB. I was in high school so didn't have much money. My first modem was 300 but soon went to 1200. There was .arc (precursor of .zip) which was commonly used. I find it suspicious he would remember the exact size of a file but not the baud of the modem. Interesting about Ireland and BBS's didn't know that. I did a lot of research in commercial databases trying to find O'Briens case, but no luck. I did find many hacker incidents involving NASA throughout the 80s they were common. Most hacking back then was through war dialing, the Internet was inaccessible to most hackers, BBS's didn't have dedicated connections to the Internet because it was extremely expensive ($10,000 a month or more for 56K line) and it was off limits to commercial use by ARPA's backbone policy. -- GreenC 01:28, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

"It is interesting that Elyes Gabel, the actor who plays O'Brien in the CBS show Scorpion, is now involved in the missteps, apparently busted for telling the press wrong information. This makes sense since he is a young guy in his career and would have a motivation to puff up O'Brien to help his own career." Per WP:TPO, these statements need to be removed as a BLP vio, Green Cardamom. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 03:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Elyes Gabel giving wrong information, I thought it was supported in the source since that is basically what our article says with a cite to Silicon Republic. But a closer reading of Silicon Republic doesn't say that at all. I'll remove it from the article. -- GreenC 16:39, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

It seemed to be DavidWestT who altered the Gabel quote about O'Brien to make it seem like he, Gabel, got it wrong about the supposed raid. That's where the issue originates. Jmccormac (talk) 11:13, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

There does seem to be a lot of added puffery for which O'Brien is the only source of the claims. It may be best to cut or revert this stuff and move the show related puffery to the TV show article. Jmccormac (talk) 01:15, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Boston bombing

In the Silicon Republic interview, O'Brien rejects any claim that he or his software was used to catch the Boston bombers.

“The trouble I have is when a writer or someone in Hollywood says ‘Walter singlehandedly helped capture the Boston Bomber’, if you Google it you will see that I am not the one who said it. We developed image recognition software that we have licensed and sold to the government. I am allowed to say that. But I am not allowed to say what the government used it for. I can say legally we wrote these tools and sold them and that the government is one of my clients.”

I propose removing the incident entirely. It's media gossip and misunderstanding, as O'Brien says. There is no connection between his software and the Boston bombing. There isn't even any evidence the government used image recognition software in Boston, much less O'Brien's software. O'Brien never said it, the media puffed up his statements. -- GreenC 16:35, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Looks like a bit of revisionism going on there as the original claims were discredited. That direct quote is being used to link it with the claim made at the ComicCon. However there are other newspaper interviews where these Boston Bombing claims were part of the interviews, (if there were interviews), with O'Brien and he had ample opportunity then to deny or explain. Perhaps it might be a good thing to leave the section to show the evolution of the claims and their subsequent attempts at revisionism? After all, if those "Reliable Sources" repeated what O'Brien said in these interviews, does it mean that they are no longer reliable? Jmccormac (talk) 16:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Well I've always maintained anything of a controversial nature based only on claims by O'Brien alone is not reliable, that we need true independent sourcing. You have said the same. But we were opposed in that by an editor who said reliable sources say something and regardless that is good enough. But now a year later we see O'Brien's stories falling apart, back tracking etc.. those old sources are not looking so reliable anymore. So how do we know what to trust? Again, anything that is claimed by O'Brien alone is not reliable. If he hacked NASA then there should be a newspaper account from 1988 (I have looked), or something like it that shows it actually happened, not just his claim. If he helped find the Boston Bombers, we should have evidence from the government, a source completely independent of O'Brien. We can't assume entertainment news sources verified O'Briens claims because history has shown they do not, and often they can't for legal reasons. If there is no sourcing independent of O'Brien then it shouldn't be in the article at all, until better sourcing is available. The alternative is to do as you say, document the evolution of changing claims. -- GreenC 19:03, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

(Moved from top to correct section as Boston Marathon Bombing section already exists.) Jmccormac (talk) 10:06, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

So other than the youtube video of a live fox broadcast, are there any other claims from the time that he had any involvement whatsoever? CBS has a vested interest in this so I do not know whether they should be taken at their word. I know it was claimed that he did. I would like to see some evidence that he actually did or whether it is all just theology at this point. The article as it stands is pretty terrible as it is just full of "He said he did this. X said he didn't." byo (talk) 09:16, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Most of the claims of O'Brien's involvement seem to originate with O'Brien. I reverted the edit because it removed citations and sources. While these sources may be of varying reliability, they do provide the timeline of the claims. I think that you will find that in this particular article, most of the claims are "O'Brien said..." and those statements are repeated by the journalists, often entertainment journalists, as fact. And that's the main problem with this particular article. Jmccormac (talk) 10:06, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Length of this page

This talk page is one of the longest on Wikipedia; it is currently 195,578 bytes long - far more than is sensible, and likely to make it difficult for some people to view, or edit. I therefore recently set up automated archiving so that any section not edited for more than 30 days will be moved to an archive page, linked to from this page, and where each discussion will still be available. Another editor has reset this, so that sections are not archived until over three months after discussion has ended.

There is absolutely no need to keep discussion here for so long after they have ended, at the cost of making the page less easy to use. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:38, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

That "other editor" is User:Green Cardamom. First off, you have no history on this talk page so it's perplexing why you would care what the time is, much less go out of your way to fight over it. I do have a history on this talk page and know how long these discussions last and how interconnected they are. 28 days is too short. Also, I am not the only person reverting your 28 day time limits, other people have done the same in other articles. -- GreenC 15:56, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

The reason that this talk page is so long is that O'Brien, is simply the one making most claims (supposed IQ unsupported by any proper IQ test, supposed hacking of NASA with a "400 Baud" coupler/modem, the various unsupported computer program performance claims, the Boston Bombing stuff which went from explaining how image processing worked on a local TV station to analysing hundreds of hours of video footage to "help" FBI catch the perpetrators in later tellings and interviews, the armed raid by DHS complete with helicopters (until it was pointed out that the DHS did not exist at the time) on a farm in rural Ireland (which then involved FBI and lately became a visit from NSA via Interpol (even when the US Secret Service was the Law Enforcement Organisation/Agency tasked with dealing with most computer crime at the time and it would have been the local Irish police force, the Garda, who would have dealt with the issue) and there was no corroborating evidence such as contemporaneous reports from news organisations and no record of the supposed "company" on the official Irish registry of companies. Now it is turning out that some of those claims (the Boston Bombing claims and the supposed raid), which were repeated in what some editors had the misfortune to refer to as "Reliable Sources", are now being back-tracked, revised, disavowed etc. So sections of the page where some consensus had been arrived at are now thrown into disarray. At this stage it might be safer to remove the PR puffery and reputation management in the article and rewrite it so that it only records O'Brien's notability as being due to the TV show. That's why the page is so long and needs to be so. Jmccormac (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

"you have no history on this talk page" is irrelevant, per WP:OWN. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:06, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Are we talking about the Talk Page or the actual page itself?DavidWestT (talk) 15:54, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

@DavidWestT: The talk page. Its size has risen to 255,036 bytes (as I type), and it is thus unusable to some of our colleagues. There is absolutely no need for this. My edit to reduce the page size has again just been reverted. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:06, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Would it be possible to limit the page size to about half the current size rather than using an automated approach as a lot of the talk and commenting is driven by the emergence of new details/problems with RSes and other aperiodic events? The simple 1m (month?) automated approach could result in consensus problems and accuracy problems. Jmccormac (talk) 14:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

"The simple 1m (month?) automated approach could result in consensus problems and accuracy problems." Based on what evidence? I've replied to your similar question, on my talk page. Furthermore, the mid-point of this page, at the time of writing, is a discussion that was last edited in April 2015. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Based on what evidence? - BASED ON THE EVIDENCE THAT MULTIPLE PEOPLE KEEP TELLING YOU THE SAME THING. They don't LIKE or WANT automated archiving. You're completely inflexible and never stop, you're relentless on this page and others. -- GreenC 13:05, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence, rather than hearsay? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:31, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

In popular culture

The CBS Show section should not necessarily be part of his career but instead in a section titled "in popular culture" or "In Media" section. It is about him moreso than it is his "career." The show appears to depart from his actual life singificantly. It's also the source of marketing from CBS and actors like Elyes Gabel, who came up with the Homeland Security nugget. Thoughts?DavidWestT (talk) 15:58, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

So is this a revisitation of your proposal for the Walter O'Brien in Fiction or Fictional Character article (which would differentiate it from current article)? Gabel does not seem to be the source on DHS and that looks like a bit of revisionism to claim that he was the source. Jmccormac (talk) 17:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

He appears to be a source speaking on behalf of his employer CBS, though broadly it appears to be that the DHS fiction comes from CBS making the tv show modern and relevant. Viewers can relate to DHS, with it making headlines over the last decade. Either way DHS cannot possibly be accurate because it didn't exist, but all that does is discredit CBS as a source of the living WOB, as Green Cardemom pointed out. The origin of the DHS thread comes from CBS and percolates from the tv show. If and when we do mention DHS on the WOB page, we're realistically talking about Walter O'Brien, the fictional character played by Elyes Gabel.DavidWestT (talk) 20:51, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

And with that fiction goes a lot of things like the claimed IQ, the supposed hack on NASA, the "extradition waiver", the 400 Baud coupler/modem, the 2MB Autocad demo file being downloaded to a 64KB home computer without a hard drive and in an incompatible file format too, the Boston bombing claims where there are reports of O'Brien telling the journalists about analysing hundreds of hours of video footage to "help" FBI with identifying the perpetrators. (The Silicon Republic interview tried to spin that one even though there are previous interviews that disagree with the latest version.) Even the claim that O'Brien is a computer security expert is not supported by any reliable source. I think that Gabel was just repeating an earlier claim on the DHS (it would be necessary to go back through the timeline on the claims and the various publications to be certain). You can see the problem with the claims made by O'Brien, which are unsupported by any reliable source, being repeated by the entertainment media as part of the show's promotion, can't you? Perhaps your idea to split the article into a WOB article and a Fictional WOB article might be the best way of dealing with the reliability problems. Jmccormac (talk) 21:33, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

CBS-affiliated local television is most suspect because they have this incentive to promote the show and the fictional characters in the show. Every one loves a superhero. So CBS ran away with the Boston Bombing connection. In contrast, O'Brien the living appears to only suggest that (1) his company created some sort of useful software that is in use by the FBI, etc and (2) it's possible-- but by no means a certainty-- that it was used in relation to the BB. I agree with Green C here. And it's why I proposed a fictional WOB article. It's ok for CBS to create a fiction. That's what they do as a creative tv show production outfit. But the material that they create really has little to do with the living WOB other than that journalists seem to have fused the two, and that drifts over to our Wikipedia.

Second, we use the word "claims" for any unverifiable claims by O'Brien. We should continue to do so and not bias or editorialize. We've done a decent job so far of not doing that. For example, we really do not know whether he scored a 197 on an IQ test. None of us can say for certain, so we just say that's what he claims.

If you're on board with a fictional character page, then I am. And we can begin to assemble the many many sources on the show's character to segregate them out to a fictional WOB page and get them off of this living person page. Maybe ask Green C for additional input?DavidWestT (talk) 17:21, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

If you think there are enough sources for a fictional character go for it, I have no fundamental objection so long it meets notability. -- GreenC 17:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

FWIW - "maximum IQ" on an IQ test is set by the test maker. In elementary school, the usual test gets "pinned" at 130 - 135. Later tests get pinned at 140 for most tests, even though some folks insist 200 is "absolute max" (without any actual justification, of course). The definition of IQ does not posit any such maximum - the problems with high numbers is that a single question may mean a difference of ten points! The Guardian posits a Mensa max of 162 for the most widely used test for that organization. The simple fact is that any IQ of 140+ is pretty much the same as any higher IQ, having a cold may affect one's score, but does not usually affect one's actual intelligence <g>. Collect (talk) 12:48, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikidirectories

For example, lists a mere 40 hardware companies in california: http://www.wikidirectories.org/usa/california/computers-internet/hardware/

The site is frankly, complete garbage. I also just don't see it sourced anywhere else on Wikipedia for company values. Perhaps try ZoomInfo.DavidWestT (talk) 03:28, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Credibility

User:DavidWestT: the Credibility.com page for Scorpion says "Last edited 11-11-2015 by anonymous". On the same day, you added the Credibility.com website to this article. Note that sometime before 11-11-2015 the Credibility site said he had 1 employee, not 250, and earned $66,000, not $250 million. Did you make these changes at the same time you were adding Credibility.com to the article? -- GreenC 15:19, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

This looks like a lot of reputation management and some of the edits made to the article are puffery from an unreliable source (O'Brien's claims). I think that it may be necessary to revert a lot of these recent changes to the article and move any show related puffery to the TV show article. There are just too many issues where O'Brien's unsubstantitated claims are accepted by entertainment journalists and they have now become major problems (O'Brien's claims about the Boston Bombings, the DHS raid in Ireland when DHS didn't exist.) The suggestion earlier up the page to pear down the article to just the reliably sourced details may be a good one. Perhaps it might be a good thing to get some of the Admins to take a look at these edit patterns? Jmccormac (talk) 15:55, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Credibility.com is too easily edited. You can use the webarchive to pull the pre 11/11 version, or return the credibility.com entry back to its previous figures. We appear to create a "straw man" by saying 1 employee / 66k revs, and then saying the data is unverifiable, etc. Using the webarchive as it is now works fine.

The second issue and possible resolution is to move all of the entertainment-related press onto a fictional character page if we want to assume that all of that is really a discussion of the fictional character from the CBS show. The real-life O'Brien page would be pared down only to the verifiable facts: Ireland, the EB-11 Visa, the company, the show, personal life.DavidWestT (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I think if you just put all of the entertainment news on to the tv show page, the tv show page starts to cover two topics and not just the one.DavidWestT (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

O'Brien is not notable as an expert in Computer Security and there's no RS (Academic or Technological Sources) to back up the assertion. That Humanity blog/magazine thing is just the usual unsubstantiated puff piece based only on O'Brien's claims (it follows the usual PR blurb if you care to read it closely). It should not even be in the article as it is unreliable. What has emerged is a load of unreliable claims for which O'Brien is the sole source and a lot of promotion for the TV show which is swallowed without question or verification by entertainment journalists. It really isn't encyclopedia grade content. It is mere PR fluff. It is fine for the TV show as that's where that level of non-fact checked PR belongs. Even the claims of helping USG and various unnamed agencies and departments are all claims by O'Brien and/or CBS. Even the claims about his computer program alerting the US military to the threat to water supplies on US bases in AF is unreliable because US bases use their own supplies due to the unreliability and problems with local supplies. The stuff about O'Brien's claimed hack on NASA is highly dubious and that interview with Silicon Republic even recycled some of the stuff from Wikipedia's talk pages but since the size of the Autocad Shuttle file was not mentioned, O'Brien didn't realise that it was a relatively small file. (A 2MB file on a computer with only 64KB of ram and an audio tape or floppy disk storage creates a bit of a gallon in a coffee mug problem.) O'Brien's claims are inherently unreliable. The Boston Bombing stuff, which you were trying to clean up, shows the problems with claims on this article and why the dubious and badly sourced claims should be removed and where necessary, put in the TV show article where they belong. If it necessary to move all the stuff where O'Brien/CBS PR is the single source for the claims, then it should be done. Jmccormac (talk) 20:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)::

The problem is many sources state things as fact, and not as a O'Brien claim, so how do we tell the difference. A simple minded view many people take is that everything that is published is reliable. You and I know those journalists are recycling his claims and didn't do verification, but our opinion may not be enough for everyone. However, if we can show a journalist didn't do verification on a fact in an article we could toss the rest of the article as unreliable. It's just a lot of time and hard work going through each source, picking out provable reliability problems. Perhaps each source should have its own sub-page (eg. Talk:Walter O'Brien/Humanity Plus) where we can list problems and have discussions on reliability. And an index page (eg. Talk:Walter O'Brien/Index) with a table/matrix showing all the sources, link to the sub-pages and a summary of current consensus (keep or delete). -- GreenC 15:17, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Since the Boston Bombing stuff is now the subject of reputation management, then every source citing O'Brien's claims of helping the investigation is, theoretically, unreliable. A quick and nasty fix if it was to be applied. Anything that has O'Brien as the sole source for the claim and which is unverified by reliable third parties and otherwise not reliably sourced should be bounced to the TV show article. Maybe then it will be possible to build a decent article that doesn't look like a PR promotional profile for entertainment journalists. Jmccormac (talk) 17:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Well it looks like the article is being moved into line with reality. The 250 years of thinking in 90 minutes stuff (SecGen) is pure marketing hype. It is not really notable and has not been reviewed by any industry journals or publications. Therefore the Humanity magazine section seems like pure PR fluffery rather than a serious article and is based only on O'Brien's claims. Should it be included? The NSA claim seems to be being made to excuse the DHS "raid" in Ireland by an US LEA that did not exist at the time and had no jurisdiction in Ireland. There is a further inconsistency in that O'Brien was claiming to have prevented attacks on US military bases in Afghanistan by means of poisoning their water supplies. Now, in yet another entertainment press interview, that claim becomes a demonstration with the results being "presented" to some unnamed USN admirals. I'm not sure whether such a PR fluff section should be included in the article. Also, as O'Brien's main claim to fame is the TV show, is the section on the CBS show unnecessary duplication of the TV show article? Jmccormac (talk) 10:56, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Probably best to remove that Humanity magazine/blog section. It seems to be just recycling much of the same puffery covered in other references in the article. Jmccormac (talk) 12:59, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Removed the Humanity blog/magazine PR/marketing section. If there's a technological journal or academic journal RS for this software, then it should be added. Jmccormac (talk) 10:50, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

From a mathematical angle, claims of IQs over 163 are unassessible. No-one in the reference baseline group is at that level to compare them with, the highest is 163 - and I'm immediately self-declaring NPOV infraction, as I am likely one of the couple of people I'm talking about, so I'm not going to edit the meme, I'm asking one of the editors here to do so.

I joined the IQ baseline reference group when the UK Tavistock Institute extended testing to children in the 1960s, in a series of tests between 1963 and 1966, which resulted in an instruction that I could never be tested: although statistically relevant, that was also something of a crime against humanity in my regard, as I didn't have support others at that level received - they treated me like a can of beans, not a human being with a need to know and be provided for. Having been tested anyway aged 60, on the basis that me-now is a very different person from me-then, I scored 153-4, implying on an age countback that I would have been in the mid 160s at peak. Therefore, anyone claiming 190s as fact is making a claim which must be treated with great caution, the scaling is far less than enough to account for that. The hard reality is that although some historical geniuses have been assessed as probably approximately of that level, unless the individual has actually been formally panel-tested, then he cannot actiually make any such claim, legitimately. I do have a share in the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize as a pathfinder in Peacekeeping (check the full attribution), in reality, however please respect my desire to remain anonymous, as it also passes through my family to Ghandi (my mother was PA to the Indian High Commissioner Krishna Mennon in 1946-7), who I far more admire than I admire fame: we achieve what we achieve through humility, please respect that. If, and only if, Mr O'Brien can supply a formal panel test from a recognised group of qualified psychological professionals, then I would suggest this can be recognised, however until such time as that can be substantiated, I would stongly suggest that this claim is a radical breach of NPOV. I should also declare that I am two degrees removed from Mr O'Brien, the gentleman who knows us both also has sufficient background to contextualise me against his professional background and having got to know me well over a fairly short period affirmed that I'm cleverer. So although he may have a very high IQ, I'd frankly suggest that his claims are self-promotional, and that this meme should therefore be suspended until such time as he can substantiate them with proper documentary evidence supported by independent documentation from a referenced authority.

The limitation lies in the very assessment mechanism itself, it is designed to cover the vast bulk of humanity, not the outliers. It is possible someone could have that IQ if, and only if, someone trawled up randomly in the baseline testing comes in at that level or higher. It hasn't happened yet, and as there doesn't seem to be a mechanism for extending the reference group, then the tops may not be covered. To state such an IQ as fact rather than estimate is therefore fallacious, and suggests less than the desired level of probity. I was a senior officer of a UK FT-100 Company before moving into International Defence Diplomacy, where I was involved in a considerable number of very important projects: even in retirement a recent project had me working alongside the top technical specialists in a strategic field, including staff from Stephen Hawking's DAMTP in Cambridge, so as a practical measure of his hyperinflated self-importance, I'd seriously suggest I've done more, in the real world, than he has. Whereas historic personae could not be tested, the same does not apply with Mr O'Brien, and his failure to test means his IQ is unknown.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.219.67.181 (talk • contribs) 14:53, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

(as a side note, all posts should be signed with 4 tilde's like this: ~~~~. That way we know who you are. Thanks.) GreenC 14:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

The only source for the dubious IQ claim and the NASA hack claim is O'Brien. The NASA hack claim, based on the glaringly obvious technological flaws in O'Brien's various stories about it, seems to be without foundation. The IQ test thing seems to be based on another of O'Brien's claims. The inclusion of both and how they have been cited without any investigation by gullible entertainment journalists is a matter of record and the article reflects this. CBS has effectively sidelined O'Brien from the promotion of the show and this seemed to happen around the time many of these claims started to be questioned and investigated. Jmccormac (talk) 21:46, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

The Shifting Narrative (Gabel doubts over story.)?

Looks like this article Channel Ten drama Scorpion based on a true story that is a lie from News.com.au has Elyes Gabel mentioning doubts over the story: "But even Elyes Gabel, who plays O’Brien in the show, admits he has some concerns over the veracity of the story. He says that to find the character he had to push those doubts to one side and just accept O’Brien’s story as gospel." Not sure where this Gabel quotation originated but there does seem to be a bit of shift in the narrative taking place with the reputation management on the Boston Bombing claims and most recently this veracity quotation. The quotation above is very much Gabel talking about O'Brien and the problems of trying to create the fictional character. It is quite a departure from the original narrative. Where does this leave the Gabel quote in the Wikipedia article? Jmccormac (talk) 12:19, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I added this quote as it's relevant that someone who personally knows him and plays his real-life persona is raising doubts. -- GreenC 15:30, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Gabel is just more he said, she said. If we are discounting entertainment journalists then we would also discount entertainers. That said, with Humanity+ and the other positive articles wholesale removed, I've cleared the dispute flag.DavidWestT (talk) 17:43, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Gabel's POV is significant since he is the actor portraying the real-life O'Brien and presumably has more than a single interview worth of information but a close working relationship with O'Brien over years. -- GreenC 19:14, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

NDA from 1980s

O'Brien often claims he can't talk about many things due to NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). However it would be very unusual to have a perpetual term NDA, they almost always have term limits - for trade secrets 5 years is typical. A perpetual NDA would likely not hold up in court should one party choose to terminate it. There is lots of information on the web about NDA term limits. In particular O'Brien's supposed 1980s NASA hack, which is one of his pillars of fame, it would be in his interest to reveal information about that hack, and it would not matter one bit to NASA how or if he broke into a 1980s-era computer. But O'Brien keeps maintaining he is under a NDA from the 1980s. This is a weak story and it casts a long shadow on all his other NDA claims.

Also he will often say in one one source he can't talk about it due to NDA, and in another source reveal specific details of the thing he said can't talk about. He is inconsistent in his story. -- GreenC 15:13, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

There is also the problem of a minor, as O'Brien was at the time of the supposed hack, signing an NDA. Would such an NDA, if it existed and one party was a minor, be legally enforceable? And under what jurisdiction? The incorrect technical details of this supposed hack are really problematic when it comes to accepting the veracity of the hacking story. NDAs do seem to be a convenient way of avoiding having to provide details or answer any tricky questions. There's another aspect of the NDA: who was the other party? NSA? NASA? Professor Charles Xavier? The Cuckoo's Egg book has a good account of how difficult it was for Cliff Stoll to get any US government agency, let alone NSA, interested in the fact that various servers were being compromised. (These guys really did execute the hacks and there is a media, digital and print footprint.) However this hacking activity and the legal actions that resulted did make the media and one of the hackers, Markus Hess was convicted. Another hacker involved, Karl Koch (hacker), was found dead. The NDA is a classic TV trope. Whole TV series are based on the premise (Alias Smith and Jones etc). O'Brien's claimed NDA from the 1980s seems to have lasted longer than the Enigma secret. The NDA with parties unknown does seem to be a great way of getting out of answering tricky questions or providing genuine technical details. Of course, one could always ask NASA's press office for a comment. Jmccormac (talk) 16:27, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Has NASA (or anyone) commented or said "no comment"?DavidWestT (talk) 17:46, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps they are bound by NDA? The failure to follow up even the simplest of journalistic leads is a major problem with entertainment journalism especially when having to consider them as reliable sources. Jmccormac (talk) 18:13, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

All he has to do is show a copy of the NDA. That's not illegal. There are so many people who makes false claims like this - claim to be ex-CIA, former Special Forces, etc.. you can make a career out of it, many have. -- GreenC 18:14, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Would asking NASA for a comment constitute Original Research? Jmccormac (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

It's OK for talk page research on reliability of sources. However I don't think you'll get much of a response, and even if they say "no information", O'Brien can always claims the NDA was signed with a different unnamed government agency which, of course, he can't talk about because of NDA. -- GreenC 18:49, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

The NDA can't possibly exist, because O'Brian didn't hack anything, because Ireland didn't have internet yet. Ireland didn't get internet until 1991.--MandolinMagi (talk) 21:38, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

He dialed in over a voice line using a 400 baud modem to CompuServe in the UK. -- GreenC 22:18, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

The technological accuracy of that claim is problematic as the 400 Baud modem was a piece of hardware for a completely different home computer to the one O'Brien claimed to have used. The whole article has a history of problems with claims being made without supporting evidence and various sections having been rewritten as facts were pointed out on this talk page. The UK Compuserve thing only popped up after the extremely high cost of phone calls to the US and the quality of modem-based transatlantic connection quality were pointed out. Compuserve was a subscription based service. At various times, the claims about the arrest had the FBI, Homeland Security (which didn't exist at the time of the claimed hack) and then NSA doing the arrest. The problem was that none of them had powers of arrest in Ireland. Then it became the Gardai (Irish police) carrying out the arrest with the help of Interpol. Ireland did have the Internet back then but it was largely only available via third level educational institutions such as universities. It was only just beginning to become commercially available during 1991 but, much like phone calls to the UK, access was very expensive. As for the NDA, like so many of the claims, there is no supporting evidence.Jmccormac (talk) 01:22, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

According to what source?--MandolinMagi (talk) 09:41, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The sources keep changing as noted by Jmccormac, when holes in O'Brien's story appear new stories appear. He's like a magician continually changing form. -- GreenC 15:46, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

The only source for most of the claims is O'Brien. That is the major flaw with the article. The childhood IQ of 197, the claimed NASA hack and NDA, the claimed company that did not exist according to the Irish Companies Records Office, the Boston Bombers video analysis software development (a highly specialised field) are all claims made by O'Brien. The only claim that did check out was the one about being a member of a schools Mathematics Olympiad team. In Wikipedia terms, there are no reliable sources for O'Brien's other claims. The narrative in various interviews changed after material was posted here and on various news sites. One obvious shift was from the Department of Homeland Security to the FBI arresting him to the NSA arresting him to NSA arresting him via Interpol and the Gardai (Irish Police). The modem claim is equally problematic due to 400 Baud modems being only available for a specific US brand of home computer and it would not work with other home computers. In interviews, the claimed file size of the Autocad (CAD software) shuttle drawing is also odd. As a rule of thumb, the way to estimate download speeds on a relatively clean phoneline was to divide the baudrate by 10 to estimate how many bytes per second could be downloaded. The download speed, without compression, would be about 40 bytes a second. The claimed 2MB file would have been 2,097,152 bytes. That's approximately 52,429 seconds (2MB/40) needed for the download. In minutes, approximately 874. In hours, approximately 15 hours. The telephone connection issue is also a problem with Compuserve being active in the UK and a subscription-only service. Rural phone line quality at the time was not good. The Irish national phone company, at the time, was upgrading small local analogue exchanges to digital exchanges. Cliff Stoll, author of the Cuckoo's Egg, detailed how difficult it was to get US law enforcement agencies to take computer breaches seriously. The only source for the NDA claim is O'Brien. Other claims seem to draw heavily from the fictional and non-fictional hacker canon. The Reddit AMA session didn't quite go as planned and people who apparently knew O'Brien questioned the narrative and claims. The article is a highly problematic one for Wikipedia in that there are almost no reliable sources for the majority of O'Brien's claims (many of the cited newspaper sources were simply entertainment journalists recycling O'Brien's claims without question or understanding). O'Brien's singular claim to notability is being the producer of a TV show.Jmccormac (talk) 19:32, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Humanity + vs Gabel

What's the difference between the journalist at Humanity+, who said he saw the ScenGen source code, and Elyes Gabel, who opined on, essentially the CBS script? With Gabel, haven't we returned to the problem of CBS' story vs. what O'Brien has said?

I suggest we add back H+ (first person), or remove Gabel's statement (first person) to be consistent.DavidWestT (talk) 17:49, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

No. The Humanity article is just a marketing puff piece and merely seeing initials in some source code is no validation for the claims made for the program. It may look impressive to people unaware of Computer Science and buzzword bingo but it is not a reliable source. Gabel's interview is disussing the difficulties of developing a fictional character and explains the situation of having to accept everything that O'Brien said. They are two very different things. Gabel would have far more contact with O'Brien as he is supposed to be playing a fictional version. It is also the first time that anyone associated with the show has gone on the record mentioning doubts about the veracity of some of O'Brien's claims. That is quite significant. Jmccormac (talk) 18:19, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Anything claimed by O'Brien or filtered through him is not very reliable on its own, he makes many big unverifiable claims. This particular journalist piece is unusually candid in describing the course of the interview and over-emphasizing credibility checks but without verifying anything beyond a veneer that is easy to fake (a name in the source code). The journalist is not neutral but takes a personal tone, speaking highly of him personally even admiringly, it's not professional. Fake source code is easy to generate, and fake demos are easy to make. We still haven't seen independent evidence the software is real from reliable sources: customers, engineers, etc.. people with no personal connection to O'Brien, people who purchases it or reviewed it in a reliable source. That's not a high bar. O'Brien claims it's secret under NDA, but then makes statements elsewhere describing details of who uses it and how, claims of NDA make no sense. -- GreenC 19:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

There's an image from a Powerpoint presentation that O'Brien apparently sent to the head of Stratfor included Wikileaks that seems to show the output of the SecGen program. [6] This is the image according to Techdirt: [7]. The problem with including the Humanity+ article is that there is no RS on this program or its use. Jmccormac (talk) 19:33, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, it's filtered through O'Brien. It's not hard to write a program that gives appearances. Like a Hollywood movie set, props. -- GreenC 20:27, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

O'Brien claims he sets "land speed records"

[8]. -- GreenC 18:05, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

O'Brien claims he is developing artificial intelligence robots for the Boston Dynamics/Google BigDog.[9] -- GreenC 18:42, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

O'Brian claims "In Baghdad, Iraq, Scorpion Computer Services was able to detect someone planting an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) by using photography and GPS to find and retrieve the device."[10] What about the Non Disclosure Agreement he signed not to talk about work with the military? -- GreenC 18:46, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

One generally doesn't "retrieve" an IED. It is not like someone inconveniently lost it. Jmccormac (talk) 18:52, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

RS items the dispute flag

Issues I see, at most, are CBS' claims and any other unsubstantiated claims by O'Brien, so I'll remove those. Do we have consensus that we want to remove unsubstantiated claims? Or just remove those related to the Boston Bombing?DavidWestT (talk) 21:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Start cutting O'Brien's unsubstantiated claims and the article will be down to his DOB, a few other verified facts and the TV show. The supposed hack is unsubtantiated and O'Brien even made fundamental technological errors when interviewed. There was no Scorpion Computer Services company in Ireland. The Boston Bombing claims illustrate the way in which claims were spun and inflated. Now there seems to be a bit of reputation management going on so that these original claims are being retracted or considerably softened. There's also a section in the second Karlin article where a Computer Science professor was contacted about O'Brien's claims to have been invited to present at a conference. He was not and the professor said so on the record. It does speak to the inflation that has been a continual feature of many of the claims. It is one of the most problematic articles on Wikipedia. So do you want to take a chainsaw to the article? Jmccormac (talk) 23:05, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Green C was the first to remove the Boston Bombing section, since, per Green's claim, it was CBS marketing around the show. I'm somewhat indifferent to that particular section being on or off, but under policy it probably doesn't belong. What I don't agree with is that there isn't consensus on what this page should and shouldn't be. There is consensus and I don't see that there is a dispute among editors. The flag should go and be replaced with an unreliable source flag at the two sections that are at issue. And the next step is to carve out the unsubstantiated claims under WP:NOPV, IRS, and Verifiability.DavidWestT (talk) 01:23, 26 November 2015 (UTC) "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful." We could start with removing what is poorly sourced. So, what is left that is poorly sourced?DavidWestT (talk) 01:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

So which sections do you think should be dealt with first? The supposed hack? The Boston Bombing issue? The big problem is that O'Brien is the only source for most of the claims. The whole Boston Bombing thing seems to have backfired and it does look like a rather crass exploitation of a very sensitive issue. Jmccormac (talk) 01:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

news.com.au quote

Probably a BLP vio. Either way this sentence we've already discussed as an issue that came from Gabel: "And of course Homeland Security was formed as a result of the attack on the Twin Towers and didn’t exist when he was 13." I'm removing it given we established twice in the earlier sections that Gabel said "Homeland Security." No need to assign it to O'Brien.

Also poking around with the fictional character page. I'll share it soon.DavidWestT (talk) 16:45, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

The Fenton quote should remain. You also removed the sentence about O'Brien being the only source on this supposed NASA hack. Now if there was an NDA, it would prevent O'Brien talking about it.That's the whole point of Non-Disclosure Agreements. As a minor, it is unlikely O'Brien would have been able to legally sign it. The fact that O'Brien got so many crucial technical details wrong does indicate that, like the IQ claims and the Boston Bombing claims (O'Brien "helping the FBI" according to various media interviews), it is a highly problematic self-published claim (much like O'Brien's claim to have defined the Frame Problem despite it being defined before O'Brien was born by McCarthy and Hayes in a well cited 1969 paper.) and should not be included in Wikipedia. The Fenton quote illustrates the unreliability of these unverified self-published claims and is necessary. Jmccormac (talk) 18:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Where is the frame problem claim? I couldn't find it.DavidWestT (talk) 03:34, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

It was part of the article and was in O'Brien's CV on the SCS website and, I think, his Linkedin profile. The SCS site was considered a primary source and has been excluded from the article. Linkedin has also been deemed an unreliable source due to its self-publishing nature. It had been discussed previously in the Talk Page and the consensus had been reached about the use of SCS and Linkedin as Reliable Sources.

The "citation needed" tag for the computer security expert claim is important and has been restored. It is a claim of professional expertise and as such it would need a techological or academic RS. Otherwise it is just puffery. The problem with CNET is that it has distanced itself from the original gee-whizz claims in that clip and it is also part of CBS Interactive [11]. Jmccormac (talk) 11:10, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

J, see your talk page. I'd prefer Gabel's actual quote to news.com.au, rather than have Fenton's. We already have the quote from Fenton where he goes on to say "In reality..."

Elyes Gabel's actual quote: “That meant everything that he was saying I believe rather than kind of questioning,” he says. “That becomes a very dangerous, treacherous area if you don’t really fully commit or believe in what somebody is saying. So once I got rid of that, the balance became: ‘How do I make this guy? How do I create vulnerability in a character?” ”

DavidWestT (talk) 18:37, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Explained the context of the quote in my talk page. Fenton's lead-in to the Gabel quote establishes the context. Truncating the quote and taking out Fenton's lead-in makes it somewhat unclear if Gabel is talking about the fictional O'Brien or the real O'Brien. The full quote with Fenton's lead-in would be better as it establishes the context.

"But even Elyes Gabel, who plays O’Brien in the show, admits he has some concerns over the veracity of the story. He says that to find the character he had to push those doubts to one side and just accept O’Brien’s story as gospel.

“That meant everything that he was saying I believe rather than kind of questioning,” he says. “That becomes a very dangerous, treacherous area if you don’t really fully commit or believe in what somebody is saying. So once I got rid of that, the balance became: ‘How do I make this guy? How do I create vulnerability in a character?” ” "

By cutting Fenton's lead-in and taking out the "That meant" from Gabel's quote it seems that Gabel was just talking about the struggle of creating a fictional character and his backstory rather than believing all elements of the real O'Brien's life story without question. Without that qualifying lead-in, the second addition in the CBS Show section from the Ecumenical News International about the second series ("Gabel said about O'Brien that "he's out saving the world or talking to, you know, princes of Lichtenstein. So every now and again, I get the chance to talk to him and he'll call me up. And sometimes we talk about the show. Sometimes we talk about characters.") is worse and makes it look like the real O'Brien is being sidelined in favour of a fictional O'Brien. This seems a very different tone from the initial promotion of the show where O'Brien was centre-stage with the cast and producers. The momentum of the fictional O'Brien has been building so rapidly that it no longer seems necessary to have the real O'Brien interviewed or as part of the hype cycle for the show. Indeed as the Siliconrepublic interview showed, having O'Brien talking to the press can be counterproductive given that technologically clueful people read these interviews now and any technological error or inexactitude is likely to be spotted. I think that CBS has shifted from promoting the show using the real O'Brien (complete with media interviews) towards having the actors and producers promoting the show in the absence of the real O'Brien. This is going to make it far more difficult to distinguish the facts from the myth-making and Gabel's ENI quote above does seem somewhat tongue in cheek if not downright sarcastic. Your idea of a fictional O'Brien character article may become more necessary if CBS becomes more focused on the fictional O'Brien at the expense of the real O'Brien. Jmccormac (talk) 23:28, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok. But your latest edit deleted Gabel's actual quote:

“That meant everything that he was saying I believe rather than kind of questioning,” he says. “That becomes a very dangerous, treacherous area if you don’t really fully commit or believe in what somebody is saying. So once I got rid of that, the balance became: ‘How do I make this guy? How do I create vulnerability in a character?”

Can you add that back in?

Also what's the final word on the RS of Silicon Republic? It is RS, correct? And Kennedy, the journalist behind those articles, is a technology journalist, correct? He seems legit:

Editor John Kennedy is an award-winning technology journalist. He joined Silicon Republic in 2002 to become the fulcrum of the company’s news service He was recipient of the Irish Internet Association’s NetVisionary Technology Journalist Award 2005 and Siliconrepublic.com has been awarded ‘Best Technology Site’ at the Irish Web Awards seven times. In 2011 he received the David Manley Award commending him for his dedication to covering entrepreneurs. DavidWestT (talk) 04:42, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I've no problem with the lead-in and full quote being added as the lead-in puts the quote in context. Will do it later if necessary. As for Siliconrepublic, most technology journalists in Ireland have no specialist technological expertise or background in STEM. As has been explained above, most of the stuff that these sites publish every day is press release recycling with a few interviews and sourced stories. Kennedy's interview with O'Brien and his failure to ask the right questions would work against Siliconrepublic being a reliable source on this. To put that 400 Baud modem thing in perspective, it would be like a lawyer confusing Torts with Contracts and citing Criminal cases instead of stating Admiralty law. As for the IIA's tj award, I think it was continually sponsored by a public relations company. Kennedy has no expertise in computer security and the subject of computer hacking. Thus the 400 Baud modem thing and other stuff went right on by him. Any technology journalist with knowledge of computer security and telecommunications would have spotted it straight away because it is so glaringly wrong. As an RS on computer security claims -- especially O'Brien's claims -- it is no more reliable than the Astrology section of a daily newspaper unless it is directly quoting a known expert on the subject. Kennedy is not an expert on the subject and he obviously accepted O'Brien's claims at face value. That unquestioning acceptance of O'Brien's unsubstantiated claims does seem to be a recurring problem with the article and coverage. Kennedy is quite good on covering the startup scene and entrepreneurs. However this is not a startup article. Jmccormac (talk) 16:01, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

After some research I think we should concede that it was possible to connect to Compuserve at 400 baud for a brief time due to first hand reports from other users who say they did so. There was a time prior to 1200 baud when a few mfg released 400 and 450 baud modems, which Compuserve supported (eg. Microbits Peripheral Products MPP 1000C and the MPP 1000E). This is new information to me and rather obscure. There was a lot of proprietary modem equipment back then that allowed for higher speeds if it was the same equipment on both ends. Possibly it wasn't actually 400 baud but due to a compression algorithm but they called it 400 baud for marketing reasons. -- GreenC 16:57, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Green, what are your conclusions? That it is possible that Walter O'Brien could have hacked with a connection to Compuserve @400 baud? What is the impact on John Kennedy's articles on O'Brien, and on John Kennedy's reliability and Silicon Republic's reliability as a source?DavidWestT (talk) 17:26, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I saw some posts where people said they figured out Compuserve was using a certain brand of modem and if they used the same brand they could set it so it would connect at higher baud because the modem brand supported it. Re the article, it says in the title it is an "Interview" and in fact he is quoted extensively so it's more akin to a primary source than a fact checked piece of journalism. I know in AfDs we don't normally consider articles which are interviews, where most of the text is verbatim quotes by the subject, to be signs of notability on primary source grounds. Is there any indication the journalist did verification and is not simply cribbing OB's quotes? -- GreenC 17:46, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The modem apparently connected to the Atari joystick port and required a cartridge (EPROM/PROM) from some of the accounts I've read. This creates another problem. The supposed hack was executed on an Amstrad CPC. They were different home computers. The use of Compuserve in the UK seems extremely odd unless it was someone trying to create a backstory and who didn't realise that Ireland (the Republic of Ireland) and the UK are two different countries. Compuserve was a pay per connection service which meant that in addition to paying for the phone call, the user was also paying a per hour charge and extra charges for other services. On probability, the Compuserve thing seems to be another pickup from Wikipedia. This is the relevant section in the Compuserve article: "In the late 1980s, it was possible to log into CompuServe via worldwide X.25 packet switching networks, which bridged onto CompuServe's existing US based network. Gradually it introduced its own direct dialup access network in many countries, a more economical solution. With its network expansion, CompuServe also extended the marketing of its commercial services, opening branches in London and Munich.". What this means is that it was possible to connect to Compuserve via the X.25 packet switching networks (this was how the hackers in the Cliff Stoll book typically connected) and that subsequently, Compuserve introduced local dial-up numbers in the UK and Germany. It also had a Dublin dial-up number in the early and mid 1990s but the rise of the ISPs in Ireland reduced the usefulness of Compuserve. The X.25 networks were quite different to Compuserve and some of the other services of the time. Basically, you would connect to a local X.25 service and then connect to another server/service. The sign-up fee for Compuserve was approximately 25 Pounds and it had a per hour charge of 7.50 Pounds. With the local X.25 service, the connection charge per hour to a US service was approximately 8.70 Pounds and there was a segment (approximately 0 to 64 characters/bytes) rate of about 0.60 Pounds. Compuserve also required a creditcard for billing purposes. So there is the incompatible technology, the iffy phoneline quality, the "connection" to Compuserve in the UK despite being in rural Ireland (a different country), the costs, the creditcard requirement, the phone charges, the per hour charges and the data charges to consider. And those 400 Baud connections were on US lines to a US service. Telecom_Éireann in Ireland was still converting some of its older analogue exchanges to digital and that didn't finish until the 1990s.

As Green Cardamom pointed out above, it is an interview. There's no indication that Kennedy did any verification of O'Brien's claims. Hacking isn't just about connecting to a service or server. All that gets you is a "trophy page". Getting beyond the login is where "hacking" is done. Connecting to an open, publically accessible FTP server isn't hacking. The Autocad shuttle DWG file came free with all copies of Autocad. The mistakes on the file size were also quite telling. So Kennedy, on the basis of probabilities, just unquestioningly recycled O'Brien's claims like all those other journalists. Things had gone a bit pear-shaped with the initial dog and pony show promoting the TV series and this interview with Siliconrepublic seemed to be an attempt to undo some of the mess caused when the IQ claims, the 2600 employees, the Boston Bombing investigation and other origin myth claims were analysed and found to be based solely on O'Brien's claims. However the Siliconrepublic interview (which seems to have broadly coincided with Series 2 of the TV show) seems to have made the things worse. Even the TV critic in the Irish Times followed up with a far more satirical and cynical review of the programme and O'Brien's claims. ( [12] ) Jmccormac (talk) 22:47, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if he was using that modem brand, it may have been another brand, was an example of how brands could connect at 400 or 450 baud. He could have been dialing long distance direct via phreaking which was a popular technique back then, I had friends who dialed BBSs around the world for free that way (from the US). X25 forgot about that. Anyway, hacking the long distance phone networks back then was doable, though it could get you trouble if caught. -- GreenC 01:52, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

They were early days for consumer modems and some manufacturers tried to squeeze as much bandwidth as possible out of their products. Some like US Robotics eventually developed its own compression algorithms (HST). Phreaking was known about but tricky in Ireland as the system was transitioning from a combination of analogue exchanges and digital exchanges to a purely digital system. Most of the phreaking that would have occurred at the time was voice orientated rather than data orientated. The main problem was still line quality. Going into a US BBS from Ireland at the time was tricky because the call could have been routed via the satellite links rather than the trans-atlantic cable links and the quality on satellite connections at times could take the Baud rate down to about 19 Baud or less if the connection even held. Some of the later modems were able to dynamically retrain for variable line quality. X.25 was probably the best and easiest way of going into distant sites. BIX and Compuserve were accessible via X.25. The fact that Compuserve was thrown into the mix rather than the a local access point would be another point in the favour of a created backstory. In the questioned (I think that a disclaimer over the veracity of the claims made in the interview was subsequently added) CNET interview, O'Brien mentioned Arpanet. So this makes it slightly more complex than simply connecting to a BBS. Jmccormac (talk) 11:03, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

ENI quote directly from CBS promo piece. (No Gabel interview by EN.)

The Ecumenical News quote from Gabel seems to be a recycling of this [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scorpion-stars-step-up-action-comedy-for-season-2/ ] CBS promotional article for Season 2 of Scorpion. There was no Ecumenical News interview with Gabel and the quote is a direct lift from the CBS promo piece. Interestingly the real O'Brien has been cut from the CBS promotional video. Jmccormac (talk) 00:23, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Changed the link to reflect this reality and removed the ENI recycle of the quotes from the CBS promotion piece. Jmccormac (talk) 03:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Computer expert / computer security expert

J, in the interest of continuing a clean up we could:

1. Resolve that CNET and Houston Chronicle among others are reliable sources on the issue of whether Walter O'Brien is a computer security expert.

2. Change it to, as I did, just "computer expert", which is broader.

3. Remove "computer security expert entirely from the first sentence.

Thoughts?

Anyone else want to weigh in on what to do? Anyone else want to opine as to whether CNET and Houston Chronicle tech reporter, and their editors, qualify for RS?DavidWestT (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The problem with claiming to be a computer security expert is that one generally has to be able to back up the claim. This is typically done with a recognised industry qualification or graduate degree and/or a cited body of work. This is an article from Computer Weekly detailing some of the qualifications [[13]] Changing it to "computer expert" almost makes it worse because Computing covers such a broad set of expertise including Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics. Information technologist is probably ok as it is broad enough and accurate enough. I think that CNET is owned by CBS and thus has a potential conflict of interest. It also added a disclaimer to the interview with O'Brien after questions were raised in the media about his claims. (Don't think that O'Brien was subsequently quoted or used as a source for a CNET article afterwards.) Jmccormac (talk) 06:42, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

How about "computer scientist" or "artificial intelligence expert", since he holds degrees in both from Sussex? Any other thoughts?DavidWestT (talk) 21:19, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Information technologist would cover that without being too controversial and would it would be supported by the current sources. Best to keep away from the use of the word "expert" without any RS to back it up. Jmccormac (talk) 21:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll update it.DavidWestT (talk) 00:27, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

SCS is already linked as an external link hence the delinking at the top. The PR puffery isn't really necessary. (Press releases are not typically considered RSes.) Jmccormac (talk) 00:42, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

removing primary source material

Thoughts on removing the primary source material on IQ? We're persistent about having the flag. So if we're going to flag the page for clean up, we might as well get the clean up underway.

I thought this would be one place to start:

O'Brien has stated he scored a 197[1] on an IQ test administered by one of his teachers in primary school[5] but did not keep the paperwork.[6] If accurate, it would make O'Brien's the fourth highest IQ ever recorded.[7] TechDirt and The Irish Times said that O'Brien's 197 IQ score from childhood does not mean his intelligence exceeds that of other adults because scoring is scaled based on age.[4][5] Mike Masnick noted that of all the "top IQ" lists available online, each one is different and none contain O'Brien's name.[4] Susan Karlin questioned why, since O'Brien uses his IQ score as part of his self-marketing, he did not retake the test through Mensa where it would be officially published.[6]

All primary source material above and no secondary or tertiary sources exist, so we should remove it. Want to weigh in on removing it?DavidWestT (talk) 22:31, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

See earlier discussions. Different IQ tests have different values, there is no such thing as a specific "197 IQ" in the first place at all. Second, there are no records anywhere of "highest IQ" as each test has had its needle "pinned" by a number of people. Mensa's test does not even go up to 200 <g>. And I am one of a great number who have "pinned the needle" on at least one IQ test in school. So much for the imagination of Mr. O'Brien who communicated with a federal agency which did not exist when he interacted with it <g>. Collect (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Looks like an attempt at reputation management. O'Brien's claims were covered in various RS media sources and investigated. These RS are worth maintaining. There's been an attempt to downplay or remove any problematic stuff about O'Brien, (The Boston Bombing investigation claims etc.) Removing the IQ stuff and its subsequent coverage by the media seems to be a follow on of that. The big problem with this article is that most of O'Brien's claims are PS (IQ, the NASA "hacking", Boston Bombing investigation, helping out with the bank software/computers etc) and even the company stuff is dodgy apart from the only verifiable record of the Califorian company foundation date. Start chopping all PS stuff and the article is going to be reduced to Name, DOB, education, the show and very little else. Apart from the TV show, it is the coverage of his claims by RS media that gives him notability. Jmccormac (talk) 00:10, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Subject of speculation in the press or questioned/challenged? Which is more accurate?

The phrase "subject of speculation in the press" is a bit clumsy as a number of the claims made by O'Brien (the $1.9 Trillion USD managed, the $204 billion Dollars venture capital fund, the Scorpion HQ which is actually an image of a German glass company, the unrecorded IQ test etc (covered in the Fastcompany/Techdirt articles)) have been debunked or shown to be exaggerations. Would it be accurate to change it to say that the authenticity of some of his claims has been questioned (or challenged) in the press? Jmccormac (talk) 01:17, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

"Investigation". The press is not really speculating they are investigating the facts, which is what a journalist should do by definition. -- GreenC 03:08, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Well the press did debunk some of the claims but this is a BLP so there is a diplomatic angle. Some of the facts turned out to be different to the claim and the persistent reputation management of the article is a problem when it comes to overall accuracy. If a claim is debunked in the press, it is not speculation. This is the problem. Some of O'Brien's claims, and especially those for which he is the only source, have been shown to be, on investigation, somewhat economical with the truth. The hard part is finding a balanced phrase. Jmccormac (talk) 02:59, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

The latest primary source interview was added by 172.58.25.228, a T-Mobile in LA, home of O'Brien and the company. However, I don't believe it is O'Brien because he is such an expert hacker he wouldn't make the rookie mistake to allow his IP to be seen. -- GreenC 16:09, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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TV Overmind

The TV Overmind source first sentence reads:

"“My name is Walter O’Brien. I have the fourth highest IQ ever recorded: 197. ” These words might seem made-up to some, but it’s actually true." (emphasis added)

There has never been evidence it is true. This is just another non-journalism PR fluff piece with Walter O'Brien as the sole source telling stories - a tabloid. Everything else in the TV Overmind article is going to be equally unreliable. Is it true O'Brien was beat up and that's how he got his name? Did the writer do any sort of background check, or verification of this claim? Did he interview classmates/teachers to check it out? Is tvovermind.com known for journalistic integrity and verification and editorial oversite? The vast majority of sources on the Internet are not reliable. -- GreenC 18:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

This PR fluffing is going on a bit. The IQ thing has been dealt with conclusively. This is meant to be an encyclopedia article but it is being treated as a PR site with every bit of PR being shoved into the article without any verification of the provenance or accuracy of the source. Jmccormac (talk) 18:48, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

GiBaCon

On August 26, 2015, a Scorpion Press Release [14] said that it had a client called GiBaCon. The GiBaCon.us domain name was registered August 23, just 3 days before the Press Release.[15] It was only registered for 1 year. The GiBaCon website[16] is an empty shell of stock pictures, easily put together. The Press Release said they would have a product by the end of 2015, there is no product as of May 2016. The founder is someone named Bastian Yotta, a shady character [17] who claims to be rich but numerous sites debunk his wealth and call him a liar. Another O'Brien-like figure who makes fabulous claims that don't add up. -- GreenC 02:58, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

As of April 2017, the GiBaCon no longer exists and the much vaunted 139 million dollar Press Release revealed for what it really was: nothing. -- GreenC 17:12, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

There's a definite pattern of such PR claims being made, added to the article and then the claims being subsequently shown to be less important than they were made out to be or, in some cases like the supposed NASA hack and the IQ claim, to have been completely self-originated and without any supporting evidence. In the case of the supposed NASA hack, key elements of what a hack would have involved are either missing or completely wrong. Any self-originated claim is therefore highly problematic for Wikipedia given the way that the entertainment media recycles such claims without any fact checking. Even this sentence "The authenticity of his claims has been the subject of speculation in the press." is not accurate in that where the claims were checked in the media, they often did not stand up. This isn't "speculation". Even O'Brien's "involvement" in the Boston Bombers investigation has been largely removed from the article in what appears to be reputation management but many of the media citations in the article still include the claims of involvement. Perhaps some sections of the article need to be edited to deal with the problem of self-originated claims with no supporting evidence? Jmccormac (talk) 17:31, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

unite4:humanity award

This text and source was recently added:

Walter O'Brien became the youngest person to be awarded the Unite 4 Humanity Humanitarian Lifetime Achievement award.<ref name = kilkenny>{{cite web | url = http://kclr96fm.com/kilkenny-man-becomes-youngest-person-awarded-humanitarian-lifetime-achievement-award/ | title = Kilkenny man becomes youngest person to be awarded Humanitarian Lifetime Achievement Award | publisher = KLCR | accessdate = 15 April 2017}}</ref>

After some research I was planning on rewriting it as follows:

In 2017, O'Brien was presented with the Celebrity ICON Humanitarian Lifetime Achievement at the fourth annual unite4:humanity awards. The award is given to entertainment celebrities.

However, curious about the "youngest" claim, I did some research and found he is the only recipient of the "Humanitarian Lifetime Achievement award" in the history of the award (4 years) so the claim of "youngest" is misleading and clearly meant to puff up O'Briens importance. Where did this "youngest" claim originate? A Press Release by Walter O'Brien. How surprising. Thus any source that uses the "youngest" claim is originating with the O'Brien Press Release and is not reliable. Once those sources are elimited.. I can't find any reliable independent sources. If some decent independent sources appear that are not cribbing O'Brien's Press Release maybe we can use them. -- GreenC 17:09, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Cleaning up a PR viral

I'm cleaning up things about this article, which looks to have been vastly inflated (possibly to generate viral marketing)

• Removed highlight mention of "Scorpion Computer Services", which (per LinkedIn) is a boutique consulting shop with 19 employees. Source: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/307071/
• From various accounts, it seems clear that all the claims reported (high IQ) are completely bogus
• This guy should be known for the TV show and for the history of bogus claims, not for being CEO of a company which employs a couple dozen people. Any typical grocery store would employ more people, and wouldn't warrant this article.

Mineralè (talk) 05:30, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

So do you propose to limit the Careers section? Apart from the TV show, he is a non-notable individual with no notable achievements in the IT security field or Computer Science and some of his claims like the ones about the IQ, NASA hack that never was, his association with the Boston Bombing investigations (which was reputation managed to make it seem that the earlier claims of direct involvement were far less substantial though the CBS Boston interview has O'Brien on record ("O’Brien says he used video forensics to sort through hundreds of hours of footage from Boylston Street in the aftermath of the Marathon bombings. He says that helped the FBI focus on the Tsarnaev brothers. “Image recognition systems which would be what they used for the Boston bombers to detect suspicious behavior or when someone behaves differently than everyone else,” he says." boston.cbslocal.com/2014/10/06/real-life-scorpion-helped-id-boston-marathon-bombing-suspects/ )), the $204 billion venture fund, the company with $1.3 billion in revenue and 2600 employees in 20 countries, the picture of the Scorpion HQ building complete with logo which turned out to be the HQ building of a glass company, the claim of having been invited to present at a Limerick University conference on AI when he was only invited to attend, didn't really stand up to independent scrutiny by journalists and those in related industries. It is a highly problematic article and most of the PR fluff from the media is from entertainment journalists recycling press releases without proper fact checking. Even CBS seems to be sidelining O'Brien's appearances at various events in favour of the cast of the TV show. The career section is periodically fluffed up with links that on subsequent inspection seem to have their genesis in press releases from O'Brien. Take away the TV show and the debunked claims and notability quickly disappears. Jmccormac (talk) 20:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

This BLP page violates BLP Policies.

90% or so of the main article biography page has been written by persons with a negative view of O'Brien and they have slanted the entire biography. It does not unslant it to throw in a dozen or more "alledgedlys".

This page should be a biography, not a simply criticism of O'Brien. It conflates fictional "claims" made as part of a Hollywood TV show, claims made by others about O'Brien, and autobiographical claims of O'Brien himself.

Editors have taken exception to rumors, stories, fiction, and vague verbal claims and filled this biography page with their personal research and "debunking". None of that belongs on an encyclopedic biography of living persons page. In short, it reads like a Hollywood scandal sheet.

KipHansen (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Does conciergeup.com exist as a company or is it just Scorpion Computer Services? How should the article deal with this?

Does conciergeup.com exist as a company/corporation/business? I've looked at the California state business entities website ( http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/ ) and it shows an entry for Scorpion Computer Services, Inc. (C3228216 SCORPION COMPUTER SERVICES, INC. ) which was established in 2009 and lists Walter O'Brien as chief executive officer (CEO), secretary and chief financial officer. The document also has a director named WALTER ORIEN with the same address as Walter O'Brien. This migh be a typographical error. The latest document filed is signed by Walter O'Brien with the title 'president'. The Concierge Up site is apparently "the public-facing arm of Scorpion Computer Services, Inc" according to the SCS website. So SCS is legally (excluding the possible typographical error) a one man corporation according to the official California state business records and Concierge Up doesn't exist in the California state records as a business entity. This causes problems for the article in that it is unclear if this is just SCS or a separate business. Any ideas on how to deal with the confusion? Jmccormac (talk) 03:15, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

The website says "ConciergeUp is a service". It's not unusual, indeed normal, for companies to have branded service/product names that are different from the owning company name. If ConciergeUp is not registered as a company it seems safe it's a service of SCS. -- GreenC 03:30, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

If it is just a service, then the article can be edited to show this. It seems another one of those PR claims that just doesn't stand up on closer inspection. Jmccormac (talk) 03:57, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Langford & Carmichael

O'Brien is "Chief Scientist". What do we know about the company? I looked at the website and it only mentions two people, Linda Clark and O'Brien. There isn't much evidence of dynamic/changing web content. The company address is a post office box, there is no physical office. The business registration records give a residential address not far away. There is a good thread on this at Techdirt here. Since it does public contracts which must be disclosed, we know they have booked a total of $2500 in work. The company looks very unimpressive to be titled "Chief Scientist" when there are no scientists (O'Brien is not), and the company doesn't do science it's basically one woman's home-based consultancy. -- GreenC 15:36, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

There is a Zoominfo report of 12 employees and a $2.4M turnover. Other than that, the initials of the corporation are the same as those of the owner. The title of "chief scientist" sounds impressive. Technically, as a Computer Science graduate, O'Brien may call himself a 'scientist'. Buzzfile shows two employees and annual sales of $160K. Buzzfile estimates that Scorpion Computer Services, Inc has one employee and annual sales of $134,859. It is difficult to determine exact details without a proper credit check but this is just Wikipedia. Jmccormac (talk) 16:38, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Interesting about L M nice catch. A company with annual sales of $134,859 can't be the same company described in the PR and marketing literature it's too little. Wonder how much his salary from NBC is and who the check is made out to, to him or his company. -- GreenC 17:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

There is a problem for Wikipedia in relying on such open sources for information but there is a possibility that they may be right. O'Brien was a major part of the TV show marketing from CBS initially (2014ish) and as the initial claims were challenged and refuted, CBS seemed to begin promoting the cast of the show moreso than O'Brien. The Reddit AMA was a bit of a disaster, as was the attempted association with the investigation of the Boston Bombing, and the marketing promotion for subsequent series did seem to focus almost completely on the show and the cast. In cynical terms, the fictional Walter O'Brien, for CBS, became more important than the actual Walter O'Brien. The problem for the article is that primary sourced claims from O'Brien have been very problematic and some have been refuted or been found to be exaggerations (eg: O'Brien's claiming to have been invited to present at a Computer Science seminar which, when Susan Karlin contacted the professor who was supposed to have invited O'Brien to present, turned out to have merely been an invitation to attend.) If the Buzzfile data is correct, then there may be no real-life SCS as portayed in the series. It also highlights the problematic nature of primary source claims in relation to this article. Again, the claim of O'Brien's employment with L&C is a primary source claim but it might be acceptable. Jmccormac (talk) 12:12, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Jordon French, Walter O'Brien and Wikipedia paid editing

I was curious who does O'Brien's marketing (writes Press Releases) like this one. It's Jordon French who runs various ventures.[18] He was also mentioned in the article "Inside The Sleazy World Of Reputation Management, Where People Pay To Control What You See On The Internet" in connection to his involvement with paid editing of Wikipedia. Jordan was/is the CEO of Wiki-PR which was involved in a major scandal in recent Wikipedia history. Interesting connections and not surprising. As the Business Insider piece says:

There is an entire industry dedicated to making bad things on the Internet quietly disappear and making promotional, good things about a person or a company look totally legitimate, even when they're just PR spin.

Sounds familiar. -- GreenC 12:29, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

It does explain the reputation management that seemed to be happening in the article as the Boston Bombing claims and others were examined by the media. Even the spurious "facts" added about the NASA hacking event are somewhat questionable to people in the IT security field and especially so to people with experience of Irish telecoms and computing at the time. The big Shuttle drawing file story seems to have self-combusted along with the FBI raid which became an NSA raid/visit via Interpol despite the law enforcement agency tasked with dealing with computer crimes at the time being the US Secret Service. Interpol was thrown into the mix after it was mentioned here and elsewhere. It seemed like the story was changing as facts that highlighted its flaws were posted on the web. Perhaps a lot of what seem to be reputation management edits need to be reexamined in light of the Wiki-PR situation? Curiously, O'Brien turn up in Wikileaks as the result of the Stratfor leaks where he is making a pitch to Stratfor (https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/57/578474_george-we-should-talk-.html) for his Secgen software. There's a biography that mentions his time at Capital Group (2002-2009) (https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/attach/50/50360_Walter_OBrien_Press_Background.pdf )and Powerpoint pitch from O'Brien which has a biography that makes no mention of the NASA hacking event. Jmccormac (talk) 16:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps a lot of what seem to be reputation management edits need to be reexamined in light of the Wiki-PR situation? .. There were some editors here in the past who might need a closer look since we know there is a Wiki-PR connection. Not accusing anyone but should look for SPAs, SPIs and blocked accounts. Great find on Stratfor and his resume. -- GreenC 17:43, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

This is one of the problematic claims: "O’Brien says he used video forensics to sort through hundreds of hours of footage from Boylston Street in the aftermath of the Marathon bombings. He says that helped the FBI focus on the Tsarnaev brothers. “Image recognition systems which would be what they used for the Boston bombers to detect suspicious behavior or when someone behaves differently than everyone else,” he says."

The journalist has the claim, apparently by O'Brien, that he used video forensics and implied that this "helped" the FBI with its investigation. A direct quote, again apparently from O'Brien, uses terms that distance himself from the actual investigation. An investigation, especially one involving capital crimes, would have to document everything and all contributions for any court cases.

O'Brien was asked, in an Irish TV interview, if the events actually happened as portrayed. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmQMGxjur_8 ). It wasn't exactly a resounding confirmation.

CBS appears to have distanced itself from O'Brien since Series 1 of the show. The promotional appearances on various primetime programmes seem to have stopped and the focus, where CBS is promoting the show, now concentrates on the cast. The media mentions of O'Brien have followed a similar path from top tier mainstream media to blogs and entertainment publications that run press releases. It is as if notability, in the case of this article, is fleeting and the only thing for which O'Brien is notable is his association with the TV show. Many of the other claims have not stood up to media scrutiny. Jmccormac (talk) 18:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Does this article need a comment on the quality of O'Brien's technical advice to the show ?

Does the sentence "For his part in story development O'Brien consults with series writers on technical aspects of the plot, including how he would solve problems presented in the show's scripts" need an addition or a follow-up about the quality of his "consultation" For these "technical aspects of the plot" are a known weak point of the show and are often addressed in reviews of the show. Otter3 (talk) 09:20, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps a sentence and a link to a reliable source or two on the scientific weaknesses of the show in the CBS Show part of the article might be OK. It would balance the sentences about where the writers ask O'Brien how he would solve various problems. Jmccormac (talk) 10:47, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm OK with it also. This addition by Otter3 was reverted but I don't see much of an issue as it encapsulates the problem by an authoritative source. -- GreenC 13:21, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Have reverted the reversion as it was a balancing sentence with an RS. The reliable source in this case seems quite solid. Jmccormac (talk) 13:25, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

How does such a dubious discuss tag work if the user who added it isn't contributing to the discussion? Otter3 (talk) 08:32, 27 November 2017 (UTC):::

Normally when adding tags like {{dubious}} it would include a |reason= or talk page discussion so other editors can take action to address the concern, the purpose of tagging. -- GreenC 15:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

The "reasoning" included zero connection to any policy or guideline, and thus was inaptly used for several months without any attempt at discussion. I fear it was placed there solely for implying that the claim was incorrectly stated, which is an improper use of that tag.Collect (talk) 13:31, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Scorpion TV show cancelled

According to Variety, the Scorpion show has been cancelled. (http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/scorpion-canceled-cbs-1202808407/). Does the article need to be edited as this seems to have been O'Brien's only claim to notability? Jmccormac (talk) 01:19, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

It should be updated to reflect the cancelation. And any news as to why. Notability doesn't expire so it wouldn't change notable topic. -- GreenC 02:40, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

The tenses for some of the sentences have to be changed to reflect the cancellation. From reading the reports of the viewer figures, it seems that it was losing viewers and was shifted from a primetime slot. The promotion of the show seemed to have removed O'Brien from the various press conferences and promotional appearances after the first season. There's an article on the show so some of those stats might belong there rather than in this article. Jmccormac (talk) 04:31, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Some proposed changes

Information to be added or removed: It is given point-wise below. I have done a thorough research and have tried to be as structured as possible. Also, I am being transparent here and have disclosed my paid editing above.

Explanation of the issue: Neutralizing the page according to WP:NPOV.

1. Please change the lead paragraph

From	to	Explanation
Walter O'Brien (born 24 February 1975) is an Irish businessman and information technologist. He was also the executive producer and loose inspiration of the television series Scorpion. He is known for various self-reported claims including a childhood IQ of 197 which have been scrutinized.	Walter O'Brien (born 24 February 1975) is an Irish businessman and information technologist. He is the founder and CEO of Scorpion Computer Services, a California-based information technology company. He is also known as the executive producer and inspiration of the American television series Scorpion. He is one of the recipient of unite4:humanity's 2017 Humanitarian Lifetime Achievement award. According to media reports, O'Brien had a childhood IQ of 197 which is not validated.	Please add more information to the lead from the body of the article, as per WP:MOSLEAD, which states that the lead should identify the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight.

2. Please add a sub-heading/sub-section in the 'Career' section about the company he owns

Scorpion Computer Services

O'Brien founded Scorpion Computer Services in 1988. He brought the business with him after graduating from college and moving to the United States in the late 1990s. Scorpion Computer Services was started as an IT consulting service that expanded into security and risk management services; and later into artificial intelligence. In 2014, O'Brien re-organized his company as a think tank for high IQ individuals. The company provides services to government, military and Fortune 1000 companies. According to Jane's report, the U.S. Army used Scorpion Computer Services' artificial intelligence tool, ScenGen, on its unmanned aerial systems.

O'Brien also created ConciergeUp.com, an extensive service platform of Scorpion Computer Services to help businesses and individuals financially. He also started a company called Scorpion Studios, which consults TV and major motion picture studios on technical realism.

3. Please change the 'Accuracy of biography' section to 'Evaluation of claims'

From	to	Explanation
In 2014, CNET, Techdirt, and Fast Company evaluated CBS' claims about O'Brien's accomplishments, widely reported in the media, following questions to Fast Company. The Irish Times said that "it is impossible to substantiate some claims." In a follow-up interview with Susan Karlin of Fast Company, O'Brien answered some of Karlin's questions but said that he was bound by non-disclosure agreements. Karlin wrote that some community edited business directories showed O'Brien's company was much smaller than the 2,600 employees and $1.3 billion in revenues stated in Karlin's original article. For example, in 2014 an anonymous editor on Credibility.com recorded Scorpion Computer Services as having 1 employee with annual revenue of $66,000. Karlin points out that community edited business directories data may be unreliable, and O'Brien stated that most of the company consists of independent contractors who work remotely. In a News.com.au interview of Elyes Gabel, the actor who plays the fictional O'Brien in the TV show, the reporter Andrew Fenton says: "But even Elyes Gabel, who plays O'Brien in the show, admits he has some concerns over the veracity of the story. He says that to find the character he had to push those doubts to one side and just accept O'Brien's story as gospel." "That meant everything that he was saying I believe rather than kind of questioning," he says. "That becomes a very dangerous, treacherous area if you don't really fully commit or believe in what somebody is saying. So once I got rid of that, the balance became: 'How do I make this guy? How do I create vulnerability in a character?" Fenton goes on to say: In reality many of O'Brien's claims don't stack up. He says he didn't keep the paperwork showing he scored 197 on an IQ test in primary school — but even if it were true, scores are scaled with age, meaning a high score as a child doesn't reflect his intelligence as an adult. He hasn't taken an official Mensa-approved test since. There's also no evidence of the NASA hack and O'Brien can't provide further details claiming he signed a non-disclosure agreement. And of course Homeland Security was formed as a result of the attack on the Twin Towers and didn't exist when he was 13.	In 2014, media stories by Fast Company, CNET and Techdirt were evaluated by IT, hacker, and computer enthusiast communities for claims on O’Brien’s accomplishments. In the original article, the journalist of the Fast Company story, Susan Karlin, wrote that some community edited business directories showed O'Brien's company was much smaller than the actual 2,600 employees and $1.3 billion in revenues. She did a follow-up interview with O'Brien to clarify the claims, in which he answered some of her questions but, for others, he said that he was bound by non-disclosure agreements. Karlin further explained that community edited business directories data may be unreliable, and O'Brien stated that most of the companies consists of independent contractors who work remotely. For instance, an anonymous editor on an unregulated website, Credibility.com recorded Scorpion Computer Services as having 1 employee with annual revenue of $66,000. Other news stories including The Irish Times story mentioned "it is impossible to substantiate some claims"; while a News.com.au interview of Elyes Gabel by reporter Andrew Fenton evaluates O'Brien's childhood IQ score, noting that he hasn't taken an official Mensa-approved test since; and probes the deal with NASA after he hacked their systems.	The section is not written as per the encyclopedic format and was skewed. I have retained all the points of this section, just written it differently to comply with WP:MoS and WP:NPOV. I am also proposing removal of pin-pointing content to make the section more neutral.

I am hoping this will be fairly reviewed and considered independently. Thank you. --173.161.185.57 (talk) 23:04, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

References

It looks like reputation management with problematic aspects such as CBS/Techdirt/Fortune etc investigating O'Brien's claims being changed to a much softer format. The computer security community were quite vociferous about O'Brien's lack of accomplishments and his claims. Fortune/Karlin had to run a second article addressing some of the questions raised by the first article. CBS also mentioned the dispute. Techdirt investigated O'Brien's claims and found them to be highly problematic. The issue with the IQ claim (again, being reputation managed by the rewrite) is that the only source for the claim is O'Brien. The media didn't make the claim. O'Brien made it. The same applies to O'Brien's hack on NASA. The only source for that claim is O'Brien. The FBI and the US Secret Service do not have jurisdiction in Ireland. The Department of Homeland Security did not exist when O'Brien, according to himself, hacked NASA. The 2600 employees is a rather interesting number. The 2600 Hertz tone was used in the US for phreaking and is the name of a famous hacker newsletter. The $1.3 billion investment fund claim never made it into Wikipedia though the $66K revenue mentioned by the business directories was somewhat less than that. Even the technological claims (the computer type varies and the modem Baud rates are problematic) about the NASA hack don't really stack up either. The Irish telephone network was, at the time, being converted from analog to digital and the line quality and connectivity in many rural Irish areas was poor. The cost of phone calls to the US, at the time, was extremely expensive (around 2 Pounds/Punts a minute and would generally have been routed via a satellite connection. Satellite connections for dialup modems, at the time, encountered serious echo problems and the data rate even for a 2400 Baud connection would easily collapse to single digit Baud rates if they didn't drop the connection. The Irish national telecommunications company, Telecom Eireann, only had 2400 Baud connections available on its packet switched network and charged by the byte/packet and minute. There are no reliable sources on O'Brien's hack. It is simply O'Brien's claim being repeated by the entertainment media. That alone makes the claim extremely problematic. Apart from the TV show, O'Brien's companies are not otherwise notable. The rewrites are attempts to soften or remove negative aspects and push some of the sources that query O'Brien's claims out of the main body of the article leaving only mentions in the references. The only source for the claim of O'Brien's childhood IQ of 197 is O'Brien. There are no independent sources. The only source for the claim of O'Brien's NASA hack is simply O'Brien. There are no independent sources. O'Brien's claim about NSA acting via Interpol investigating his hack of NASA, as told to the Silicon Republic website, only appeared after it was pointed out here on Wikipedia that FBI did not deal with hacks. O'Brien's claims about his childhood IQ and his NASA hack are self-reported and without any supporting sources. Apart from the fundamental problems with the article, this reputation management rewrite adds a new layer of superficial ones. Jmccormac (talk) 01:14, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

It concerns me the paid editor is an IP account instead of an established username. According to WP:PE: "global policy requires that (if applicable) you must provide links on your user-page to all active accounts on external websites through which you advertise, solicit or obtain paid editing". Since this is an IP account, there is no stable user-page to track the editor's activity and reputation. This is further complicated by the known professional relationship between Walter O'Brien and Jordon French the CEO of Wiki-PR (discussed in section above). Anyway, some of the proposed edits are improvements, some are debatable and some are obfuscation. -- GreenC 04:02, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Langford & Carmichael

This section is for discussing the recent removed of this content as example here Special:Diff/1068909766/1068919267. -- GreenC 01:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• Hippo43. I'm here every day for 14 years. This has been in my watchlist for probably 10 years. Day in and out. The content you are removing has been in place uncontested for many years. I mention this because simply deleting it on this January day is not going to make it stick, you need to get consensus. The sources are primary and secondary, both are acceptable on Wikipedia. It does not require a secondary source to include a basic fact like where a person works. The secondary source concerns the company to help readers better gauge what kind of company it is. Even if you disagree, I'd ask you keep it in place until there is consensus to remove it, it has been there a long time and your proposal for deletion is new. -- GreenC 01:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Alright changing my mind on this. Only because it's Walter O'Brien and you can't trust anything he says, or those around him say. It has been shown time and again things don't add up with his claims. His name is at the L&C website, but the company is difficult to source. I found one source that says it's a shopping and errand service now. Who knows. -- GreenC 01:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it's pretty simple. I got caught up in the detail and missed the key point. It doesn't matter what kind of company it is. WO'B working there is not referenced to a reliable source, and it shouldn't be in the article.

Also, I have been here for over 16 years, so I must be right. // Hippo43 (talk) 02:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Primary sources usually have nothing to do with reliability, except in this case because it's WOB. You can't edit war your way to making something stick. Nothing to do with being right. ("I mention this because simply deleting it on this January day is not going to make it stick, you need to get consensus"). -- GreenC 02:51, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The company does have a footprint which indicates that it is accredited for the system of awards of US government contracts. Zoominfo shows it as having two employees. There seems to be the basis for a timeline with WO'B working for a financial services company (commentary from former workmates on various articles), Langford and Carmichael and then the Scorpion Studios company. The financial services company details are anecdotal rather than RS. The article itself is a highly problematic one due to many of the sources being merely entertainment journalists recycling O'Brien's claims. Even that Janes defence mention looks more like a recycled press release than a verified news story. There was a lot of editing that downplayed the claims about O'Brien's involvement with the detection of the Boston bombers. The video clip from a local TV affiliate channel linked in the article makes the claim that was later removed from the article in what appeared to be reputation management. L&C is, according to the an open site that covers USG contracts is veteran owned but WO'B is not a veteran or listed as the primary contact. Some of the facts from the article's talk page had a habit of ending up in subsequent interviews. The NSA/Interpol one being an example. Jmccormac (talk) 02:57, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

GreenC Primary sources have a lot to do with reliability. From WP:RSPRIMARY "Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. Although they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred."

It might be useful to include something like "several of O'Brien's lies appear on the website of Langford & Carmichael, which appears to be a small business." // Hippo43 (talk) 03:29, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Recent edit

Special:Diff/1232690298/1232809977 - I had to revert this because it's unsourced but the poster makes some good points that are worth exploring. -- GreenC 21:32, 5 July 2024 (UTC)