Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/QuantumTHEO/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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This started over at COIN, with two users who are in a content dispute accusing each other of COI. Both suggested that each other are operating multiple accounts, either IP or named. To be honest I cannot be bothered to wade through the walls of text there and would not have filed this except for one item. One of the two users in the dispute, Spirandola, just made a declaration on their user page about hub2307 and quantumTHEO: "These two users are a relative and a close colleague of mine. Both experts in my same field and watching similar pages. Sometimes they may share my IP address." So three users on the same IP who have an interest in the same Quantum physics articles. Seems worth investigating via checkuser.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 02:35, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * report from SPI quantumTHEO
 * Note to clerk another user has filed an SPI for Spirandola here. quantumTHEO is the master here, and the other SPI only adds an IP. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 05:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure if this is anylonger necessary, but I did request checkusr on the named accounts. got lost when the SPI reports were merged.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * report from SPI Spirandola

The user User:Spirandola has outed himself as Stefano Pirandola on the page Talk:Quantum_radar, where there is a WP:COI going on regarding his status as a WP:Paid editor, due to his research grant conflicting with his promotion of quantum radar as something beyond speculative technology. There is a discussion of those issues here: Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard, the main problem being that the page quantum radar had caused an uproar in the US intelligence and military communities, since it was indicated that this non-existent technology would be able to detect the presence of stealth bombers. The concern now is that the user User:Spirandola has repeatedly used the accounts User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 as sockpuppets, as well as the IP address mentioned above, to modify the page quantum radar many times, in order to emphasize and promote his own research on the topic. By investigating the various diffs available at Special:Contributions/QuantumTHEO, it is clear that QuantumTHEO has used Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting the research work of Stefano Pirandola, as well as creating BLPs. By investigating the various diffs available at Special:Contributions/Hub2307, it is clear that Hub2307 has used Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting the research work of Stefano Pirandola, as well as creating BLPs. These accounts have also gone into various pages of Wikipedia and deleted my contributions in several places. In the discussion at Talk:Quantum_radar, Stefano Pirandola has also indicated that he intends to incorporate meatpuppets in the future to modify the quantum radar page to agree with his viewpoints. Update: The user User:Spirandola has now updated his page to indicate that the accounts User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 are closely linked to him. For years, these accounts were used as sockpuppets to promote Stefano Pirandola, in the form of creating BLPs and promoting his research as a WP:Paid editor (see discussion at Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard). The issue still remains that these accounts are now meatpuppets used for the same purpose as they previously were. Mwilde (talk) 03:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''
 * Note to clerk Not sure which came first, but I also filed three of the Spirandola-related accounts here. The master is QuantumTHEO. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 04:59, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * As explained above, User:Spirandola created a user page on 19 July 2020 openly declaring 2 other accounts that have edited with a shared IP. The first account used was QuantumTHEO, then hub2307 and then Spirandula. This could be meatpuppetry. The edits are infrequent, but sometimes on the same articles. A stub was rewritten from scratch here in 2015. In 2018 the first two accounts tried unsuccessfully to create a BLP . Mathsci (talk) 06:37, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I made one comment on WP:COIN. I looked at 4 articles:
 * Quantum cryptography is a mainstream article: QT and H edit successively on 7 June citing one of SP's 2017 paper.
 * Quantum illumination covers the area of expertise with SP and his collaborators and is a stub with not many edits. There are several edits by QT and H, most importantly in 2018. H and QT revert IP edits of MW three times, two of which they describe in the edit summaries as "vandalism".
 * Quantum radar is in the area of expertise of SP and collaborators. It is of stub length with not many edits. Wxcluding edits aftee July (which only involve SP, his IPs and MW), there was a rewrite by QT in 2015 then by QT in 2018  with innocuous minor assistance by H.
 * Quantum information is a mainstream article where many editors contribute. In 2018 QT changed some IP posts of MW Afterwards QH reverted with the edit summary Changed my mind. Probably it is best to give more exposition to a relatively junior author.
 * I have added these comments after being pinged by Camayi. Camayi's summary is correct. Matters became problematic on 18 July with a dispute about evaluating academic literature on quantum computing in wikipedia articles. Mathsci (talk) 15:43, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

This is surprising. Let me go thorugh the points raised by user outed as Mark Wilde.

1) "The user User:Spirandola ...on the page Talk:Quantum_radar, where there is a WP:COI going on regarding his status as a WP:Paid editor, due to his research grant conflicting with his promotion of quantum radar as something beyond speculative technology"

There is no speculative technology. Experimental implementations are currently done by several groups. For instance, see:

Quantum technologies in general are not speculative. There is ongoing research. In particular, quantum sensing is one of the most rapidly emerging area.

The Wikipedia pages on quantum illumination and quantum radar report references that are foundational papers and widely recognized by the wider scientific community, beyond these attempts by Mark Wilde to discredit these research with false statements. As one can check from the GS scholar page https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bV8llfkAAAAJ&hl=en the papers discussed in the quantum illumination and quantum radar pages are those that 1) created these protocols and 2) are the most cited in the area. Specifically:

Quantum illumination with Gaussian states Si-Hui Tan, Baris I Erkmen, Vittorio Giovannetti, Saikat Guha, Seth Lloyd, Lorenzo Maccone, Stefano Pirandola, Jeffrey H Shapiro Physical review letters 101 (25), 253601 (2008)

--Cited 340 times

Microwave quantum illumination Shabir Barzanjeh, Saikat Guha, Christian Weedbrook, David Vitali, Jeffrey H Shapiro, Stefano Pirandola Physical review letters 114 (8), 080503 (2015)

--Cited 239 times

Advances in photonic quantum sensing S Pirandola, BR Bardhan, T Gehring, C Weedbrook, S Lloyd Nature Photonics 12 (12), 724-733 (2018)

--Cited 115 times

The same Mark Wilde knows very well these papers since he has closely followed them and wrote follow-up studies, such as the following:

Gaussian hypothesis testing and quantum illumination MM Wilde, M Tomamichel, S Lloyd, M Berta Physical Review Letters 119 (12), 120501

Not sure what is going on here.

2) "...the main problem being that the page quantum radar had caused an uproar in the US intelligence and military communities, since it was indicated that this non-existent technology would be able to detect the presence of stealth bombers."

I do not think that the page quantum radar had caused an uproar in the US intelligence and military. This is independent from the page and is mainly due to media hype that is around. Media reports about the use of quantum illumination for target detection were published already in 2009. See https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-entanglement/ The scientific papers presented in the Wikipedia page are clear, honest and precise about the technical achievements. My research work has established the limitations of this technology, showing that such long-range applications are not possible with current quantum setups. By contrast short-range applications are feasible and need further exploration, especially for biomedical applications. In these two days, my editing of the page was done to remove the media hyping from the page, after a discussion I had about it in a workshop a few days ago. It is exactly the opposite stated here. It is also important to stress that we can reach these conclusions only now, after experiments have demonstrated that the range of application is short. In fact, I wrote the following on the page:

Current experimental designs seem to be limited to very short ranges, of the order of one meter,

3) "The concern now is that the user User:Spirandola has repeatedly used the accounts User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 as sockpuppets, as well as the IP address mentioned above, to modify the page quantum radar many times, in order to emphasize and promote his own research on the topic. By investigating the various diffs available at Special:Contributions/QuantumTHEO, it is clear that QuantumTHEO has used Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting the research work of Stefano Pirandola, as well as creating BLPs. By investigating the various diffs available at Special:Contributions/Hub2307, it is clear that Hub2307 has used Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting the research work of Stefano Pirandola, as well as creating BLPs."

These two accounts have been used by other two people working in the field (one is a close relative and the other is a colleague, both sharing my office). They are both experts in quantum technologies, and specifically quantum sensing. This is why they are interested in this topic. For privacy I can't reveal their identities. One of them was explicitly invited to clean and improve the page on quantum illumination by Maury Markowitz. See the user talk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:QuantumTHEO Following this invitation User:QuantumTHEO has improved the page of quantum illumination and quantum radar.

4) "These accounts have also gone into various pages of Wikipedia and deleted my contributions in several places."

Looking at what happened, they have actually re-inserted contributions that were deleted by.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=819126295 reverting a cancellation by using 2600:1700:a20:19e0:4462:29eb:c7c2:7943

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=861001922 reverting a cancellation by using 185.129.147.195

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=836514451 reverting a cancellation by using 104.58.44.156

These IP addresses were covertly used by.

5) "In the discussion at Talk:Quantum_radar, Stefano Pirandola has also indicated that he intends to incorporate meatpuppets in the future to modify the quantum radar page to agree with his viewpoints."

This is completely false. There is no such claim or statement anywhere.

6) "Update: The user User:Spirandola has now updated his page to indicate that the accounts User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 are closely linked to him. For years, these accounts were used as sockpuppets to promote Stefano Pirandola, in the form of creating BLPs and promoting his research as a WP:Paid editor (see discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#quantum_radar). The issue still remains that these accounts are now meatpuppets used for the same purpose as they previously were."

These are two colleagues (one of whom is a relative) closely following my research. Since they share my facilities (PCs and office) since several years, I connected them to my account that I created a couple of days ago. In any case, there is no promotion of speculative research and there is no financial gain on my side from the Wikipedia page. I am not a paid editor.

7) I think that an investigation is instead necessary for the user . Over the years he has covertly promoted his book "Quantum Information Theory" on Wikipedia and deleted papers of mine from Wikipedia pages. He has been doing this by logging out to make edits as an IP address.

i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2600:1700:A20:19E0:4462:29EB:C7C2:7943

From this address :

- covertly added his group at Lousiana state university to the page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_information&diff=prev&oldid=818528557

- deleted my name from the Quantum Illumination page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=818528271

- deleted a paper of mine from the Quantum discord page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_discord&diff=prev&oldid=818526596

- deleted another paper of mine from the Quantum Illumination page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=818526139

- Moved his book "Quantum Information Theory" to the top of the references https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_information&diff=prev&oldid=818525947

ii) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/104.58.44.156

From this other IP address :

- removed again a paper from the Quantum Illumination page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=836436737

- Made other edits around my name in the other two contributions

This IP 104.58.44.156 is from Baton Rouge, Lousiana where he usually lives and works.

iii) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/185.129.147.195

From this other IP address : - Again moved his book "Quantum Information Theory" to the top of the references https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_information&diff=prev&oldid=859628546 - Removed a paper of mine from the Quantum Illumination page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_illumination&diff=prev&oldid=859627532

This IP 185.129.147.195 is from Warsaw Poland and it was used only on the 15th of September 2018. In those days, he was visiting the University of Warsaw to give a talk (see list of speakers here https://qloc2018.cent.uw.edu.pl/)

It does seem necessary to begin a WP:SPI. From the relevant page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry) we read that: "Editors who use unlinked alternative accounts, or who edit as an IP address editor separate from their account, should carefully avoid any crossover on articles or topics because even innocuous activities such as copy editing, wikifying, or linking might be considered sockpuppetry in some cases and innocuous intentions will not usually serve as an excuse."Spirandola (talk) 06:37, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

As suggested by Wikipedia I linked them to my page user. I do not want to disclose their identity publicly. However, I can give details confidentially by email. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spirandola (talk • contribs) 09:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Since they use my same connection, they may appear with the same IP, which is why I linked them to my new account. One of them directly uses my workstation: quantumTHEO. hub2307 is not that active.Spirandola (talk) 09:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Dear Cabayi, many thx for your help. I am rather exhausted by this fierce and direct attack by. For this reason I have decided to remove all the references where my name appears in the bibliography of the page. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_radar&diff=968428521&oldid=968364080 The discussion of the page is OK and not compromised, but suitable modifications need to be done to this page, that is, people need to understand what are the correct references to be added and possibly to modify the structure of the page, which is still in its infancy in my opinion. I hope that the community will take care of this page and the user will stop harassing its contributors. Contrary to claims made against me, I do not need to sponsor or promote anything of my research on this page.

Another main point is that believes that the research on quantum radar is purely theoretical, ignoring a couple of proof-of-principle experiments recently done (besides the fact that there have been already many experiments on quantum lidar/optical quantum illumination, that I also contributed to develop). Quantum radar (and lidar) are currently debated, which is why I would call them a "debated" technology more than a "speculative" technology. The ideas are still very open and a lot of experimental research is in progress. The situation is not that far from what is happening in quantum computing, where the actual advantages are currently being investigated and understood. The field is theoretical, but important experimental steps have been already done.

Another point is that I have been trying to reduce the hype present in the page which is coming from the exaggerated media coverage on the topic: journalists have completely misunderstood the potential applications of this debated technology. While this was not clear to us in the past (and perhaps some of us, founders, were partly responsible for this enthusiasm), today the situation is very different and the limitations are much clearer. So I wanted to be clear that, *if* applications will be developed, they will be short-range (e.g., for biomedical scanning or short-range security). While I was doing these modifications, I have been accused to foster the hype (?!), practically the opposite of what I was doing! I was also accused of being a paid editor, because I have an EU grant on topics of quantum sensing that include topics of quantum radar/lidar. I made clear that *no* paper funded by this grant has been added *by me* to the page! This was already clarified in the discussion Conflict of interest/Noticeboard.Spirandola (talk) 10:50, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking into all of this. From what I can tell, you have the right picture on this. My concern with sockpuppetry has been the accounts User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 using Wikipedia for the sole and exclusive purpose of promoting Stefano Pirandola and his works for the past 5 years and the past 2 years, respectively. This was taking place at the quantum radar page, as is clear from Special:Contributions/QuantumTHEO. At the same time, these users have repeatedly gone to various wikipedia pages to delete references to my textbook, as can be found at Special:Contributions/QuantumTHEO and Special:Contributions/Hub2307. I do not think this behavior of deleting references to my book is constructive in any way or benefits the community reading wikipedia. Let me stress that these deletions have occurred even for pages such as this one that I played a significant role in starting myself. In this case, I taught a course at McGill University in 2011 and as a final course project made it a requirement that students generate wikipedia pages on quantum information theory. Naturally, since the students were following my textbook, they cited it as a key reference. Since I was the instructor and they were students, I went into these pages to edit them into a more acceptable form []. Again, I do not think these actions of User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 are constructive in any way.


 * I think it is a good step that Spirandola has finally registered a userpage on wikipedia and the accounts User:QuantumTHEO and User:Hub2307 are linked to him. This is helpful for transparency on wikipedia. Regarding the quantum radar page, I find it impossible that the edits to these pages would not have been produced without direct guidance from Spirandola himself. The various edits listed at Special:Contributions/QuantumTHEO require detailed knowledge that only Spirandola himself would have had (such as the fact that the paper was "in press" and about to be published in this diff []). It suggests that many of the claims of Spirandola throughout the discussion at Talk:quantum radar have been at best misleading and at worst downright lying.


 * Spirandola has now started claims of sockpuppetry against me at Talk:quantum radar. These accusations have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of quantum radar or the discussion taking place and IMO should be moved somewhere else (for example, a WP:SPI could be started against me by Spirandola if desired).


 * Let me finally add that it is not clear to me whether it is productive now for Spirandola to have eliminated all of his references at the quantum radar page. Indeed, it is clear that some works of his are significant for this topic. So some of them should be added back in at some point. It is not clear whether I am the right person to do this since Spirandola had previously suggested that I had a WP:COI for the quantum radar page. It is also not clea whether Spirandola should do it, due to his paid editing conflict. So perhaps a neutral party could go in and add some of them back. Mwilde (talk) 13:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I think that wrong information keeps coming from Mwilde. From their contributions we can see that Special:Contributions/QuantumTHEO did not delete his book but suitably re-ordered it in the bibliography where they where more authorative books and reviews. Covertly, Mwilde moved it back using an IP address. Special:Contributions/Hub2307 replaced his book with a more appropriate one for that page, the seminal Nielsen and Chuang's book on quantum information which is the standard reference in the field, with about 40K citations; so I think that this made an excellent contribution to the readers. It is clear that my connection with these users, especially User:QuantumTHEO who is a close relative of mine *and expert in the field of quantum sensing and communication* lead them to correct some of the attempts made by Mwilde to promote his book or to delete references that are relevant for this specific field. Unfortunately, I see that the false claim of paid editing keeps going on, with no reason. That being said, this is my last message to Mwilde regarding this matter because the arguments are just repeating over and over again.Spirandola (talk) 13:52, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I personally consider the sockpuppet issues associated with Spirandola, QuantumTHEO and Hub2307 now to be closed because the relations are disclosed at Spirandola. There are possibly other IP addresses that Spirandola has used to manipulate Wikipedia pages but I don't consider it worthwhile to investigate these. I have reasons to dispute the points raised in the final message of Spirandola above, but they are irrelevant to the issue at hand. Mwilde (talk) 15:42, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Dear, in all these discussions, my name has been made explicitly public ("The user Spirandola, possibly the same person as the researcher ...."). Because there are a number of false accusations associated with my account and my name (in terms of manipulation of Wikipedia pages, fostering stealth bombers technology, being paid for edits etc...) I would like to request the complete deletion of all this information from the various Wikipedia pages: Talk:Quantum_radar, Sockpuppet investigations/quantumTHEO, User talk:Spirandola, Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard. I think that erasing this information might also be very beneficial for user Mwilde. Would also like to have my account Spirandola, and the other two accounts QuantumTHEO and Hub2307 to be closed and all the information about their edits deleted from Wikipedia. There is also a high risk that the identity of young researcher is going to be exposed, and this might strongly affect their career. Please let me know how to proceed and if I need to involve legal advice. Thx.

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * , most of your post, copied from Conflict of interest/Noticeboard is completely irrelevant to the question of sockpuppetry. However, you state
 * Please explain what you mean by "I connected them to my account". Cabayi (talk) 06:44, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Please explain what you mean by "I connected them to my account". Cabayi (talk) 06:44, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * OK, Spirandola declared a connection to them on their userpage. That's good. It read as if Spirandola had given them access to their account which would be bad.
 * I haven't had much time free to look deeply but it looks at first glance that and  were editing in the same area with two points of overlap:
 * on Quantum radar in July 2018 with a 3 day gap between them - QT, Hub - which is innocuous; and
 * on Quantum cryptography in June 2020 where after editing gaps of 8 and 20 months repectively Hub and QT edited within 40 minutes of each other. QT's edit cites a paper by  later confirmed to be.
 * Up to this point I can see two editors working in the same area, occasionally discussing (offline) their Wiki contributions with each other and refining them. Nothing that quite transgresses WP:MEAT but a bit too close for comfort.
 * Then on 18 July Spirandola registers and starts editing, getting into a conflict with at Quantum radar, Talk:Quantum radar and Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. Is that broadly everybody's take on what's happened? Ping...,, , , , , please reply in the appropriate sections above.
 * Mwilde & Spirandola, you could both do with reading WP:REFSPAM and WP:SELFCITE. Cabayi (talk) 10:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)


 * No substantial evidence, and a lot of posturing and edit warring between Spirandola & Mwilde which has spilt over onto too many pages and consumed too much energy. Closing with a heartfelt "Meh!". Cabayi (talk) 08:48, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, , not sure if it matters, but the three are perfect CU matches. Drmies (talk) 23:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You're calling them Template:Confirmed, right? If so, I will go ahead and issue Hub2307 a block & warn QuantumTHEO. -- The SandDoctor Talk 23:08, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * User:TheSandDoctor, the bullshit is layered so thickly in this SPI and on Spirandoli's talk that I'll be happy to let you make the call. There's talk of them being colleagues? I choose not to believe that, so yes, I'm OK with blocks etc. BTW I'm doing this in response to an unblock request on Spirandoli's talk page; I wasn't even aware of an SPI when I ran CU. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 23:11, 16 August 2020 (UTC)