Failed Hoax

January 24, 2007 By: erik Category: Geeky, Musings 722 views

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Two days ago, I thought I’d run a quick internet experiment to see if I could get a fake article, clearly marked as a hoax, into the mainstream blogosphere.

It received 7 diggs, and for a while this morning was the first result on a google search for “iphone sue”, outranking valid articles about the Cisco lawsuit from the BBC and other legitimate sources.

Unfortunately, no one felt compelled to pass my story along as legit. Oh well. It was a nice experiment.

	Makers of "ipHone" sue Apple
	Back in 2001, a small start-up in North Carolina, called Mage Web Development, began developing an algorithm, similar to that of traceroute, to locate the fastest path across the internet between two IP addresses. They called it “IP Hone” and they registered the trademark “ipHone”. Legal experts say that this lawsuit could be much more [...]

Paul

You still might get a rise out of Cisco, like maybe a suit.
http://www.erik-rasmussen.com/ erik

Darn. I forgot to raise that point in my blog entry. Surely, if my hoax had actually generated some publicity (c’mon, “Ted Thomas, the Trademark Tycooon”???) and the stock price was actually affected, I would be liable. Surely, the SEC would prosecute me for slander or something, despite the fact that AAPL is the only stock I own (bought at 49, baby!). That was the most interesting idea that occurred to me throughout the whole thing.

At least the “ipHone == traceroute” was pretty geekilicious.
Uncle Steve

Wasn’t that rather a ‘lose-lose’ proposition there Nephew?

Either you lose: your libelous statements are ignored in disregard.

Or, you lose: your libelous statements are heeded and they damage others and you become liable.

But then again, you’re too hard to touch over there in the Old Country, aren’t you?
http://www.erik-rasmussen.com/ erik
At the time, it seemed like there was a “win” hidden in there between the two losses. Two “win” scenarios, actually:
1. “And more about the bombs in Iraq at 11. In strange internet news today, a blogger by the name of Erik Rasmussen initiated a rumor, clearly marked as false, that spread around the internet and was reported by Reuters and the BBC as fact.”
2. Four other bloggers write about it, linking to me. 16 bloggers write about it linking to the other four. Etc. etc. until no one remembers where the original story came from, and I have something to brag about to my grandkids.
But yes, pretty dumb in all.