Prank Busters - The Art of the Prank

October 30, 2009December 15, 2023

Gang Initiation Hoax

Hartford Police Say Gang Initiation Threat was Hoax
WWLP.com
29 October 2009

police_lights_-200 Hartford, Conn. (AP) — Hartford Police Chief Daryl Roberts says a reported gang initiation that threatened to kill 140 women was a hoax.

The threats were made in recent e-mails, text messages and Internet postings and put many in the city on edge. Parents whose children received the messages called police, and there were reports of people being afraid to go outside Wednesday.

Roberts says he wants to assure the public that police investigated and found no credibility to the messages. But he says the department’s intelligence division will continue to monitor the situation.

Police in other parts of the country say the same messages have turned up in their cities, but they also believe it’s just a hoax.

October 15, 2009December 15, 2023

Snopes.com Gets an ‘A’

Fact-checking the fact-checkers: Snopes.com gets an ‘A’
by Paul McNamara
NetworkWorld.com
April 13, 2009

blog-buzz-snopes-200 What’s your first thought when someone spreads an e-mail around the office claiming that Oprah is giving away a million bucks or that your penny-pinching state will no longer send out reminders about driver’s license renewals?

Right: Better check Snopes.com to see if these things are true. (The first is not; the second is indeed, if you, like me, live in Massachusetts.)

Established in 1995, Snopes has long been the go-to site for running a rumor through the BS-detector, and its proprietors, David and Barbara Mikkelson, have assumed an almost mythic stature as the most authoritative discoverers of truth and falsity online.

But who’s checking the fact checkers?

Last Friday it was a similar but more narrowly focused outfit, FactCheck.org, which is funded by the Annenberg Foundation and describes itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit ‘consumer advocate’ for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.” (Why not try something easier first, like say peace in the Middle East?)

Here’s the essence of a chain e-mail that FactCheck.org decided to fact check: Is Snopes.com run by a “very Democratic” duo who long hid their true identities, rarely do any real research, and blatantly fabricated a tale about a State Farm Insurance agent just because he publicly opposed the election of President Obama? Continue reading “Snopes.com Gets an ‘A’”

June 13, 2008January 15, 2019

Obama Campaign Fights the Smears

Campaign: Michelle Obama never used word ‘Whitey’
by Nedra Pickler
1010WINS
June 12, 2008

Washington (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word “whitey” in a speech from the church pulpit as it launched a Web site to debunk rumors about him and his wife.

The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against “whitey” in a diatribe at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a videotape of the speech that would be used to bring down Obama’s candidacy this fall.

“No such tape exists,” the campaign responds on the site, http://www.fightthesmears.com. “Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word.”

The site is a response to the realities of a brave new world, where information travels 24 hours a day on blogs and voters are increasingly turning to the Internet for information. It’s a particular problem for Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics who is still unknown to many voters and has been the target of persistent misinformation campaigns online. Continue reading “Obama Campaign Fights the Smears”

April 19, 2008January 15, 2019

Is it Psystar as in Sister or Psystar as in Shyster?

Submitted by Wayne Zebzda:

Knock Knock, who’s there? Is this company really home? Gizmodo readers

went to all the physical addresses that appeared on Psystar’s site. They found no evidence any such company had ever existed at any of the locations. One was a residence and one was a packing supply company that knew nothing of Psystar.

Recent announcements about this Apple knockoff company that will run the Leopard OS raised some interesting legal questions, hoax or not. Many wonder if Apple will sue or even issue a statement but then again, where would they send the subpoena?

Apple doesn’t really have to do anything to defend its honor, when it has such a loyal armchair detective customer base. Here’s an article from C/NET, followed by an article from Forbes that will walk you through the whole mess.

Send in the Mac clones
C/NET News.com
April 18, 2008

Psystar suddenly appeared on the tech scene when it began to sell a white box PC that it says will come with Apple’s Mac OS X operating system pre-installed, the first Mac clone since CEO Steve Jobs banished them 11 years ago.

Psystar is selling a PC called the Open Computer which comes with a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR2 memory, integrated Intel 950 graphics, and a 250GB 7200RPM drive.

Psystar says it achieved Mac OS X compatibility in its Open Computer by using an EFI emulator based on OSx86 software. The Open Computer costs $399 without an operating system but it can be ordered with Apple’s Leopard operating system pre-installed for an additional $155, according to the Psystar Web site. The lowest-cost Mac is the Mac mini which starts at $599.

Credit: Psystar

Rotten Apples?
Meet The Mac-Clone Mystery Man
by Brian Caulfield
March 18, 2008

Burlingame, Calif. – How’s this for a deal. At a fraction of the cost of a comparably equipped machine from Apple, a Web-based company dubbed Psystar is offering a computer you can have loaded up with just about any operating system you choose, including Apple’s OS X Leopard.

That would not be news if, like thousands of mom-and-pop computer builders around the country, Psystar were offering any other operating system. But that Psystar is allowing users to order what is essentially a cut-price Mac violates Apple’s licensing terms, which forbids users from jamming its software onto non-Apple hardware. The novelty generated a storm of press coverage–and when the company stopped being able to take orders and switched locations — accusations from bloggers that the start-up business is a scam. Continue reading “Is it Psystar as in Sister or Psystar as in Shyster?”

April 6, 2008January 15, 2019

Checkbook Culture Jamming

Update to our March 28, 2008 post “Skullphone to Clear Channel: Can You Hear Me Now?” From Wired.com, via The Anti-Advertising Agency:

Clear Channel: Digital Billboards Rented, Not Hacked

The Los Angeles street artist known as Skullphone managed to get his iconic skull-holding-a-cellphone image to display on 10 prominent digital billboards throughout Los Angeles last week — leading some blogs to report that he’d hacked into the signs.

Alas, Clear Channel Outdoors, which owns the billboards, says no. “He paid to get it up,” says spokeswoman Jennifer Gery. “It only ran for two days.”

Update: Clear Channel’s Tony Alwin is unhappy about the hacking rumors. “The advertisement was bought under the assumption that it was art that was in an art show,” he says. “Any claims about hacking into our systems is false. It’s a lie, even.”