From: "Mark" 

Well, yea I see that point too. I'm probably thinking too much from the
point of view of the political hit job vs. the stock manipulation scam.
I've bought a few penny stocks in my time (pushed on a local basis before
the power of the internet); but then I didn't really expect them to pan out
>


"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in
message news:464d1c06{at}w3.nls.net...
> If most people in the corporate headquarters received the same internal
> memo they would be past the thousandth source and the Engadget story would
> still have been published.  There are also plenty of gullible people
> buying and selling stock for someone to make money off of a planted
> corporate memo
>
> http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/electronic-threats/mg19125605.70
0-crime-pays-for-stock-spammers.html
>
> PLENTY of gullible people fall prey to stock spammers, according to a
> survey of stocks promoted in spam emails.
>
> When Rainer Bohme of Dresden Technical University and Thorsten Holz at the
> University of Mannheim, both in Germany, tracked the value of these stocks
> last year, they found that, on average, they became twice as popular and
> increased in value by about 2 per cent in the days after being advertised
> in bulk emails.
>
> The spammers buy stocks at low prices, and promote them in spam emails to
> raise the price before selling them off. The trick appears to work. "If
> the researchers are right, it means that criminals have a valid business
> model," says Bruce Schneier, a security expert based in Mountain View,
> California.
>
> "It's interesting that people base financial decisions on non-credible
> sources," Bohme says.
>
>
> "Mark"  wrote in message
news:464d1800$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> Which makes my previous point, even when you "know" the
guy and "trust"
>> the guy, you still need to verfiy with 2nd and 3rd sources when whichever
>> "guy" goes too far into what you should recognize as
potential "lala
>> land" at the outset.
>>
>> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote
in message
>> news:464d1026$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>>> The problem was that Engadget is a pretty good/reliable  site for
>>> information. They were duped as were many Apple employees by an apparent
>>> internal Apple email that was relayed to them by a trusted source.
>>>
>>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/17/regarding-yesterdays-apple-news/
>>>
>>> About an hour and 40 minutes after the initial memo went out, a second
>>> memo was sent to the same internal Apple lists, dismissing the first.
>>> Soon after, our source -- who we'd been in contact with through the
>>> morning --  let us know that Apple was dismissing this earlier email;
>>> the second memo passed off the first as "fake" and
"not from Apple".
>>> Fake indeed, but it still came from someone familiar with Apple's
>>> internal mail systems, lists, memo composition structure, etc., who
>>> found a way to plant a phony memo in the inboxes of who knows how many
>>> Apple employees. (Both emails are published in the original post.) Why
>>> Apple took nearly two hours to respond to the situation we do not know.
>>>
>>> The person or persons behind the phony email had apparently put one over
>>> on Apple employees to the extent that those employees who received that
>>> memo and passed it along to us and others took it as truth -- as did we.
>>> Although we made sure to confirm and reconfirm with our source that this
>>> email was legit at the time it was sent out, unfortunately no amount of
>>> vetting and confirming sources can account for what happens when a
>>> corporate memo turns out to be fraudulently produced and distributed in
>>> this way.
>>>
>>> So who sent the memo, and why? We don't know, and we're not sure we ever
>>> will. Again, it was not a public memo, and it was not distributed
>>> outside Apple's internal Bullet News list to employees. Ultimately we
>>> did the only thing we felt right in doing after the initial post: leave
>>> it up unedited (but struck through), making sure the developing
>>> situation was made as lucid as possible for anyone involved in order to
>>> minimize the damages the leaked email caused.
>>>
>>> Credibility and trust is the currency of our realm, and it's clear we
>>> lost some of that. (And to be 100% clear, no one at Engadget is allowed
>>> to own stock in any of the companies we write about.) We take what we do
>>> very seriously and would never knowingly pass along information that we
>>> believed could be false or inaccurate; in this case, as stated above, we
>>> had confirmation from within Apple that this was in fact information
>>> that been distributed via Apple's internal corporate email system. If we
>>> had had any inkling that ANYONE could have exploited that system that
>>> would have greatly affected how we proceeded.
>>>
>>>
>>> "Mark"  wrote in message
>>> news:464d0cb6$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>>>> "Within minutes, some people who read the post were
selling their
>>>> Apple stock,"
>>>>
>>>> Fools.
>>>>
>>>> It has nothing to do with "bloggers" vs.
"legitimate" reporting, it
>>>> goes to common sense and 2nd sourcing everything -- blogs are more
>>>> often a 2nd source for what the real story is, but it can work in
>>>> reverse just as well (and that direction will become more
commonplace
>>>> if the MSM wants to survive).
>>>>
>>>> Bloggers are like the pamphleteers of yore, you have to
follow them and
>>>> evaluate them on an individual basis -- sure there's going to be
>>>> erroneous material from many (even most if you will) but
once you have
>>>> a feel for a particular guy's point of view you can easily
parse what
>>>> makes sense and what doesn't >>> sensational/sensitive subjects triple check even those you
trust before
>>>> you buy in>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Rich Gauszka"
 wrote in message
>>>> news:464ce95f$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>>>>>
>>>>> blogger power?
>>>>>
>>>>>
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/05/did_anyone_else
.html
>>>>>
>>>>> It's stories like this that make bloggers cringe.
Yesterday, tech blog
>>>>> Engadget received supposed insider information about a
delay of the
>>>>> iPhone until October, and another delay for Leopard,
pushing the new
>>>>> OS to January of 2008. Duty bound to report to its
readers, it filed a
>>>>> post. Within minutes, some people who read the post
were selling their
>>>>> Apple stock, which dipped 3% in mid-day trading
yesterday. The origin
>>>>> of the information was an internal Apple memo...which
turned out to be
>>>>> fake. Fake or not, Apple's market capitalization sunk
by $4 billion
>>>>> once the memo became public.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some are crying for an SEC investigation. According to
a Business 2.0
>>>>> blog, one shareholder sold 5 million shares within 10
to 15 minutes of
>>>>> seeing the post. The post was based on this language
seen in the fake
>>>>> memo:
>>>>>
>>>>>     Apple issued a press release today announcing that
iPhone which
>>>>> was scheduled to ship in June, has been moved to October and the
>>>>> release date for Mac OS X Leopard has been moved to
January next year.
>>>>>
>>>>> Apparently the email came from what Engadget calls a
"trusted source"
>>>>> and was delivered from within Apple's internal email
system, giving it
>>>>> the air of authenticity. Apple discovered the fake
email quickly and
>>>>> 90 minutes later sent out a real email explaining that
the first one
>>>>> was a fake:
>>>>>
>>>>>     "This communication is fake and did not come
from Apple. Apple is
>>>>> on track to ship iPhone in late June and Mac OS X
Leopard in October,"
>>>>> said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris.
>>>>>
>>>>> Too late. The damage had already been done. Luckily,
the turmoil was
>>>>> brief. The stock recovered most of its value by the
end of the day (it
>>>>> closed down 0.17%). There are still a lot of questions
that remain
>>>>> unanswered. Who really sent the memo? How did they do
it from within
>>>>> the Apple system? Did they hack in? We can only assume
that Apple is
>>>>> hunting down the responsible party and will take
appropriate action
>>>>> once that person is found.
>>>>>
>>>>> As a blogger, it's often hard to separate the wheat
from the chaff in
>>>>> the online world, especially when "scooping"
the competition is top of
>>>>> mind. From Engadget's point of view, I can understand
why they would
>>>>> put up their original post based on the supposed good
quality source
>>>>> material. What are bloggers to do, however, when fed erroneous
>>>>> information that looks real? Their gut instinct is to
post first,
>>>>> question later. Lessons learned in Journalism 101,
however, would have
>>>>> prevented the debacle. It never hurts to pick up the
phone and call a
>>>>> company rep to confirm the validity of the
information. Will this
>>>>> delay the story? Sure. But in the end, accuracy is
more important than
>>>>> being the first to report a story.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

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