October 7th, 2008
Open source and Steve Jobs is fine
They really had us going there for a while on Friday.
Next time have Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Michael Dell shoot a picture of themselves walking through a crosswalk, only Jobs isn’t wearing shoes. (Can an iPod be made to run backward?)
My guess is that a rogue stock trader used CNN’s iReport to spread a Jobs health rumor because regulators look at stock bulletin boards for signs of fraud.
The phony report of a Jobs heart attack (quickly taken down) sent Apple shares down $7 per share in six hours.
Investigators might be wise to check Europe or the Emirates as a source. The false story went out near midnight on the East Coast, there was enormous trading volume from 4-8 AM (10 AM to 2 PM in Europe), and then things calmed down.
Ironically traders got the same kind of movement the next two trading days, based on economic fundamentals, and you could have gotten Apple shares mid-day Monday for under $90. (The bottom of the spike on the rumor was $97.45.)
So what happened? The same thing that happened to Usenet, and e-mail, and all those stock boards happened. An anonymous, credible medium is easy for spammers and scammers to wreck.
Unless, of course, you have registration up-front, trace the source of posts, and hold those who run scams responsible for their crimes.
There are bigger financial stories to cover, I know, but I do expect whoever did this will be caught.
On the Internet no one knows you’re a dog, until they traceroute the leash to your collar.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
| 10/08/08
