NYT Exposes the Identity of Fake Steve Jobs

mattatwork writes "NY Times writer Brad Stone figured out the real identity of Fake Steve Jobs. With classic nick names like 'freetards' and 'beastmaster' Fake Steve captured an audience of 700,000 visitors to the site and around 50 emails a day. According to Daniel Lyons, the senior editor at Forbes magazine who maintained the blog, there is no definite plan for the future of the site. 'Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. "I thought, wouldn't it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it." Mr. Lyons says he recalled trying out the voices of several chief executives before settling on the colorful Apple co-founder. He twice tried to relinquish the blog, but started again after being deluged by fans e-mailing to ask why Fake Steve had disappeared.'"

Comments

Solved?

[taoman1]

Was this a mystery that just had to be solved?

Re:Solved?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can just imagine the reporter in full Nancy Drew mode poring over clues.

Break out your magnifying glass kids, we're off to solve the Mystery of The Fake CEO Blogger!

Re:Solved?

[OS24Ever]

No kidding. I was wondering the exact same thing. It was a parody, and it was fun. Now it's going to get corporate sponsorship from the guys employer and I'd find it hard to think it'd be the same again.

Re:Solved?

[Ohreally_factor]

Yeah, barring some miracle, it's over.

I feel a bit pissed at the NYT for spoiling the party, but I guess it was going to get spoiled sooner or later, and if not the NYT, then some other rag. The race was on.

I pretty much can't stand Mr. Lyons as a journalist, but as a parody SJ he was awesome. Thanks for the lulz, Dan. You'll always be FSJ in our hearts.

Re:Solved?

[Ohreally_factor]

I admit it. I blew up a van. The same van twice, in fact.

And as they say on Ebaum's World

[LameAssTheMity]

Fake, everyone knows Steve Jobs isn't real.

Re:And as they say on Ebaum's World

[antdude]

Are you saying he's a robot?

Link NYT article@news.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Mystery solved: 'Fake Steve' blogger comes clean See CNET's reprint of the NYT article there.

John Howard: Prime Minister

[Trentus]

A few years ago, a friend directed me to http://johnhoward.blogspot.com/. It's one of the few web pages I've actually laughed out loud at. It's written in a great style.

Re:John Howard: Prime Minister

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell is that?

Re:John Howard: Prime Minister

[GaryPatterson]

Since Google is broken and no other Internet search engine can apparently be reached from your computer, I'll help you out. John Howard is the Australian Prime Minister. That's Australia, the huge island between the Indian and Pacific Oceans (west of California), about the size of the USA. It's not Austria, the small country next to Germany (in Europe, which is across the Atlantic Ocean, east of the USA). Normally I'd not bother with such detailed information, but it'll save you asking again, or having to work out how to search for information on the Internet.

Re:John Howard: Prime Minister

[dbIII]

Yes, but when it comes down to it he's not hugely relevant so is ignorable internationally - his government has pretty well been in caretaker mode for the last decade and his foreign policy is "me too". Even a major US newspaper got his name wrong and called him Mike Hunt when he was visiting the USA - possibly misled by an Aussie that was playing a bit of a joke. The last Prime Minister we had that we would expect people to notice is Malcolm Fraser - very tall, face like an Easter Island statue and memorable for running around in a US hotel with no pants on.

Good job, New York Times.

[Scoria]

Now, if only we could get those investigative journalists of yours to apply their talent where it really makes a difference...

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[jacoplane]

Seriously, hearing that the New York Times would actually allow their reporters to investigate this story makes me really sad. Is the Times turning into NBC Dateline?

We have Pakistan (our ally) collaborating with the Taliban, there are Over 20 million displaced homeless due to floods in India, and let's not mention the hypocrisy of the government at home.

If The New York Times feels that this is a worthy exercise for their investigative reporters.... what has the world come to. Rupert Murdoch owns the WSJ, and I think that everyone knows that Murdoch can't keep his fingers out of the editorial pages of any newspaper he runs. There is hope, however. There are still investigative journalists worth reading out there, here's one: Seymour Hersh

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[Wordsmith]

Oh please. The NYT does a whole range of things, from fluff to hard-hitting international journalism - from book reviews to government exposes, from quirky coverage of Adult Swim's Star Wars Project to insider political reporting. The diversity of coverage is part of what makes it a strong paper.

That its did this says nothing about the quality of its coverage of other items. You can't look at every use of a resource as wasteful just because it's not devoted to the single most important item of the day; the breadth of coverage is important too.

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[KingSkippus]

You do know that the New York Times has more than one reporter, right? And that it's possible for them to write stories on silly little things like this and still cover the Taliban, homeless, floods, and government? Oh, and even give us a nifty new crossword every day?

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[vought]

We have Pakistan (our ally) collaborating with the Taliban [indianexpress.com], there are Over 20 million displaced homeless [npr.org] due to floods in India, and let's not mention the hypocrisy of the government at home.
If The New York Times feels that this is a worthy exercise for their investigative reporters....

Maybe it's the only kind of investigative reporting that they can do these days without being arrested.

Don't scoff - Bush himself went on a rampage after the NYTimes outed his little "go around the courts" wiretapping program.

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[dbIII]

We have Pakistan (our ally) collaborating with the Taliban

That was old news in 1999. The Taliban are what happens when the kids that grow up in brutal refugee camps back over the border from Pakistan and come home to turn the entire country into a brutal refugee camp. The links are very deep to different factions in Pakistan - but you can't blame the entire country for it. Other allies such as Algeria get up to far nastier things.

When it comes down to it this article probably only needed a few hours of investigation - the guy went after PJ from Groklaw in a pretty obvious and nasty way which narrowed it down to him or the Amityville horror girl.

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[MillionthMonkey]

Every day people are dying, and we're reading Slashdot.

Well, none of us have real Jobs.

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[gujo-odori]

I used to work at Microsoft, and from reading minimsft, I'm pretty sure he really does work there, or at least did at one time. His take on what's right and wrong at Microsoft shows not just a great deal of insight, but a great deal of knowledge of what it's really like on the inside. If he doesn't work there, he's got to be talking to some pretty knowledgeable people who do, and who are willing to say these things to an outsider at the potential risk of their jobs.

So, if I were an investigate reporter trying to find out who minimsft is, I'd start by moving anyone who is not a current or former blue badge to the bottom of my suspects list. The stuff about being a manager and being male may be true or may be obfuscation, so I wouldn't put too much stock in it It's not hard for a non-manager there to make the same observations mini-msft makes. I accept that minimsft is probably male, if for no reason other than most of the people working there (at least in coding jobs) are men.

Minimsft may well be exactly what he describes himself as. OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if he were actually a mid or senior-level manager. Turning an oil tanker can be hard, even for someone with a lot of clout, and revolution is sometimes easier to start from the bottom than from the top. Microsoft is certainly an oil tanker, or perhaps an aircraft carrier might be a better description. They, too, take a lot of time and space to turn, but once turned can move pretty quickly and bring a lot of power to bear on the target.

Can Microsoft be turned? Now that's an interesting question. The corporate culture there so powerful, pervasive, and seemingly immutable. Turning Microsoft may not be impossible, but it would be very, very hard.

Re:Good job, New York Times.

[Rayonic]

There are still investigative journalists worth reading out there, here's one: Seymour Hersh

You've got to be kidding. Perhaps you can find some good journalism there, underneath all the bile, slant, and anonymous sources.

He had one big story, and has been trying to recapture the magic ever since.

Tragedy

[fishthegeek]

I feel like a tiny bit of myself has been killed today. I will never experience the same innocent joy that accompanies reading a fake CEO blog again. Damn frigtard reporters.

Next assignment:

[Anonymous Coward]

The New York Times is now working on the identify of an even more prolific online writer, "Anonymous Coward".

This needs quoting

[eclectro]

This is from Fake Steve's blog;

"You put the pieces of the puzzle together. You went through my trash, hacked into my computer, and put listening devices in my home. Now you've ruined the mystery of Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of childlike wonder. Hope you feel good about yourself, you mangina."

Re:This needs quoting

[__aaclcg7560]

OMG! The Fake Steve is a dog! That means the Real Steve has to be a cat! The Mac OS X naming scheme makes perfect sense now! :P

thanks NYT!

[godawful]

i'm glad someone killed the child-like wonder FSJ had instilled in my life, next assignment? an exposé on proving santa claus isn't real, just in time for xmas

Re:thanks NYT!

[catbutt]

an exposé on proving santa claus isn't real, just in time for xmas maybe more appropriate and useful would be to show that jesus isn't real.

Oy - mod parent up, y'all!

[Penguinisto]

I guess he's no longer best known for being a SCO supporting paided{sic} shill.

Actually, given who it turned out to be, the motives and biases are rather clear in hindsight. I'm almost willing to bet that Steve Ballmer wasn't among the "other CEO voices" Mr. Lyons tried out...

But then, maybe it was a means for ol' Dan to get out his juvenile side?

I dunno - this is starting to sound too much like a flamebait -ish pack of conspiracy theories. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was funny here and there - but seeing who's behind it makes me wonder if it wasn't just a larger propaganda campaign on Lyons' part.

/P

Re:Oy - mod parent up, y'all!

[neillewis]

Try and find a used copy of Dan's 'currently unavailable' novel Dog Days. He started out mocking MS (in a sub-Coupland stylee) and when that didn't get him much kudos he started taking it out on their competitors.

Somebody should start a Fake Dan Lyons blog...

Secret Diary of Bill Gates

[1u3hr]

The "Secret Diary of Bill Gates, Aged 40 1/4" was in a similar vein, about 10 years ago. This was written, as the title implies, in the style of Adrian Mole, as a self-important nerd.

Monday, January 15
No. It can't be true! They really are writing about Steve Jobs -- I just saw the latest Wired magazine with an in-depth interview with the Boy Wonder. Why is he a "visionary"? I'm a visionary too. Why don't they call me a "visionary"? I'm tired of being "ruthlessly competitive". This guy got lucky too. I mean, you know, they always say I got lucky when IBM licensed DOS. That wasn't luck, it was skill. I negotiated a great deal from IBM then ran over to Patterson's place and snapped up Q-DOS. That takes *balls*. Jobs has no balls. Jobs is a guy who spends two weeks choosing a washer/dryer. Yes, *two* weeks. For what? Like, $500 or so. The guy has millions. Jobs is a guy who actually cares about his clothes "feeling really soft". What a loser --

The site lasted a year or so. I found an archive of 1997 here.

Re:Best known.

[toxic666]

Groklaw

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200708051 95515884

sums it up pretty well.

An "analyst" who supported SCO Group and is suspected as an MS front man. You wonder why there are conspiracy theories about MS being behind SCO Group's actions?

With 20/20 hindsight, it had to be Lyons, MOG or Dildio.

A better quote

[chebucto]

From the same post on the blog:

One bright side is that at least I was busted by the Times and not Valleywag. I really, really enjoyed seeing those guys keep guessing wrong. For six months Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth put their big brains together and couldn't come up with the answer. Guy from the Times did it in a week. So much for the trope about smarty-pants bloggers disrupting old media. Brilliant. File under "It's funny, laugh"

Solved? Or handed on a platter?

[1u3hr]

I suspect this was more an unveiling than a discovery. Notice in TFA:

In October, Da Capo Press will publish his satirical novel written in the voice of the Fake Steve character, "Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody."

He'll be actively courting publicity now.

Re:Solved? Or handed on a platter?

[jalefkowit]

I dunno about that. If the primary concern was book sales, he'd have been better off preserving the anonymity until the book was actually on the shelves. When "Primary Colors" (a thinly veiled account of the 1992 Clinton campaign -- the book's main character, "Jack Stanton", is a doughnut-gobbling Southern governor running for President) came out, it was credited simply to "Anonymous" -- which led the media to speculate for weeks about which Clinton insider had spilled the beans. By the time it was revealed that "Anonymous" wasn't really a Clinton insider but rather Time magazine reporter Joe Klein, the sales of the book had gone through the roof, fueled by all that media speculation. One would think the same would be true of a Fake Steve book, if it were teasingly credited to "Anonymous" as well.

Re:Solved? Or handed on a platter?

[1u3hr]

Well, Bill Clinton has a much higher profile than Steve Jobs, outside the geek world. Publicity before a book comes out may be necessary to convince bookshops to order it in quantity.

Re:Bill Gates

[arth1]

Yeah, but the Fake Steve Jobs was fake...

Re:Darn.

[Simon Garlick]

The thing that blows my mind is that there's an editor out there who can WRITE.

Actually, it makes a lot of sense...

[Xenographic]

Dan Lyons was that guy who schilled for SCO, repeating their press releases as if they were news, helping to stalk PJ of Groklaw, creating a blog that seemed to serve little purpose except to give SCO a "source" to cite in its litigation, calling us all fools for thinking SCO had no case, etc.

Finding out that he's been out trolling some more only makes sense. I mean, the guy is one great big douchbag and he loves getting people riled up. Doesn't Forbes want him publishing under his real name any more? I don't blame them. He's like a Dvorak clone who likes to rile anti-SCO people instead of Apple fans.

Re:Actually, it makes a lot of sense...

[Ohreally_factor]

Yeah, he's that Dan Lyons. Total scumbag hack. This is possibly what made him such a great Fake Steve Jobs.

Then he did something that I still can't believe. He picked up a marker and started drawing on my whiteboard. Which everyone knows is a huge pet peeve of mine. It's my whiteboard. Which I was standing at, holding a marker, writing things like, Wrong, Stupid, Clueless, Dumbass, No Friggin way, and so forth. So he started drawing on the whiteboard, things like Money, Mine, and Shut up, and I'm just standing there like, Oh. My. God. I can't believe I'm seeing this. What the frig? I could feel the veins in my eyes starting to swell up like they might explode. And I was like, Put. Down. The. Friggin. Marker. Now. Seriously, man, before I do some aikido moves and rip out your friggin heart and eat it in front of you, still beating. Or take your friggin head off. How dare you? How dare you? This is my whiteboard. That's it. Take your stupid money and don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out. I'll do my own blog, on my own terms. Now, despite all this, I did say "Peace" as he left. -- From the post God it feels so good to fire people.

So, Dan Lyons the reporter? Douchebag should choke on his own cock. Dan Lyons the satirist? Artist. It's too bad he's folding The Secret Diary into Forbes. He should quit his job there, leave the douchebaggery behind him, and strike out on his own.

Re:Actually, it makes a lot of sense...

[foo fighter]

Please post some citations for your serious accusations.

Your statements are as libelous as what you accuse Lyons of, if they are not true.

Weaselly posts like this modded up to +5 are why I rarely read /. anymore.

Re:Actually, it makes a lot of sense...

[imroy]

Please post some citations for your serious accusations.

Don't have much of a memory do you? Try reading some Groklaw. In fact, PJ posted about this just today. Mr. Lyons has quite a history around the SCO case. He's also attacked bloggers for being largely anonymous and lacking credibility. Pot calling the kettle something...

Re:Best known.

[Jeremy_Bee]

I like and respect Groklaw and so on, but I don't think they actually said what you think they did, and the "evidence" is pretty scant.

FSJ used the term "People Ready" once in a blog and Bill Gates mentioned FSJ in a recent interview so ...
of course the whole thing is a conspiracy on Microsoft's part and Bill Gates was in on it?

I don't see how that necessarily follows.

The way I read the Groklaw article, they are merely reporting on the guy that's throwing this theory out there. I don't see Groklaw themselves as seriously proposing that FSJ is some kind of Microsoft plot.

This is borderline lolcat!

[Lethyos]

“Fake Steve Jobs is fake!” Shocking!

The Real Question /.ers Want to Know...

[earthbound kid]

What ever happened to As Seen On TV?

Re:The Real Question /.ers Want to Know...

[GaryPatterson]

I sometimes wonder about that. Every few months I check his profile, to find no new posts. Hmm...

Forbes sponsorship

[Sneeper]

Looks like Forbes is capitalizing on the fact that it's one of their own. They are going to officially sponsor the blog on Forbes.com now.

Fake Steve Jobs comes clean
Forbes' phone interview with Daniel Lyons (has annoying commercials)

Dan Lyons

[snowwrestler]

I wonder how many /. readers are going to look at the FSJ posts about "freetards" in a different light now that they know it was Dan Lyons behind the keyboard? This is not a guy who has been well-received on Slashdot in the past.

Re:Dan Lyons

[Ohreally_factor]

You're not suggesting that The Secret Diary is professional journalism, are you? Or are you suggesting that a person can only do one job? Once you work as a journalist, you are not allowed to engage in any other sort of work? Help me out here. I want to assume that you're intelligent and not, uh, you know, free . . . =)

And other than the abusive language, what fault do you find with his reasoning? Perhaps you find the name calling so offensive that you don't even want to try and decipher his point. Fair enough. Shall I put it into less offensive language? FSJ's contention is that it is whining to complain that MS is undercutting Linux by charging $3 for a copy of Windows and Office because Linux is free as in beer.

[Steven J. Vaughan Nichols] says Microsoft is "dumping products on the market at far below cost." Um, is that not exactly what Linux vendors have been doing? Enabled by rich subsidies from IBM and other hardware players? And has it not occurred to you that the reason IBM pumped one billion dollars (visualize pinkie in corner of Palmisano's mouth) into Linux was precisely so that it could force Microsoft to cut prices on Windows and thereby choke off Microsoft's oxygen supply? Whether or not you agree with the argument, you should admit that it's at least a plausible line of thinking. I don't believe anyone thinks that IBM is supporting Linux and using Linux because they're really nice guys.

I can understand being turned off by the name calling. If someone is engaging in personal attacks, likely as not, I'll ignore them. But I don't think you should take these attacks personally. I don't take it personally when he makes fun of Mac users, like when he pointed out that they're the sort of people who would pay an extra $500 for something shiny white. But whatever. It's not for me to say how you should feel about someone calling your tribe names.

Re:NYT guy wanted revenge

[dbIII]

Lyons did push a bit too far. For example his personal attack on PJ from Groklaw is overstepping the bounds, isn't relevant to the "character", most of his audience would have never heard of her previously and it was not remotely funny or on topic - just a rant. Since he's no longer anonymous he has to cop the criticism and loss of reputation like any other "satirist" paticularly if it is self serving - but would or should anybody really sue?

The original true fake Steve Jobs' blog

[didlybom]

I believe I was the first one to write a fake Steve Jobs' blog. I stopped when it reached the top 5 results for a 'steve jobs' search and Apple's legal department contacted me. http://web.archive.org/web/20040102222820/http://j ustonemorething.com/

Re:Best known.

[toxic666]

Please evaluate when you take the actions and statements of Lyons, MOG and Dildio in their entirety, not just the context of this incident.

The point PJ made was about "unbiased" journalism. She was stalked and outed in a mean-spirited attack. Lyons, MOG and Dildio have been consistent supporters of SCO Group in the face of community debunking of SCO Groups claims.

PJ has voiced a valid concern that one of the SCO Group's supporters and a possible MS shill was caught in a fake blog, as he wrote about blogging as a threat to the truth.

Get real. There is a story here and PJ reported responsibly.

This confirms the theories of L. Detweiler.

[anwyn]

L. Detweiler created the theory called the Snakes of Medusa that large numbers of anonymous identities were being created, called tentacles, and that these snakes were conspiring with each other for nefarious purposes.

Some cypherpunks discovered that Detweiler was using his own theories, and that he had several tentacles of his own.

This incident confirms the Detweiler theory.