The Web Controlled Christmas Light Hoax
from the amusing... dept
A few weeks ago, when we had our story about Christmas lights causing problems with broadband connections, apparently Alek Komarnitsky stopped by here at Techdirt to tell everyone in the comments that he had set up his 17,000 Christmas lights so they could be turned on and off via the web. I had forgotten about this until earlier this morning when a friend instant messaged me to tell me he's become addicted to the site and had been turning the lights on and off regularly. Well, it turns out my friend was taken in by a practical joke. The lights were real but the web-cam and web-based control were a hoax that's now getting a bit of press attention. What's interesting, though, is that from the details it sounds like the hoax was more technically complicated than actually setting up a system to really do what he claimed it would do. Still, it's somewhat amazing that no one figured it out until now.
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Disaster Hoaxes
I wonder how many hoaxes and scams are happening in that part of the world as we speak? It is a poorer part of the world, after all, which means that people will stoop lower to make a buck.
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No Subject Given
I've always had the same reaction to those old e-mail hoaxes that used to litter our inboxes. I never understood the motivation behind them. Spreading false information for the sake of simply spreading false information serves no one, and in fact can cause harm.
This Christmas lights guy didn't hurt anybody, unless you count wasting hours of others' time as harm. But his ploy certainly qualifies him as an ass of the lowest degree. (Not to mention ... a liar.) There's nothing amusing about making the world spin a little less efficiently.
What a jerk.
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Christmas lights hoax
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Re: Christmas lights hoax
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Wasted time
were actually controlled by a web page?
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