McCain gets caught stealing Bandwidth
Bandwidth thieves. You know who they are. They're the folks who hot link to images you host on your own site, making you pay for the page hits their sites receive. Many solutions have been used, from simply watermarking images to scripts that check the referrer and either deny the image or replace it with something offensive. (Rotten.com for example uses graphic imagery of an exhibitionist transsexual as the replacement graphic.)
John McCain’s MySpace Site used a stock template, and linked to images on the template creator's own site.
Unfortunately for McCain and his crew, the template was created by Newsvine Founder and CEO Mike Davidson.
What did Mike DO?
He did what any self respecting geek would do, he returned fire.
Specifically, he replaced a large, prominent image used for site navigation with the following statement:
Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay mariage…particularly marriage between two passionate females.
Here's a screen shot copied from TechCrunch (Click the image to enlarge.)
Sadly, the typically clueless media is insisting upon using headlines like "McCain's Myspace Hacked!" to describe the event. This if course accomplishes a number of things. It further dilutes the term "Hacked", it casts Newsvine in a negative light and casts McCain's staff as the victims, when they were in fact the thieves. I prefer the headline "Blogger Teaches McCain Some Cyber Manners"
EDIT:
I just sent the following comment to McCain via myspace.com:
Subject: New Stance on Gay Marriage
Body: Mr McCain,
I was thrilled to learn of your new stance on gay marriage. It's unfair and discriminatory that heterosexual couples are allowed to marry and homosexual couples are not. The logic that Marriage is for propagating the "Family Unit" in a world where many married couples never even have children is in itself flawed and absurd.
John McCain’s MySpace Site used a stock template, and linked to images on the template creator's own site.
Unfortunately for McCain and his crew, the template was created by Newsvine Founder and CEO Mike Davidson.
What did Mike DO?
He did what any self respecting geek would do, he returned fire.
Specifically, he replaced a large, prominent image used for site navigation with the following statement:
Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay mariage…particularly marriage between two passionate females.
Here's a screen shot copied from TechCrunch (Click the image to enlarge.)
Sadly, the typically clueless media is insisting upon using headlines like "McCain's Myspace Hacked!" to describe the event. This if course accomplishes a number of things. It further dilutes the term "Hacked", it casts Newsvine in a negative light and casts McCain's staff as the victims, when they were in fact the thieves. I prefer the headline "Blogger Teaches McCain Some Cyber Manners"
EDIT:
I just sent the following comment to McCain via myspace.com:
Subject: New Stance on Gay Marriage
Body: Mr McCain,
I was thrilled to learn of your new stance on gay marriage. It's unfair and discriminatory that heterosexual couples are allowed to marry and homosexual couples are not. The logic that Marriage is for propagating the "Family Unit" in a world where many married couples never even have children is in itself flawed and absurd.