Fake E-Mail Results in Angry Apple Shareholders

drhamad writes "Apple stock dropped 2.2% today in mid-afternoon trading as Engadget published news based on a faked e-mail inside Apple. 'Apparently an internal memo was sent to several Apple employees--and forwarded to Engadget--around 9am CT today saying that Apple issued a press release with the news that the iPhone was now scheduled for October, and Leopard was delayed until January. About an hour and a half after that e-mail went out, a second e-mail was sent--this time officially from Apple--saying the first e-mail was a fake, and that the delivery schedule for the iPhone and Leopard had not changed.'"

Testing the waters?

[aichpvee]

Who else thinks they're running behind and wanted to see if they could push back the releases without scaring the sheep?

Looks like they are flushing out folks

[msew]

Looks like they are flushing out folks who forward internal emails. Send to a few people and see if the fake news gets out. Binary search in action!

Re:What are the implications for the website?

[illumnatLA]

Generally, a newspaper or journalist wouldn't just giddily publish something like this without a little old-fashioned fact checking. It's idiotic to publish this with information from only a single source. Oh, but wait... this is Web 2.0 isn't it... screw the facts... gimme page hits.

interesting...

[blackcoot]

because i heard the same story about delaying the iphone till october from a cingular rep two weeks ago. i wonder if this is the same leak...

Re:Testing the waters?

[IAmTheDave]

Actually, who else thinks this was a ploy to find out who's leaking internal information? Narrow it down to a suspect, add in some known faithful employees, and send the "fake" press release.

Engadget gets it... internal leak... plugged?

Re:And when do options expire this month? :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the traders get rich off this. They get paid on either side of these.

Re:And when do options expire this month? :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Went down from $108.48 to $103.42 mostly on account of this news. Sure, they should have bought at $105, or even smeared Apple down, last week. But hindsight is 20/20. They lost a legitimate opportunity last week and made themselves an illegitimate one.

rumours can backfire...

[alchemy101]

While it is debatable as to whether Apple is too secretive for its own good, there is no denying that the company utilises rumour to build hype for its products through news blogs such appleinsider and thinksecret. The thing is about a rumour (that some people may forget) is that it can be both positive and negative for the subject in question. Sometimes rumours can backfire and this is just purely an instance of the Apple rumour mill NOT working in the company's favour.

Re:What I'm surprised about...

[antic]

"That is about the best source you could have short of an official press release."

I'd argue that, quite often, an internal leak would be a better source than a fluffy and biased press release!

The Canary Trap

[patio11]

Tom Clancy details a variation on this in one of his books: if you suspect you have a leak, you draw up a document which is a mix of truth and plausible lies which is interesting, will largely congeal with what the mole's handlers already know, and includes lurid phrasing at several locations. Then you leak N copies of that memo to your N possible leaks, and listen for what combinations of key phrases (or, not quite as easily, key facts) make it into unapproved channels. For example, you might embed twenty-five key phrases in a document about (hypothetical) insurgent activity in Iraq, and then if the New York Times quotes a briefing as saying that "Baghdad will be covered in rivers of blood" (given to 4 suspects) and that the military fears "total strategic defeat not just in Iraq but elsewhere" (given to 8 suspects) then the intersection of the two sets identifies the leak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap [wikipedia.org]