Visitors to Sen. John McCain's MySpace page were likely surprised Tuesday by a statement that the Senator has reversed his position on gay marriage and "come out in full support of gay marriage ... particularly marriage between passionate females." Most won't be surprised that the statement was apparently posted as a prank.
The co-founder of an online news site, who said he designed the MySpace template used for McCain's page, claimed responsibility for changing the site. Mike Davidson, cofounder of Newsvine, said on his Web site that he commandeered the MySpace page because McCain's office used a design template of his without providing him credit. Davidson also said his imagery was used on the page and his server is used serve up McCain's MySpace images.
Neither a representative from McCain's office or Davidson could be reached for comment. The altered page was on MySpace from about noon to 1 p.m. EDT.
"Every time someone visits the McCain MySpace page, my bandwidth is being used to deliver part of the page!" Davidson noted on the Newsvine site. "I think the idea of politicians setting up MySpace pages and pretending to actually use them is a bit disingenuous, so I figured it was time to play a little prank."
Because McCain's office was using Davidson's template he was able to replace a sample image - being used by McCain's page - with the one with the statement on gay marriage.
"So, the only thing necessary to effectively commandeer McCain's page with my own messaging was to simply replace my own sample image on my server with a newly created sample on my server," Davidson noted. "No server but my own was touched and no laws were broken. The immaculate hack."
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