Wildfire on the Web
Another topic that fascinates me is how rumours spread over the Internet. On April 1st 2003, All Fools Day, someone at CNN thought it a good joke to post a spurious story about the assassination of Bill Gates in Los Angeles. It spread around the world like wildfire, and caused the South Korean stock market to drop $3 billion.
What was the hot topic among the Chinese students on my 2007/2008 lecture course? Demonstrations for/against the Olympic Torch? No! China and Tibet? No! It was the web-spread rumours about the Edison Chen sex scandal.
Edison who? For those of you who, like me, have never heard of him, Chen is a famous singer/actor from Hong Kong. He is now infamous for using his celebrity to entice a string of beautiful actresses into his bed. The cad also photographed his conquests, and stored them on his laptop.
Obviously, the steamy scenes were too much for his PC, which soon also demanded ‘servicing.’ He carefully deleted the incriminating files before taking the laptop to a local computer store – but not securely enough. Edison didn’t know of the numerous products on the market that can recover deleted files. He should have asked at that same friendly neighbourhood computer store!!
Here is a warning for every celebrity – prurient shop assistants can’t resist having a look at your files – both undeleted and deleted. That is what happened in Chen’s case. The sordid images found themselves out onto the net, and soon everyone in China had seen the pictures. Wildfire is an understatement.
The subsequent furore forced Edison to announce his ‘retirement’ from the entertainment business. The actresses’ careers were ruined, their families shamed, one even attempted suicide – there were even rumours that Triads were threatening Chen’s life.
Isn’t it amazing what Information Systems professors at the LSE can learn about the Internet in China from their students!
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