News Blog

The writer of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs appeared to break character Wednesday in decrying "invasions of privacy" that have the anonymous author rattled.

Fake Steve Jobs, as he or she has come to be known, posted a two-paragraph rant saying he has been consulting with lawyers and computer security experts after discovering activity "that may or may not have crossed over the line of legality but definitely fall outside the boundaries of what most decent civilized human beings consider to be appropriate behavior."

Valleywag, the self-described "tech gossip rag" of Silicon Valley, was implicated in the headline of FSJ's post--but not directly in the copy--as the instigator behind FSJ's angst. Valleywag's Nick Denton and Owen Thomas have led the charge to unmask the author behind the FSJ blog, at times naming Leander Kahney of Wired, Eric Savitz of Barron's, John Paczkowski of All Things Digital and Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times as the real Fake Steve Jobs.

Only Ihnatko has been coy; the rest have denied any involvement.

Today's missive appears to be an actual serious post from Fake Steve Jobs, perhaps the most widely read satirist in the technology media world at present. There's the distinct possibility that he or she is taking all us "frigtards" for a ride with this diatribe, but read it for yourself: Fake Steve seems a little shaken up.

"To whatever bit of pond scum is doing this stuff, let me say this: This was fun, up to a point. You've gone past that point. Stop," FSJ wrote.

I e-mailed both Owen Thomas and FSJ for further details but didn't hear back immediately from either.

UPDATED 2:45 p.m.: Owen Thomas, who apparently likes to be called "Mr. Bigglesworth," responded that he has not been contacted by either FSJ or representatives acting on his or her behalf.

He was far cagier, however, when asked if Valleywag was the force behind The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Thomas has previously denied that he is the author of the blog--and reiterated that Wednesday--but he didn't respond to whether Valleywag cooked up FSJ to drive traffic to and from the respective sites.

Nick Denton, publisher of Valleywag parent Gawker Media and former lead writer on Valleywag, has aroused suspicion in the past that he's FSJ. After all, what better way to drive traffic to a blog--and to throw pursuers off his trail--than by launching a breathtaking, over-the-top search for FSJ's true identity?

Denton did not immediately respond to an e-mail asking him to go on record about his role in the FSJ mania. And still nothing from FSJ, who apparently isn't so troubled by the alleged breach of privacy that he or she is unable to blog in character today.

Blogging platform Six Apart wants the rest of the Web to know that while it was indeed hit with an information leak that exposed the personal data of several of its executives and investors, it wasn't quite as scandalous as tech gossip blog Valleywag initially reported it.

In a post late Tuesday afternoon, the Gawker Media-owned Valleywag claimed that Six Apart, parent company of TypePad, MovableType, LiveJournal, and Vox, had been hit by an information leak of several executives' and investors' personal information.

According to the original Valleywag post, a "disgruntled insider" had posted sensitive information for several top Six Apart executives like co-founders Ben and Mena Trott, and investors David Marquardt and David Hornik of August Capital--including their addresses and Social Security numbers--to a Usenet group. The Valleywag blogger also claimed that Six Apart executives were "locked in an unscheduled board meeting."

A Six Apart representative, however, told CNET News.com that Valleywag's original story was peppered with inaccuracies: there was no "disgruntled insider" in the sense that Valleywag intended it, and that the board meeting in question was not an unscheduled one. In fact, it had been on the books for months, according to Six Apart.

Six Apart's chief evangelist, Anil Dash, further elaborated: "There was private information posted on Usenet," he said, but it had nothing to do with any former employees of the company. The personal information was released by hackers or "griefers" who were simply out to harass. "They do this for Bill Gates, and they do this for Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin), and it unfortunately comes with the territory."

The Valleywag post, Dash added, had "done a little bit of adventuring" with the details. "Everybody that's ever left the company, we're still on really good terms with," he said.

Dash confirmed that Six Apart has submitted a request for corrections to the story to Valleywag, but was not able to provide further updates on the status of those corrections.