Tracking Fake Steve
Fake Steve Jobs has become a cult celebrity on the net over the past year. His parody of Real Steve Jobs is almost always hilarious and often times insightful. His popularity grew even more when Real Steve and Bill Gates admitted to reading the blog at All Things D last month. It’s no wonder that trying to unmask the man behind the curtain has prompted a net-wide man hunt.
Earlier today, Scott posted his new iPhone Haiku website. It’s a joke of a website really, but we thought it would be something FSJ would like and sent him a link. But, before we did, we thought we’d try a little experiment.
From previous emails, I know that FSJ uses Yahoo Mail. So any link he clicks on would generate a Yahoo mail referrer. If we wanted to find his IP address, all we’d have to do is check our referrer logs for clicks coming out of Yahoo mail. But that might not be foolproof. How could we single out his visit from anyone else using Yahoo? Easy. Send him a different link than what others would use to access the site.We sent him (and only him) a link to http://iphonehaikus.com/home/ which would redirect him to our proper url. Sure enough, it worked.
At 11:36am we got a hit to our “secret” url with the following:
referrer:http://us.f572.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?
What was his IP?
68.160.21.224
That IP comes from the Boston area - which appears to validate the theory posted here by Diego Barros. Want further proof it was him? He used that url when he linked to us on his blog.
Will this finally unveil the real FSJ? Of course not. But at least it puts those “FSJ is from the UK” theories to rest. Maybe.
Update 1: FSJ removes the link to iPhone Haiku and Radio Active Blog — who has been trying to out FSJ — thinks he’s on the run!
Update 2: FSJ is revealed! He’s none other than Dan Lyons, senior editor at Forbes. Oh, and we did get his location correct — he resides in Boston, MA.
FSJ should have used GMAil, which does not include the sender’s originating IP address. Although that would have not helped him to escape the trap you set for him. 
Diego
07/12/2007
6:22 pm
Don’t out him! FSJ rocks and it will not be as good if we know. We all secretly want to think it’s RSJ at the helm.
You never want to meet the man behind the curtain.
Luckily, Chris, knowing his IP isn’t enough to truly out him. It’s just enough to locate his city. It would require an insider at Yahoo Mail or Verizon (his internet provider) to track him down.
You’re right that a lot of the fun is not knowing who he really is. However, FSJ started this game and has even poked fun at the people trying to out him. At this point I think it’s fair game to snoop around within reason.
That said, I hope our “trap” didn’t really piss him off. I felt ok in posting his IP because it’s only a small piece of the puzzle. Sending him to a special URL to capture it was just an afterthought - something we though would be fun to try. Everyone here at Sitening loves reading his blog and I know I hope the mystery continues for a while longer.
The obvious next step is to send out a bunch more links to your suspects KNOWN email addresses. The suspect who was send the link that results in a matching IP address is your FSJ.
Of course FSJ is probably now being super careful…
I agree Tyler. It’s all a bit of fun, and like you say, he’s having fun with poking at people to out him. It’s all in fun.
He may be hoping he’s not outed before his book is out in October.
Diego
07/13/2007
6:57 pm
Hi Tyler - FSJ changed his email address.
Diego
07/13/2007
7:50 pm
If you *REALLY* liked FSJ, you’d stop covering this topic and let him be. Would you rather (1) read his blog OR (2) know his identity? It’s entirely possible those two things are mutually exclusive.
What the hell, guys? Why are you trying to spoil the fun?
Adam
07/14/2007
3:11 pm
A friend at Valleywag says that the Boston-area IP address means nothing. He says Boston is Verizon’s Internet hub thanks to its acquisition of GTE. If he’s right, saying the IP shows FSJ is in Boston is like saying an AOL’s user IP shows him to be in Dulles, VA.
Is he wrong?
Philip
07/15/2007
3:25 pm
@Phillip
Like I said in my original post “Will this finally unveil the real FSJ? Of course not.”
Verizon having a hub in Boston probably doesn’t mean anything. Most internet providers (broadband ones like Comcast, Rogers, etc) typically distribute IP addresses somewhat geographically. It’s similar to how neighboring zip codes start with the same three or four digits. Everyone with Comcast internet in your neighborhood will probably have IP’s that only differ by the last couple of digits.
When I said FSJ’s IP was from the Boston area, that wasn’t based on where the traceroute terminated. It was based on the known location of similar IP addresses.
Take all that with a grain of salt since I’m not a networking expert and have never had Verizon internet. But based on my experience with other providers, that’s how it works.
The only thing is, anyone running a site or blog with comments can do a quick check for that IP in their logs and see if it corresponds to any non-anonymous blog postings, or anyone can search their e-mail for that sender IP in headers if they’ve ever received an e-mail from someone who they think might be the fake Steve. Once the IP is out there I bet it’ll eventually lead to the outing.
this isn’t clever — spammers have been doing this for years. i think it’s really shitty of you to try to out him, and you can be absolutely assured you’ll never get any business of mine or my clients. frigtards!
scotty
07/19/2007
4:21 pm
scotty, I’ll take your comments as a positive thing for us, as I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want you as a client or the people who would be foolish enough to do business with a person whose site is named halfass.
