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- MediaGuardian,
- Thursday June 14, 2001
Britney: 'death' story
The BBC's news brand was compromised once again yesterday when its website appeared to be hacked with a spoof story about the death of Britney Spears.
It is the second time in as many months that a copy of the BBC's website has been used to for the spoof death of a female popstar.
Last month a fake version of BBC News Online carried a story announcing the suicide of Hear'Say's Suzanne Shaw.
The BBC stressed it had not been hacked but a spokesman said there had been a breach of copyright nevertheless.
"We take matters like this very seriously. We investigate, contact the server that is hosting it, and get them to pull it down," he said.
The pretend hack is merely a sleight of hand that can be mastered by anyone who knows how website addresses work.
Every website's address is duplicated by a series of numbers clearly visible to users. Outsiders can produce a page that appears to belong to another's service as long as the numbers of the address, in this case the BBC's, are added in the correct order.
The BBC spokesman added that this latest breach looked like it came from an internet service provider in California, close to where the Britney death hoax originated on Tuesday night.
Two 'shock-jock' DJs on the KEGL-FM radio station told listeners that Britney had been killed along with her boyfriend, Justin Timberlake.
MediaGuardian.co.uk's own investigation shows that the spoof news page was built on a site called Tossthecoin.com, hosted on a server called maple.he.net.
Posted at 10:57am, the story made sick references to the American singer's best known song, "Hit me Baby One More Time", by announcing she was knocked down by a white pretzel delivery truck.
The piece said Eminem was "distraught" and Christina Aguilera was too happy for words.
Related story
05.05.2001: BBC falls victim to spoof site
MediaGuardian.co.uk special report
The BBC
