Guest guest Posted October 6, 2000 Report Share Posted October 6, 2000 Saw this in this month's Forbes Magazine when Mike (my son) and I were in and Noble last night... " Look.closely.right.now " By Seely Brown Lucent Technologies, the year 2000 opened with a flurry of negative rumors on Internet bulletin boards and chat rooms. Then on January 6, the company put out a press release with an earnings warning, seeming to indicate that people posting on bulletin boards and in chat rooms really did have a good idea of what was going on-despite their flaky online names such as " hot like-wasabe " " brain-and-the-kahuna, and " Floydian-us. " So in late March, when the Lucent discussion on Yahoo carried rumors of further problems in the second quarter, onlookers paid attention. On March 22, " kahuna - and - the-brain " guessed that there might be another earnings warning. Then, just before New York markets closed, " hot-like-wasabe " forwarded an item under the heading " LUCENT RELEASES EARNINGS WARNING! DAMN! " The item forwarded was a press release similar to the one in January, another earnings warning. Next, " Floydian-Us " sent the press release to some 20 different message boards along with the comments of a disappointed investor. As the news spread, Lucent's stock began to sink. But the " news " was pure fabrication. The press release was a fake. Before Lucent was able to get an authentic press release out, its stock value had dropped some $7 billion. Of course, anyone buying while the price was down made a killing when things returned to normal. As the SEC discovered later, one such buyer was operating under the names " kahuna_and-the-brain, " " hot-like-wasabe " and " Floydian-us. " A single person had orchestrated this trio of online identities, using names very close to those of established hands on the message boards. What's in a name? Some $7 billion, it appears. This sort of fraud wasn't developed by the Internet. Nearly 200 years ago, a messenger rushed from the English coast to London and announced Napoleon's defeat, sending the price of stocks skyrocketing. However, the whole thing was a ruse. The year was 1814, and Napoleon's fall at Waterloo was a year away. The messenger's ride was just a clever ploy. Both examples remind us that in turbulent times-in particular, political, or technological revolutions -truth can be hard to read. (Which is why Senator Hiram said in 1917 that truth is the " first casualty " of war.) ... RR Rutledge, M.D., F.A.C.S. The Center for Laparoscopic Obesity Surgery 4301 Ben lin Blvd. Durham, N.C. 27704 Telephone #: Fax #: Email: DrR@... ************************************************ Please Visit our Web site: http://clos.net ************************************************ Please join the Mini-Gastric Bypass Community at http://www.egroups.com/group/MiniGastricBypass Get the Mini-Gastric Bypass Patient Education Manual ( http://www.clos.net/get_patient_manual.htm ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.