I have a hard time believing he didn't intend for it to be spread far and wide, and then claims "plausible deniability" when he finds out that's precisely what happened.

This guy isn't some random hacker, he's an IT staffer at the University of Texas. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have a hard time simultaneously writing this off as a practical joke while condemning the father of a kid targeted in that hoax for publicly stating his desire to go after him.

You want a harmless hoax? Write a story about someone being caught drinking a beer at a party. That doesn't get any circulation. To get the circulation he wanted, it had to be bigger - and guess what - a hoax about an arrest for cocaine did the trick. This guy searched to find a NewsOK template page, put in his own story, fabricated the byline to that of a real reporter, and let 'er rip. Yeah, he didn't want that to go anywhere. I guess that's why the Oklahoman fired up their own lawyers and sent the moron a C&D message.

Did the hoax fool me? No. It looked in every other respect like a true NewsOK site/article. I recognized the IP in the URL, and the writing was not the best. Can I see how it might fool someone who isn't keen on parsing URL's? Surely.

UT won't do anything to this guy because what he did wasn't on "company" time or systems. I do hope, however, that Landry Jones dad slams this jackass to the wall, if nothing else giving him as much legal grief as a few thousand bucks can buy.

-sd