The World's Most Influential Person Is...

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1894028,00.html

by asmosoinio • 17 years ago

25 10 17 years ago

time.com

syaz• 17 years ago

Isn't this victim of precision hack? http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-ha...

paraschopra• 17 years ago

Yep, this is: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1...

csbartus• 17 years ago

the answer is on www.theyrule.net

jokermatt999• 17 years ago

I cannot believe they actual gave it to him. It was fairly obviously hacked, and it isn't like 4chan has all that much real world influence (excepting when the hive mind decides to do something, but moot isn't at the head of that).

mtinkerhess• 17 years ago

Time acknowledges that the vote was hacked:

TIME.com's technical team did detect and extinguish several attempts to hack the vote.

I don't think it's obvious that a hack went undetected by Time and gave the vote to Moot. What seems more likely to me is that more people voted for him.

Clearly Moot isn't actually as influential as an individual as, say, Barack Obama. But he represents the power of the internet masses, whose influence is proven by his victory.

ErrantX• 17 years ago

A fair point.

But they gamed the whole vote not just his position.

The first letters of the first 21 names still spells:

"Marblecake also the game"

All of the top 21 are in those positions because of the engineering of Anon. - so, basically the vote is worthless.

Not so much the masses behind him but a devoted few :)

wallflower• 17 years ago

I think Time decided it was easier to let him be awarded the win then to award it to someone with less votes.

By doing so, Time has probably averted negative hacking, social engineering campaigns against their many web properties (e.g. How can 4chan's followers argue with the results?) It is a bit, tongue-in-cheek, though - they obviously did not drum it up (in the announcement) - as if someone like Obama had one.

badger7• 17 years ago

"I don't think it's obvious that a hack went undetected by Time and gave the vote to Moot. What seems more likely to me is that more people voted for him."

That argument doesn't account for the rest of the hack. We have already had detailed explanations of what they did to 'extinguish' the hack from the hackers, and also how they got around the trivial upgrades to security. That acknowledgement from Time is denial, plain and simple.

marksutherland• 17 years ago

I remember when I was Time's person of the year back in 2006. Which is to say I'm not sure how much can be read from this. It's amusing they had the wit to run with it and I'm intrigued to see if this does anything to raise the profile of 4chan.

alexkearns• 17 years ago

What!!! Not me.

The World's Most Influential Person Is...

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