Shattered, uh, Wire

This is straight out of the movie Shattered Glass. Remember the scene where Glass tries to put together a website on some free server to back up his stories? Wired News found a similar case.

Chien's reporting came under scrutiny when he submitted a draft article citing a different source, Ted Collins, along with contact information for Collins, as required by Wired News ever since questions arose last year over another reporter's sources.

An investigation traced the name and Hotmail account provided to a Usenet posting praising Chien's work. Wired News senior editor Kevin Poulsen then compared the IP address of the poster and Chien's computer and discovered they matched. An e-mail sent to Wired News from the Ted Collins account also originated with the same IP address.

Poulsen linked Chien's IP address to at least one other Hotmail account, created under the name Robert Stevens, which Chien had provided to Wired News as contact information for Ash. The name and address were used in additional Usenet posts making positive comments about Chien's work.

Chien has used Robert Stevens as a source in at least three articles published in two newspapers, which we have contacted privately. In each case he used a different description, variously calling him a retired engineer, a NASA engineer and an amateur astronomer.

At least Wired News has the integrity to out its own people, and for that they should be commended. But this fakery stuff, whether in pictures or print, is getting pretty bad.