Do you have any clue why an American citizen Keith Heywod would use “alarbi_gujarat@yahoo.com” as his e-mail address? Neither do I! But our friends at CNN-IBN led by Rajdeep Sardesai seem to agree that alarbi_gujarat@yahoo.com is indeed Heywod’s e-mail address which was hacked into and used to send e-mails giving advance warning of the Ahmedabad serial blasts.
Only if CNN-IBN had bothered to check the facts before blurting out this ugly concoction, they would have known that in fact, it was Heywod’s IP address that was spoofed and not his e-mail address. Watch the video from IBNLive.com and see for yourself:
Update Aug 26, 2008: The video has either been removed from the website, or the permalink has been changed. Guess you’ll have to trust me on this one!
Though the ultimate premise of this story was to warn viewers to safeguard themselves while on the Internet, the reasons for doing so was totally incorrect. This story makes us believe that the terrorists hacked Heywod’s e-mail address and sent e-mails illegally. In reality, the American presently staying in Navi Mumbai told the police that either his computer was hacked into or someone used his wireless connection to illegally send an e-mail via his network. The IP address is what helped the police raid the American’s house within hours of the serial blasts.
Yes, an e-mail address can be hacked, people have their identities stolen all the time, but in this case this isn’t what really happened. Here’s hoping that CNN-IBN will check and recheck their facts before airing such news reports.