Oops ... 'Survivor' secret published on CBS Web site

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500230112-500333118-501899096-0,00.html

[You have to love it when blaming hackers is easier than admitting
that someone at the network screwed up. -WK]

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (July 19, 2000 11:00 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
Maybe someone should call a tribal council. A posting that briefly
appeared on a CBS Web site Wednesday inadvertently revealed which
contestant was kicked off "Survivor," hours before TV viewers learned
the secret.

A writer who was checking the www.cbs.com Web site for news of
"Survivor" on Wednesday afternoon said he was startled to see a
headline revealing which of the nine remaining island inhabitants
would be voted off at the end of the show.

The writer, Richard Foster, said he clicked on to the Web site and saw
a full story of what happened in the episode - similar to what CBS
usually posts after the episode airs each Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern.
He said that he began downloading the article, but that it disappeared
from the Web site before he could complete the job.

Foster immediately posted his own article about what he saw on the Web
site he works for, www.richmond.com, which is devoted to news about
Richmond, Va.

The posting said that Greg Buis, the wacky Colorado resident best
known for pretending a coconut was a cell phone, was sent home.

Six hours later, viewers in the Eastern and Central time zones saw the
scoop was real. Other details, which Foster also passed along, panned
out as well when the episode aired: An archery competition, with
winner and loser; an obstacle course aced by youth basketball coach
Gervase Peterson.

In a one-sentence statement, CBS spokesman Chris Ender said, "Clearly
some of our friends in the hacking community are among the biggest
fans among the 25 million people who love `Survivor."'

Otherwise, officials at CBS would not comment on the disclosure or
what steps would be taken to prevent future leaks. The network has
been trying hard to keep secret who stays and who goes on the island,
knowing the mystery is key to the appeal of the enormously successful
summer series, which was taped weeks ago.

"We continue to decline comment on all rumors and speculation
pertaining to `Survivor,' except to note that there has been hacking
into our system in the past," said Gil Schwartz, a CBS spokesman.

Fans of the show were already buzzing about another computer user's
discovery that CBS Web designers, in content supposedly unavailable to
the public, had placed a red X over pictures of all 16 "Survivor"
contestants except for one - Gervase Peterson.

That has led many fans to conclude that Peterson will be the
million-dollar winner on the show's final episode, which airs Aug. 23.

Foster said he checks the CBS Web site frequently for "Survivor" news
because one of the contestants, former Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch, lives in
the area.


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