Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Web Developer Mystery Man....At Least McLovin Actually Had I.D.

FoolUsOnce,ShameOnWe
WeWon'tBeFooledAgainVille


And what a fine I.D. it was...


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And apropos of absolutely nothing at all, it would appear that there is a RackNine mystery man afoot for whom no one can find any I.D. whatsoever, real or otherwise.

And that fine fellow's name is, allegedly....

.....McKnight.


PostMedia's McGregor and Maher have the story (so far):

...RackNine, the Edmonton company that suspect "Pierre Poutine" used to send voters to the wrong polling locations, is operated by Edmonton businessman Matt Meier, with the help of Rick McKnight, who is identified variously as head of marketing and web developer.

But Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen are unable to find anyone who knows McKnight, even though he has a healthy online identity, including 551 Facebook friends, many of them prominent.

Meier and his lawyer declined Monday to clear up the case of the mysterious McKnight.

Until recently, McKnight was listed as web developer on the LinkedIn business website, the only other North American employee with a listing under RackNine. His entry says that he studied computer science at Stanford University, and that he was born on Jan. 1, although it doesn't list the year.

Postmedia was unable to confirm that he attended Stanford...


Of course, in Superbad, the Movie, McLovin (Fogell) was all set to go to Dartmouth, not Stanford. So maybe our non-analogy holds no water, holly, or even ivy (leagues under the sea?) for that matter.

Interestingly, however, neither RackNine's big boss, Mr. Meier, or their lawyer, Mr. RJ Matthews, would confirm that McKnight was a real person, or even a real Canadian, to McGregor and Maher:

...Meier, who is said to be helping Elections Canada with their investigation and has repeatedly said he had no knowledge of the "Poutine" robocalls, has declined to comment on McKnight's identity.

In an interview, when asked how a reporter could get in touch with McKnight, he said "you don't," and hung up.

Later, he referred queries to his lawyer, R. Justin Matthews, who offered a cryptic reply.

"How does one define a real person?" said Matthews in an email. "Would a web-design employee that chooses to use a different name online (which some people seem to do these days) be considered a real person?"

Matthews said he would not reveal McKnight's identity, and would not confirm that he is a Canadian...


Hmmmmm....Has anyone asked if Mr. McKnight was from Hawaii by chance?


Ha!
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10 comments:

Don F. said...

with all of this,this outfit has the gaul to sue Pat Martin and the NDP for five million for slander, blows your mind.
Can you slander an internet fake identity?...I don't know
Don

Saskboy said...

Meier, a CPC donor, and his "non partisan" company that appears to give email addresses to employee's aliases, and does business with customer aliases involved in national criminal scandals, is not having an easy month.

Saskboy said...

This is an amusing tweet that probably was referring to opposition.


Matt Meier ‏ @mdmeier:

The fake tweeters are out in force this week. #yegfed
1:28 PM - 26 Apr 11 via web

Anonymous said...

And then, there's this little gem gleaned from the web,
Lawrence Journal, January 14, 1980, about the early days of a certain Rick McKnight (Rick McKnight Ministries). http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19800114&id=CKgyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2126,2789253
Apparently, he has Canadian connections in the Christian right, including a 4-year gig at a church in Peterborough
http://www.rickmcknightministries.com/modules.php?name=aboutrick

Holly Stick said...

This twitterer has connected some names: https://twitter.com/#!/probative/status/181956309086769152

And searching for articles by R Martinex on the Racknine website brings up articles by "Rick McKnight"

Beijing York said...

The name may have been scrubbed but Rick McKnight is for real and a web geek:

http://www.quora.com/Rick-McKnight

He and Matt Gelinas of Alberta Blue Strategies are following each other:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-gelinas/10/bb8/5b2

http://albertabluestrategies.ca/archives/category/news

Also connected to:


Richard Dur, owner of Alberta Blue Strategies – also owns 17 other domain names: http://whois.domaintools.com/calgaryward14.com

Calgaryward14.com is host IP for 55 domains: http://www.domaintools.com/research/reverse-ip/?hostname=calgaryward14.com

Including:

americans4opec.com

http://www.abingdon-research.com/

http://www.abingdon.ca/practices/political/

"We have experience advising the Prime Minister of Canada, Premiers, Leaders of the Opposition, Mayors and dozens of MPs, MLAs and candidates. We have advised political parties on four continents. Our Chief Research Officer served as the official pollster for the Conservative Party of Canada in their successful re-election in the 2008 Federal Election. We specialize in voter profiles and psychographic analysis. We know what questions to ask, but more importantly, we know how to analyze the results to help our clients win."


So the owner of Alberta Blue Strategies also owns the domain for two of Hamish Marshall’s current jobs, Chief Research Officer for Abingdon Research and President and CEO of Go Newclear Productions:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/hamish-marshall/16/65b/a15

Linked profiles include Mark Spiro (Crestview Strategy) and Patrick Muttart (now with Mercury Public Affairs, USA, previously Harper’s deputy chief of staff, past position with Navigator Inc. that seems to have served as an incubator for many of these operatives).

Holly Stick said...

But is there evidence that Rick McKnight exists off the internet? Maher and McGregor could not find a real one in Alberta, for all that he is facebook friends with many people.

Holly Stick said...

Beijing York check out @probative's twitter feed for the past couple of days: https://twitter.com/#!/probative

She finds Rick McKnight is probably really R. Martinez or Rafael Martinez Miguesa. Do those names show up in your links? The tweeters are talking about McKnight's linkedin page being altered etc.:

https://twitter.com/#!/probative/status/182188906173837313

Also a photo Racknine used of a bunch of servers was apparently not of its servers, but a stock photo?:

https://twitter.com/#!/BCLaraby/status/182193537859858432

Simon said...

hi Ross...the mystery man is Rafael Martinez Minuesa from Spain...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/firm-at-centre-of-robo-call-storm-unmasks-mystery-employee/article2375881/

And Beijing gets the Progressive Sherlock Holmes Award for sheer brilliance. :)

RossK said...

Thanks All--

Clearly, the bloggodome beat the proMedia like a gong on this one...

And interesting, don't you think, that the unmasking was offered to The Globe rather than the NaPo....

Somethin's Happenin' Here....

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