Steve Jobs, As Demonized By His Nemesis
DVD Jon is thumbing his nose at Apple once again. The hacker, who bought an anti-Apple billboard under the San Francisco Apple store, has thrown Steve Jobs' famous 1984 commercial back at the control-freak CEO, turning him into a dictator.
"DVD" Jon Lohansen has been tweaking Apple for years. After breaking the encryption on DVDs, he went on to unscramble Apple's music store files, then its wi-fi media streaming, then virtual locks within the iPhone. Now he's got his own company, doubleTwist, whose mission is to connect non-Apple devices to your iTunes library — the same sort of trick the Apple-baiters over at Palm recently tried and then apparently gave up on.
This ad, which inverts an iconic Macintosh ad by putting Jobs in the role of Big Brother, is sure to get plenty of publicity, just like the Apple store trick. Free press is, of course, far preferable to paid advertising. Any old hacker could figure that out; it takes a more clever one to actually pull it off.