Tech columnist creates fake alias to sound more "credible"

Devil Mountain Software sells software that measures the performance of Windows.

Larry Dignan, ZDNet's editor in chief, revealed in a report titled "Why we don't trust Devil Mountain Software (and neither should you)," that the small software company's CTO, Craig Barth, was an InfoWorld contributor called Randall C Kennedy.

ZDNet's investigation concluded that Barth's name only appeared in stories that were published on sites owned by IDG, the publisher of InfoWorld and Computerworld. Devil Mountain Software regularly reports on operating system and browser performance, with a special focus on Windows, ZDNet's editor pointed out.

In an e-mail, CNET reports, Randall C Kennedy described himself as a "well-intentioned fool" and characterized the creation of the alter ego as a "little white lie" that was necessary to keep his controversial "shock jock"-style of writing at the publication separate from his identity as the co-developer of Windows Sentinel--a performance-monitoring tool co-branded with InfoWorld.

ZDNet also found that Devil Mountain Software's product could put user privacy at risk, as the software could peek into customer systems and that one high-profile "client" cited by the non-existent Barth to promote the software says it has not actually implemented the software.

InfoWorld publicly severed ties with Kennedy. The editor in chief Eric Knorr apologized to readers and explained the reasons for the move in a blog post on Sunday:

"On Friday, Feb. 19, we discovered that one of our contributors, Randall C. Kennedy, had been misrepresenting himself to other media organizations as Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain Software (aka exo.performance.network), in interviews for a number of stories regarding Windows and other Microsoft software topics. Devil Mountain Software is a business Kennedy established that specializes in the analysis of Windows performance data. There is no Craig Barth, and Kennedy has stated that this fabrication was a misguided effort to separate himself (or more accurately, his InfoWorld blogger persona) from his Devil Mountain Software business."