Claim: Popular entertainer Dave Matthews is dead.
Status: False.
Origins: No, popular entertainer Dave Matthews (of the
The web site at IP address
Many web surfers have been confused by these spoofs because they're led to the site by URLs such as the following:
This link looks like its pointing to a section of World News articles at CNN.com, but everything preceding an '@' character in a URL is generally ignored, so this link actually redirects the user to pages hosted on the site at the
(Try this example: the URL https://www.msnbc.com@198.64.132.113/rumors/msnbc.htm doesn't take you to MSNBC; it takes you to a page about MSNBC on our own web site.)
The use of an IP address rather than a domain name helps conceal the identity of the site to which the user has been redirected and heightens the illusion that the reader is viewing a "real" CNN page.
Last updated: 30 October 2007