Talk:Tom Anderson/Archives/2013

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Tom's Twitter

Why not add Tom Anderson's twitter (it's an official, verified account) to the External links? http://twitter.com/myspacetom — Preceding unsigned comment added by YellAdam (talk • contribs) 09:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

TOM's age

since there is some uncertainty regarding Tom's age TechCrunch articleEDIT: The only source being Tom's my space page The uncertainty should be addressed here.Manquer 13:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Newsweek provided an actual date of birth based on public records, so the question should be pretty much settled. --Michael Snow 19:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


i do believe tom was born in c 1742, but it says on his myspace he went to berkely in 1994 what was he doing for six years after high school?!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.94.246 (talk) 00:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The picture in this article makes him look like he is in his mid 40's. 74.87.192.195 (talk) 18:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

This article in a 1986 issue of Phrack has him 16 in 1986 [1]...plus I knew him then and he was 16, though that's obviously not an official cite. Sburnap (talk) 21:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


I remember when myspace first was established and was looking for an old friend, I had typed in Tom zimmerman and Tom anderson popped up... But now it does not, Could Zimmerman be his real last name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.238.195.231 (talk) 03:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Serial killers

Due to his notoriety on MySpace, Tom has become somewhat of a "phenomenon" in recent years

why does "phenomenon" link to "List of Serial Killers" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers) ? =\ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.137.3.97 (talk) 10:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Dates of college attendance

The article stated some dates that Tom attended Berkeley and UCLA. No source was provided, and it seems quite possible they were simply extrapolated based on his supposed age, now shown to be false. That leaves them as rather dubious information, and I've removed the dates.

There is, of course, no source cited for the colleges either. Rather than do original research for Wikipedia purposes, I'll leave it to other people to investigate whether he attended and received the degrees stated. --Michael Snow 19:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Cultural References

Lil' Wayne - Uncut

The interview will be published in Complex's December 11th issue featuring Lil' Wayne for the cover story. I know you guy's don't like "Trivia" entries and this may be considered one, but I feel that this isn't just another "dumb ignorant wiki trivia entry" simply because I feel this statement means more than he would just like to kick it and smoke with him but more like he feels this person has done something right and can learn a few things from them. My 2 cents and my first ever input to wikipedia, so please be easy.

Mark LeClair. 07:28, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

This tells us something about Lil' Wayne, but nothing about Tom Anderson. I do not see its relevance to this article. -- Donald Albury 12:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Teen life as Lord Flathead

I believe the connection between the Tom Anderson known as Lord Flathead and the Tom Anderson of MySpace fame is firmly established, but please keep a watch for any rebuttal. If by some tiny chance it turns out these are two different people, my recent edit and my redirect from Lord Flathead should be reverted immediately. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:41, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Should this blog reference remain? Another editor added it, I simply refactored it. I think it is redundant and not a reliable source, but I'm leaving it up pending discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree, it doesn't make sence, since the connection is extreemly loose, at best, and has very little validity and/or proof to back it up, therefore I suggest that it be removed, imo. 75.172.183.39 (talk) 17:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)Noaru

word is "sense" dude.

Number of friends now at 10 million increments

Keeping updated to the nearest 1 million friends is very burdensome. Saying "at least 240 million" with an HTML comment to keep it to the nearest 10 million should make maintenance a lot easier. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:24, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


It has that as of 2009 he now has a quarter million friends, while it should state a quarter billion friends as of 6 January 2009 he has over 254524962 friends. Bertsch81 (talk) 01:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I propose just removing the number of friends entirely. Surely they aren't all his actual friends, so all this stands to show is the number of people who didn't bother to delete him from their "friends". The only information of merit worth mentioning is that he is the default first friend for all new accounts. In fact, the whole first paragraph of this article could use a rewrite. Stungif (talk) 05:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd agree with removing the number of "friends"; it's not so easy to delete him from the friends list for some users. I, for one, cancelled my MySpace account after getting fed up with seeing what this apparent egomaniac put on his profile and unable to remove/block him, despite being assured by someone at MySpace that he would be removed from my list of friends.JenFanOtto (talk) 20:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
You're an idiot. LOL 96.33.74.158 (talk) 06:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

fine bit of trolling right there.^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.169.224.101 (talk) 09:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Age in dispute

Someone changed his birth-year to 1975 based on his claim, citing a source from 2007. A source in 2008 says he was 14 in 1985. While I am inclined to believe the 2008 source I don't want to simply revert, so I marked the age in dispute. As soon as we can confirm an age, it should be restored. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Tom was 14 in 1985 at the time we got busted by the FBI for hacking (October). I'd been to Tom's house before and we were friends. He lived in Escondido,CA at the time and I lived in Oceanside, CA. I got busted with him; I was 15, he was 14. Both of us have birthdays in November at which point I turned 16 and he 15. Lord Flathead was his hacking name; Fast Scan was mine. About 14 other kids got busted at the time. Largest hacking raid in San Diego history. I still have the newspaper articles although they couldn't mention us by name since we were minors so they called him by his hacking name "Lord Flathead" in the story and later they printed my home address so then everyone at school knew I was in on it.. argh... crazy times. -Mike Chase mchase@chasenetworks.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.60.234.5 (talk) 06:03, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Role in founding

Why was this section removed?

Role in founding

Main article: MySpace#Controversy over corporate history The corporate history of MySpace has been a matter of some public dispute. When MySpace was purchased by News Corp. they also gained control of the editor's account (the Tom Anderson profile) from which all service announcements are made. Such announcements are not from "Tom Anderson" personally but from the corporate owned identity. It has even been claimed that Tom Anderson's role and image as MySpace founder and "first friend" is a public relations invention.[8] Another aspect of MySpace's origins that turned out to be misrepresented was Anderson's age. Supposedly 27 when the site was first created, the age stated on his profile followed this information, adding a year with each birthday. It was subsequently revealed that Anderson was five years older than his profile claimed. Speculation on the reasons focused on the benefits in reaching the youth market, by positioning the founders as hip young entrepreneurs instead of "30-somethings".[9] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Troobador (talk • contribs) 21:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

It was removed and replaced by garbage by a vandal, but not restored when the garbage was removed. I've reverted the article to the last good version by Cluebot. The edit history is your friend. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Rape Story

Whoever put the paragraph at the beginning about some guy raping your daughter or friend or whoever, I'm extremely sorry for this terrible tragedy and trial you must be going through. There are ways to put things like that into this article, but it needs to be encyclopedic and professional looking. Wikipedia articles aren't message boards. Message me and if you have appropriate reputable sources I'll help you put that in the appropriate place. Jpagel (talk) 19:06, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The user must be perma-hardblocked (account creation disabled, e-mail disabled, everything disabled) for BLP violation! --Joshua Issac (talk) 14:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection

I requested semi-protection because the vandalism in the past couple of weeks was too much to keep up with, as evidenced by stuff getting past the reverters. It's unfortunate that this happened. The protection is for 3 months this time. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Number of friends

It says that he has a more than a quarter million friends but this should say billion —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balzam (talk • contribs) 01:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

He's ugly............ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.226.132.180 (talk) 01:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Prior to me changing it, it was a counter that had just passed 250,000 and was being updated several times a month. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 05:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Correction: it used to say some number just over 250,000,000. It's fixed now, it says more than a quarter billion. My apologies to all those people who I took off his friends list. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

See also: WarGames

Besides Anderson being a cracker when he was younger, and WarGames being about a teenage hacker, there is no relation. This should not be in the article. Stungif (talk) 02:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm leaning to keeping it but if you want to remove it, I probably won't revert, but someone else might. I see you have very few edits, which is probably why you couldn't edit this semi-protected article. If you make 1 or 2 edits a day within a week you should be able to edit this article. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it's stretching, at most. I'm removing it. 68.46.43.198 (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

WarGames is relevant because it was a movie we had seen prior to the hacking which had an impact on us. That and another major influence was Bill Landreth's book which as I remember was entitled "Out of the Inner Circle". Bill and Tom were good friends although I had never personally met Bill, Tom talked about him often, and we had all read the book. Bill was a member of the Inner Circle, an exclusive cracking club of the early 1980's. He began cracking software when he was fourteen and then hacking, but retired at the ripe old age of 18 when FBI agents busted him and the Inner Circle in 1983. By then they had broken into computer systems of banks, newspapers, schools, the phone company, and credit card bureaus. The Inner Circle was indicted for computer fraud after they were caught tapping into the GTE Telemail Computer Network in Vienna, Virginia. Landreth was convicted and received three years probation. He then disappeared for countless years and many rumors abounded from he was dead to he was on the run to he was working for a super secret gov't agency. All funny stuff. :-) -Mike Chase mchase@chasenetworks.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.60.234.5 (talk) 06:13, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Hot

He's cute, why isn't there a mention if he's married or what? 63.26.73.240 (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)bertha

If you have that information from reliable sources, put {{Editsemiprotected}} here with that information and maybe it will be added. However, it may not be as it's not all that encyclopedic. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Based on a message sent on google plus to some wikipedia editors, he's single Pvvni (talk) 03:29, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Spouses?

50 Spouses? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.167.3.27 (talk) 19:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism?

The 'Age dispute and teen life' section of this article is whack. It makes no sense and talks about Tom raping a 4 year old boy with the citation going to an article about him being 37 years old. I've tried to clean it up. Hubertforthcourse (talk) 06:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Haxor past

I read in many places that Tom was a hacker when he was young and hacked a bank before being caught by the police. He was a minor, so was not jailed. References probably on the net. --Joshua Issac (talk) 14:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Year of birth?

  • The article says 1970 but the infobox says 1974; which is it? Erpert (let's talk about it) 06:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
    • The source we have ([2]) says 1970; I'll change the infobox to reflect that. Evil saltine (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Tom's Google+ Page

Is here https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/posts --84.130.169.52 (talk) 22:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Any evidence/proof that it's legit? 68.149.115.95 (talk) 07:42, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: pages moved per request. It would be good to go through the links to this article ([3]), and make sure they're all pointing to the correct Tom Anderson. - GTBacchus(talk) 05:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


Tom Anderson (entrepreneur) → Tom Anderson – Primary topic. Page views: 29,430, 305, 295. Marcus Qwertyus 05:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Should there be some information about Tom Anderson having a Facebook account?

I have no idea if this is really Tom Anderson or not, but I found a public Facebook profile with his name which looked to be recently created.

http://facebook.com/myspacetom

On his (if it's actually Tom Anderson's account) wall, a status was made (earlier today) which I will quote:

"People seem very confused why I'm on Facebook. I've had a profile since 2005 and a "fan page" since 2009. FB just created a feature where you can "subscribe" to profiles. They asked me if I wanted to convert my "page" into a simpler profile. Complicated? I suppose. Why am I not on MySpace? Because, I left the company in early 2009, and like most of you, I don't like using it anymore.. not a fan of what the new folks have done with MySpace."

Any thoughts on if this "Tom Anderson" on Facebook is the same one from Myspace. (The profile picture on the Facebook account is a picture of Tom Anderson from Myspace, if anyone was wondering about the pictures of him on Facebook). Andise1 (talk) 19:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

At the minute, no. I looked into this earlier and I couldn't find any reliable sources stating that he has a Facebook account. I could only find the Facebook account that's alleging to be him however this wouldn't qualify as a reliable source as we have no way of verifying if that's genuinely him. Sure it's got his photo but that could so easily have been copied from MySpace. So at the moment, no.--5 albert square (talk) 19:32, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

he has now tweeted from his verified twitter account that it's him: https://twitter.com/#!/myspacetom/status/115826832238059520, so we should probably add it as an external link. er, n/m saw that someone else already added it. maybe make mention of it in the article? Impasse 18:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Should information be added about Tom Anderson being an "ex-president" of Myspace

As stated here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace under the "Key people" section, it is stated that Tom Anderson is ex-president of Myspace. Any ideas on how to add information about him being ex-president of Myspace into the article? Andise1 (talk) 22:44, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Alisonangus, 21 September 2011

Tom left the company as cofounder in 2009. He's had a Facebook page since 2005 and really enjoys using Facebook. On Myspace, "I don't like using it anymore.. not a fan of what the new folks have done with MySpace.:Tom's Facebook page

Tom has claimed that Facebook is everything he wanted to have when he started myspace. "People often ask me what I think of Facebook? Put simply, I love it. Facebook has accomplished what I wanted to accomplish when I started MySpace--that "everyone" would be online, and "everything" online would get more fun & useful because its social. To me, Facebook just keeps getting better & better." Facebook page

Alisonangus (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Got a source?--Jac16888 Talk 15:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
His official Facebook fan page. Which we know is him, because his verified Google+ account, https://plus.google.com/112063946124358686266/about, links to http://www.facebook.com/myspacetom. Fences&Windows 02:07, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Also see this Tweet from his verified Twitter account: "Facebook doesn't yet have a "verified" badge like Twitter -- but yes, this is me: http://www.facebook.com/myspacetom 19 Sep" https://twitter.com/#!/myspacetom/status/115826832238059520. Fences&Windows 02:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
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