Web designer pulls cyber prank on John McCain

Columbus (OH) - After Web designer Mike Davidson realized images from his server were being used on John McCain’s Myspace page, he decided to pull a small political prank. He altered the commandeered images to display a message supporting same-gender marriage, a position that John McCain adamantly does not support.

Davidson said he received numerous e-mails from people telling him that the Myspace page set up for the presidential hopeful ripped off one of his design templates without giving him credit. The page also used images hosted on Davidson’s server, meaning his bandwidth was being eaten every time someone visited McCain’s profile.

"I think the idea of politicians setting up MySpace pages and pretending to actually use them is a bit disingenuous, so I figured it was time to play a little prank on Johnny Mac," said Davidson in an entry on his blog.

He altered the image that had previously been used for things like "Send Message" and "Add To Friends" to say "Dear Supporters, Today I announced that I have reversed my position and come out in full supprt of gay marriage...particularly marriage between two passionate females."

Davidson did not hack into the Myspace account. Because it was pulling images directly from his server, all he needed to do was alter the image on his own site.

He explained the choice of hot button issue to use by saying, "Abortion ? The Iraq War ? Probably too heavy to joke about. Gay marriage seemed like a more of a non-lethal subject to center the prank around."