This guy was out to prove that young Tony Castro could be got. And he got him. With Yahoo Messenger:

Mr Dominguez, who was born in Cuba, said his sting operation had been designed to "shatter the myth of an impenetrable" security network around the country's first family.

He could have, what, come slithering through the webcam like the girl in The Ring and strangled Castro Jr., mysteriously? Not quite clear on the concept here. Let's let the people decide.
[Miami Herald, Independent. Pic via]

The @dinalohan account on Twitter, supposedly written by the reality-TV star mom of Lindsay Lohan, was exposed last weekend as a hilarious fraud perpetrated by a Matt Cherette, a 24-year-old Michigan man. But Handler and her guest commentators seem unaware that it's not actually Lohan behind the tweets. Handler was completely taken in by Cherette's main schtick — writing tweets which bump up against Twitter's 140-character limit, which the imaginary Lohan attributes to "censorship" by Twitter's "tech support."

April Fool's is always a big event for Silicon Valley companies. The annual festival of pranks is a defining event for geek culture. When he worked at Sun Microsystems, colleagues of Eric Schmidt, now Google's CEO, disassembled a Volkswagen Beetle and reassembled it inside his office. Google's pranks over the years have ranged from Google Romance to a toilet-based Internet service provider.

Since he joined, a Google tipster tells us, Krantz has been the wordsmith behind Google's tomfoolery — "Google uses the same weird writer genius every year." He promises the prank will be "very good and totally insane." But isn't the ultimate April Fool's joke here that Google, which worships at the altar of the algorithm, actually employs a veteran of the world's most prestigious magazine?

(Photo by Ted Thai/Life)

Earlier today, we wondered whether Dina, the mother of Lindsay Lohan, was tweeting for real. The constant complaints about "haters" and deranged defenses of her daughter, not to mention the sheer volume sustained over the past two weeks, seemed nearly impossible to fake.

The key word being "nearly." Cherette, a relative newcomer to Twitter, seems to have quickly learned the potentials of this new storytelling medium. One thing the Lohan impostor quickly figured out: By pretending that Dina didn't get the service's 140-character limit on posts, he'd be able to draw a small army of enraged Twitter nerds eager to correct Lohan's gaffe.

According to our tipster, who says he's privy to some of Cherette's private postings on LiveJournal, Cherette has been posting comments crowing about his coup. Here are screenshots:

Assuming this prank doesn't have yet another layer to it, congratulations, Matt. You have endless opportunity ahead of you getting paid to pretend you're a celebrity.

Update: We just heard back from Cherette, who's admitted to the stunt and demonstrated that he controls the Twitter account. "What would you like to know?" he asks. Leave questions for him in the comments. Cherette also says he's the person who created Rosie O'Donnell's fake Twitter account.

A user on eBaum's World, a site which posts pictures and invites often profane discussion, suggested his peers search on a string of icons — "✈ ▌▌" — and thereby launch it onto Google Trends, the search engine's tracker for swiftly rising Internet phenomena.

The trick worked; Google's algorithm declared the glyph's rise "volcanic." And despite a surge of protests about its tastelessness, the Googlers have yet to censor the term, as they've been known to do with other offensive searches which show up on Google Trends, like a swastika symbol which showed up last summer.

Officially, Google says it has robots which take care of this: "The algorithm also filters out spam and removes inappropriate material." In reality? The 9/11 hack shows how easy it is to fool Google.

Victim: NextNewNetworks cofounder Timothy Shea

Victim: Yahoo ad exec Mike Walrath

Victim: Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson

It all started innocently enough. Sugar Publishing's Rebecca Gruber was nice enough to put us on the guest list for the party, which was cosponsored by PopSugar and TechCrunch. After leaving our car with the valet we sauntered into the Vanguard, a well-known dance venue on Hollywood Boulevard, without a care in the world. The comely Bonny Pierzina accompanied your correspondent as a photographer. After running into some friends near the door, we procured sodas and set out to mingle. We stopped to admire Perry Farrell mixing hip-hop hits from the Wu Tang Clan and the Beastie Boys.

I figured I'd introduce myself to Arrington and thank him for throwing the party. That was a mistake. I shook his hand, and before I could finish saying "Hi, I'm Jackson West, the new guy at Valleywag," he huffed, rolled his eyes and walked away. Laughing it off, I suggested to Bonny she roam the crowd and get some pictures of the party goers while I circled through the rest of the venue.

But it wasn't over with Arrington. He wrangled event security, tracked down Pierzina, and told the bouncers that she wasn't supposed to be there. She was then escorted off the premises, but not before being asked where I was — presumably to be disappeared from the party as well. The hero of the night was social networking entrepreneur Nick Dynice, who suggested politely to Arrington that it was rude and tasteless to turn Pierzina out.

After a flurry of text messages, I snuck out to check on Pierzina, and found some guerilla marketers from Vimby also being asked to leave. Back inside, tasteless 1938 Media videoblogger Loren Feldman traded barbs over Valleywag's traffic (and how little of it went his way). Recent Bay Area transplant Marjorie Kase, CEO of Blogger Reps, lamented the travails of her former employer MeeVee.

The rumor started going around that Cashmore had also been ejected, which turned out to be quite true. One Hollywood agent complained that the "douchebag level" was high, even for him. Once we caught wind of the planned afterparty at the Roosevelt Hotel, we tracked down Arrington one last time to thank him for the free drinks, getting blown off again once recognized.

So there we were at the Roosevelt, enjoying some fine hamburgers at 25 Degrees and dishing with Mahalo's Sean Percival when who should sit down at a booth but Arrington. The Valleywag team thought maybe we'd buy him and his entourage a round of drinks. After explaining the situation to our sympathetic server Leah, she suggested that maybe a milkshake would be more appropriate to the evident maturity level, and we agreed.

So with a signal agreed on and the camera ready, we walked by just as the milkshake was delivered. Hope you enjoyed it, Michael — we hear they're delicious, especially the strawberry.

(Photos by Bonny Pierzina)

Other songs being voted on include "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and the theme from Friends. During the time I've been writing this post, the prank has gotten more than 1,000 Diggs. I suspect this just might work — and end up in the New York Times, to boot.

10. Install the Blue Screen of Death Screensaver

Make your co-worker think their PC crashed when they get back from lunch. The BSOD ("Blue Screen of Death") screensaver is a free download from Microsoft (ironically.) For other operating system "support," check out the Linux BSOD 'saver with support for Apple, Windows, and Linux crash screens.

9. Fake a Desktop with Screenshot Wallpaper

Freak out your co-worker or family member by faking out their Windows desktop with an unclickable facade: Take a screenshot of their current desktop, then set it as the desktop wallpaper. Hide the actual taskbar and disable desktop icons (right-click the desktop and choose "Arrange Icons By" and uncheck "Show Desktop Icons.") When your victim returns to the computer, watch the futile clicking begin.

8. Schedule a Phone Call with a Text-to-Speech Message from Wakerupper.com

Wake up calls aren't just for the a.m., you know. Pop your victim's phone number, a time, and a custom message into Wakerupper.com, a free wakeup call service, and they'll get a call with the message read Silicon Sally text-to-speech style back to them. (original post)

7. Fill an Office with Packing Peanuts (Or Make It Look That Way)

Actually filling your co-worker's cubicle with packing peanuts can be a pain in the ass, but if there's a glass wall involved, it's easy to make it look like you did. Check out Hack N Mod's nifty gallery of what looks like a glass room filled with packing material.

April Fools: Cubical Chaos Fakeout [Hack N Mod]

6. Remote Control Your Co-Workers' Computer with VNC

How would it feel to have your mouse taken over by a ghost and do things on your computer you never intended while you watched? You can inflict this feeling of utter confusion on your victim using VNC, a computer remote control protocol. You'll need to install the VNC server on your victim's computer first, and have their IP address, so this one will work best in the office when you're on the same network. Here's how to remote control a computer with VNC. Mac users, here's how to remote control Leopard with TightVNC.

5. Message Co-Workers with NET SEND

Hidden in the depths of the Windows command line is a nifty little utility called Net Send, which pops up very official-looking alert messages on any computer you send them to. If you know your co-workers' IP address, you can net send them goofy messages, like this person on the Geeknewz boards:

A good prank that I have played on some friends involves the net send command. What I did was I used the net send command to send a message that said "Microsoft has detected that you have a small penis. Please consider upgrading for better performance" to other people on my local network. When you use the net send command in the command prompt, you specify the computer you want it sent to by typing the computer name, it also says on the message which computer it came from, so I changed my computer name to Microsoft, so it appeared, to the technically challenged, that the message actually came from Microsoft. In case you were interested, the syntax for the net send is:

net send computername message

Here's more on how to use net send.

4. "Break" Your Victim's LCD Screen with Wallpaper

Want to put a crack into that shiny new widescreen monitor? Download the broken LCD desktop wallpaper, set it as your victim's desktop wallpaper and hide the taskbar and icons.

3. Hijack Firefox with the Total Confusion Pack Extension (Enabled on April 1st Only)

Your victim use Firefox? Install the "Total Confusion Pack" Firefox extension, which enables the following "features" on April 1st only:

• Two Steps Back: Make the back button go back twice—not every time, but only on random instances.
  
• Rick Rollr: Switch out 2% of the video clips your victim watches with the infamous Rick Astley video.
  
• The Devil's Inbox: Make the number of unread email in your victim's Gmail inbox exactly 666.
  
• Highs and Lows/Sarcarsm Enhancer/For real: Add LOL, *sigh*, "for real," "Whatever" and various other commentary to web page text.
  
• Watch it: Make it look as if the page was loading forever. (Now this is just plain mean.)

2. Customize the Office HP Printer's Console Message

Baffle your coworkers with an "Insert Coin" message on the office printer using the HP Printer Job Language (HPPJL) command set. Here's how to customize the printer's Ready prompt to read whatever you want. (original post)

1. Turn Web Pages Upside Down

If your office or housemates all use the same Wi-Fi network and you've got some network admin skills, run the web traffic to their computers through custom scripts that turn images upside down, blur them, or redirect all web page requests to kittenwar.com. This is the most difficult trick in the list to implement, but it's pretty clever. Here's more on how to set up Upside-Down-Ternet. (original post)

For more good pranks, check out Wired's Top 10 April Fools' Pranks for Nerds, and Ask MetaFilter's thread on the topic.

What's your pick of favorite April Fool's Day prank? Share the love in the comments.

1. Cut a hole in a box. No, no, kidding. Step one is to buy a week's worth of TV ads on Spotrunner. The site sells ads for markets all over the U.S. for cheap. For example, $539 gets me 196 spots over two weeks in the Ozarks. That includes ads on CNN, ESPN, and other networks, sometimes during prime time. Buy some spots in your hometown, film your own negative ad (edit it online with Jumpcut), and upload it. Now you're good to go with your own local attack ads. "Joe Schmoe is a moron. I'm Jane Doe and I approve of this message."

2. While you can accomplish plenty in that TV spot, make sure you include a URL for your (anonymous) YouTube account. That's where you go viral with a daily updated video of your enemy. Shoot "coverage" of your target from afar with 20x zoom (digital zoom is fine, it's all going to look like crap on YouTube anyway). Then shoot a monologue with your webcam or iSight. Remember those "useless" video tricks that came with your webcam, like sunglasses and hats? Just disguise your face with those and you can play your own enemy. "Joe Schmoe is a moron. I'm Joe Schmoe and I approve of this message."

3. Fake an ad on Craigslist. Thank the gods for anonymous re-directs! Post a salacious ad on Craigslist and ask respondents to give their phone numbers. Use a disposable e-mail service like Mailinator if you need to coax anyone to give up their digits. "M4MW: Joe Schmoe seeks Joan Roe and John Doe."

4. Prank call #1: Calling the Craigslist mistress. Or mister. You can hide your caller ID with ShadowNumber, a "discreet" service meant for clandestine love affairs. They'll keep your secret. Call up the Craigslist liaison, and feel free to use your enemy's phone number. "Hey, wanna Joe my Schmoe?"

5. Prank call #2: A sex addict's cry for help. Now go in for the kill. Your enemy is already getting maligned on TV and on the Internet. Lonely Craigslisters are ringing them up. For a final blow, use Google's click-to-call to call up the local Sexaholics Anonymous (or other embarrassing organization of choice). Like ShadowNumber, Google lets you enter any caller ID you want. Stage a dramatic plea from a man gone insane. Then vlog about it on YouTube. For a bonus, videoconference into the SA meeting. "I'm Joe, and I'm a sexaholic." "Hi Joe!"

The above is satire. We don't recommend you actually go and DO any of it, especially in any way that's illegal. If you did, it'd end up on Digg or Boing Boing, you'd get caught, and a million geeks would buy TV spots mocking YOU.