Scandinavian Model Alexandra Ansgar Promotes Firefox

Status: Hoax
LaMa gave me a heads up about a hoax circulating through the open source community. I'll let him describe it in his own words:

"How do you hoax the geeks behind the open Source movement and the ICT web press? Yep: with a hot blonde and some photoshop...

All over the geek Blogging world, posts started to appear last week that the Mozilla Foundation, the guys behind amongst others the increasingly popular Open Source webbrowser Firefox and e-mail client Thunderbird, had struck a deal with hot blonde Scandinavian photo model Alexandra Ansgar to promote their product Firefox (just Google her name and you'll get plenty of hits). The news items were accompanied by a picture where this Alexandra posed in a seductive top printed with the Firefox logo (attached).

image

But it was a hoax. The photo [left] is a photoshopped version of the second attached picture [right].

In fact "Scandinavian top model Alexandra Ansgar" does not exist at all. The name is made up, it is the name of a Hotel in Copenhagen. The picture of the blonde is lifted from a softporn site, www.emy18.com.

Apparently the photoshopped picture emerged on April 29th as a geeky joke, not a hoax attempt, on a Portuguese language weblog:
http://kaylee.weblog.com.pt/

From there, the picture was taken over by a few other bloggers.

It then seems that on June 11th, www.gadgetizer.com elaborated the picture into a hoax, inventing "Scandinavian model Alexandra Ansgar" and the story about the deal with the Mozilla Foundation:
http://www.gadgetizer.com/2006/06/11/new-firefox-mascot-alexandra-ansgar/

From there, it spread over the internet, the story being taken for real and cvered by a number of Geek/ICT sites (you'll find enough of them when you Google "Alexandra Ansgar").

- Marco ("LaMa")

Alexandra Ansgar kind of reminds me of the Dusty girl.

Technology

Posted on Fri Jun 16, 2006


Comments

Yeah, the Dusty Girl. I had the same thought association.

And I bet you this pctuure now is the wallpaper of many a (male) Firefox fan out there...

And I admitt: I brought the story under Alex's attention just to have some eye candy on the site again.... 😛
Posted by LaMa  on  Fri Jun 16, 2006  at  09:48 AM
No matter what you're looking for you can find it on a portugese weblog. It's strange, but true.
Posted by Dracul  on  Fri Jun 16, 2006  at  01:28 PM
Thanks Alex & LaMa 😊
Posted by oppiejoe  on  Fri Jun 16, 2006  at  03:30 PM
Hey, I miss the Dusty girls! Guess the contract expired. My desktop pic is from there - it's the girl behind bars. Well,ahem,that's Susie, my 'Prison B---h', and her t-shirt reads "Surrender Your Booty!" I just couldn't resist that. Too bad I didn't order a t-shirt, or most other readers, here, or maybe we would still have the Dusty site up. C'mon, Alex; Could 'ya give 'em another shot?
Posted by stork  on  Sat Jun 17, 2006  at  12:15 AM
Why wait for Alex. You can see the Dusty girls anytime at:

http://www.dustybrand.com/desktops.asp

...you're welcome.
Posted by Captain Al  on  Sat Jun 17, 2006  at  01:56 AM
Here is an update with the whole story:
http://www.gadgetizer.com/2006/06/16/firefox-mascot-hoax-alexandra-ansgar/

The Alexandra Ansgar name is not suppose to be related with the hotel in Copenhag, it's just a coincidence.

Ass: the hoax creater from gadgetizer
Posted by Tiago  on  Sat Jun 17, 2006  at  06:35 PM
Photoshopped!?! Smart money sez that any hardcore firefox fan would use the gimp!
Posted by rkh  on  Sun Jun 18, 2006  at  10:31 PM
"... Alexandra Ansgar kind of reminds me of the Dusty girl."

That's probably because neither of 'em know their own shirt sizes.
Posted by Big Gary  on  Mon Jun 19, 2006  at  04:17 PM
Nice and sexy chick...
Posted by iCalvyn  on  Fri Jul 13, 2007  at  11:23 AM
Who cares if it's a Photoshop Phake? She's hot!
Posted by GeorgeC  on  Mon Nov 12, 2007  at  08:32 PM
Hi Guys,
Ogling is good for the heart and Eyes.- just what the doctor ordered!
Posted by Ian George  on  Sat Nov 07, 2009  at  09:39 PM
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