The web carnivore is, for the most part, a fairly worthless mammal. We’re good for nothing but tracing ex girlfriends and deep-googling naked pictures of Sting (and let me tell you, all that Tantra seems to be an elaborate compensation.) When it comes to seizing colossal nonsense, our claws are honed to a Wǖsthof edge. We never snatch anything useful. Although, I may have commandeered a useful info niblet today.

I have spent a portion of the morning talking to the guy responsible for “leaking” this YouTube video. Thank U, Interwebs, as Kevin 07 might scrawl on his Facebook wall.

Today, major news outlets are intimating that this “slickly produced ad” is the soon-to-be-unleashed televisual work of a neocon spin paramedic. This, it seems, is the ham-fisted work of a party in trouble. No it’s not. I reckon some bloke with a PC made it. I just spoke with him.

N seems a bright, literate man who, I surmise, was simply up for a bit of late night dissent when he uploaded the video. I’m reasonably certain he’s not working for a major political party. He is, however, the owner of a small tech company, wrestling with an unwholesome affection for Big Macs and a fan of folk-poetry. Oh, and he’s not shy about publishing his mobile telephone number. A flick through the ABN register, a scurry through Myspace and a forum search can offer many fragments of a life.

N says, following my call, he may consider taking the video down in case Rupert’s people complete Internet 101 Training in time for deadline. Before that happens, you could, if you cared to, retrace my fanatical steps. N, like many people, has left an audit trail. What he’s also left is a mischievous imprint in the pre-campaign campaign.

Media commentators are left wondering if this brooding propaganda augurs well or ill for either party. After talking to N, I think this confusion was sort of the point.

“I can’t reveal my source,” he said in a voice remarkably similar to the one heard on YouTube.

“It’s you!,” I told him and he ricocheted back with a friable laugh of denial.

N, I think, is a late night fifth columnist. Like many sharp constituents, he’s equally miffed with the ALP and the coalition. I reckon he uploaded this faux ad to show not only “a bleak government which has, in this video, become a caricature of itself” but the lethargic nepotism of the opposition.

It’s caused a little splash. At the time of writing, putative human Joe Hockey is on Melbourne’s 3AW regurgitating the essence of the ad without actually quoting it. Patently, Joe likes watching YouTube a lot more than reading the Sydney Morning Herald. Have a look:  Paul Sheehan provided all of the copy for this “ad” whether he meant to or not.

N tells me the IT industry is hard slog. Perhaps a shrewd party might like to pop him on the payroll in view of his headline grabbing hoax. Heaven 07 knows, he’s made more effective use of Web 2.0 than either party to date.