On July 7, New York Newsday reported that signs warning of sewer lizards have been seen posted around news outlets. The article reports that the City traced the signs to On The Go Marketing. Newsday also reports that Department of Environmental Protection cheif of Staff Charles G. Sturcken stated that the firm could face fines of up to $1000 per sign on City property, and that the DEP has removed over 2000 such signs. (Click here to read Newsday's article).

Newsday's report missed the sewer-lizard warnings posted on all of the manhole covers in downtown Brooklyn. A salt and pepper team of Department of Transportation workers spent a whole day grumbling about foregoing import work to remove the signs, which were glued with industrial strength glue. Newsday also failed to see the link between the sign hoaxes and the recent Central Park Gator stories (reported in the Associated Press by Richard Pyle, June 19, and June 21, among other reports in the local broadcast media).

As reported by the AP, a gator was released into a northern Central Park lake. Crowds of people, and their children, enjoying the sun by the lakeside spotted the creature. A gator-wrestler from Florida was called in who eventually caught the creature, later identified as a 2 foot long caiman (a smaller cousin to alligators). Several local broadcasters actually caught the creature on camera and reported that, "the caiman was probably a pet released by it's owner." They also reported that the caiman would die if it hadn't been caught.

Rent Wars has a professional interest in sewer-gators, and gator-like creatures, as part of our Slumlord Monitoring System. In the animated Rent Wars universe, the Slumlords maintain the creatures, along with giant rats, mutant roaches, and pit bulls, as pets and for attacking tenants of Slumlord owned buildings. Recent Slumlord activity in our universe has prompted us to monitor giant rat, mutant roach, and sewer gator sitings (pit bulls are everywhere here) here as well.

Fortunately, we can affirmatively state that the sewer-gators of your story are not the result of Slumlord activity. As the Newsday article suggested this may be nothing more than an elaborate hoax by On The Go Marketing. In support of this theory is the fact that sewer-alert website was traced to: J. Lubow, The Sci Fi Channel, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY.

But the sewer-gator menace is real. Not because sewer-gators may be a real phenomenon, but rather because a marketing hoax gone mad is endangering the people of the City of New York in addition to invading the privacy and security of websurfers.

If the Sci-Fi Channel is responsible for putting a 2 foot Caiman in a public lake (which seems very likely- how does anyone get a Florida gator wrestler to NYC that fast?), then they put the many small children who visit Central Park at risk. They even put the caiman itself in danger.

Using industrial strength glue on manhole covers puts every city worker who uses those covers in danger. Even the public is put in danger by this. If City workers can't easily access the underground network of City arteries in time, pressure could build up causing the 200 pound manhole covers to fly up and hit pedestrians and damage property. (There is real precedent for this happening).

Even websurfers aren't safe. We visited the sewer-alert website listed on the hoax notices and found that it does a NetBIOS scan (from 209.10.193.130, the website) and then matches that scan to the zip code request. Due to the advanced nature of the website's programming, we were unable to determine what, if any, payload the java and javascript unleash on the surfer's computer (possibly a virus or trojan horse). If you visit the website from a networked computer, it can trace you by location, browser, and name (ie. Newsday network) and then trace the specific origin, or grab your email address book, or otherwise compromise the security of your network. This is far more potent a tracking method than cookies or 'web bugs' and has serious privacy implications.

Obviously, if the Sci-Fi channel is promoting an urban legends show by putting caimans in public park waters (the Central Park Gator from the AP and other stories) even if they then hire a gator wrestler to remove it, they are crossing the line between funny hoax and public endangerment. Small children could have been put at risk by the animal, the caiman itself could have been endangered as well. And the elaborate privacy violations of the website could endanger a network's privacy and security and that of all surfers who viewed the website (and any of the public that viewed the website from the signs).

- Ronin

*The sewer alert website is not linked or provided due to our concerns about the website's activity that endangers privacy and security.