tech
mar 29
2009

Viruses

This will accidentally sound like one of those indignant bloggers ranting about "the msm," but tonight's 60 Minutes on computer viruses was exceptionally shoddy work. This isn't the place to enumerate all the problems with the segment (I'm sure they'll soon appear online), but briefly: 1) Conficker isn't the danger it's made out to be, 2) the descriptions of how websites give you viruses is ridiculously vague and bordering on lying, 3) the entire segment sounds like it was meant to scare old people, and 4) the over-use of a Symantec rep as a source was pure craziness.
2 comments

Also, if you'll note from the 30 second prerolls on CBSNews, from Symantec, it's sorta a win-win for Symantec, but a lose-lose for grounded tech journalism.<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901351n" target="_blank"><br /><br /> http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901351n</a>

posted by Randall at 2009-03-29 23:39:36

I'd add one more thing to my comments... perhaps the most amazing thing about virus attacks right now is that they <em>don't</em> appear to be global epidemics any more. When was the last big story about a virus? As far as I remember, it's been nearly a decade since <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_(computer_worm)" target="_blank">something happened</a> that crippled a notable segment of the internet.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> That said, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/29spy.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=all" target="_blank">Markoff's 1A NYT Sunday story</a> actually does make the threat sound worth being worried about... unlike <em>60 Minutes</em>'.

posted by Rex at 2009-03-30 01:24:24