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barbie (2653)




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Journal of barbie (2653)

Tuesday July 20, 2004
12:28 PM

Opinions as News

[ #19957 ]
Once again the BBC are courting controversy with their idea that opinions are news, until they get called to task and they are only opinions. Earlier this year, Jono Bacon was rather irritated by an article that was posted from a US correspondent regarding the spam/virus attack on SCO.

According to this BBC item, which is currently the high profile 'Audio Choice' on their technology main page, many hackers come from broken homes. Now while I'm the first to admit my brick outhouse is in need of repair, the house is quite sound.

Aside from the fact that it's crackers they're talking about not hackers, implying the idea that they're mostly from broken homes is just ludicrous. The inference is also that they are virtually all teenagers, which is just the kind of lazy journalist I would expect from the tabloids, not the BBC. There are many very capable malicious coders from stable homes, and many who even own their own homes. It seems to have been a fallacy that started back in the 80s with War Games, that has never got further than the Chinese whispers kind of research.

I'd like to know just how many 'hackers' they actually researched. If they got into doubled figures I'll be surprised.

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