Bonum Certa Men Certa

Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 06, 2025,
updated Feb 06, 2025

Electropages, cybersecuritynews.com, gbhackers.com and others among the Serial Sloppers (SSs).

TODAY we used Roy and Rianne's Righteously Royalty-free RSS Reader (R.R.R.R.R.R.) to look for "Linux" news, only to find loads of WSL 'spam' (googlebombing "Linux" to promote Windows) and misleading FUD. Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage, i.e. fake articles or chaff. Here's one such 'article':

Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities Expose 78 Subsystems to Attack

Of course if it 'feels' like nonsense (the text in this case barely made any sense!), then it's time to test for familiar patterns. So we passed it through some scrutinisers, whereupon the scrutiny was rather certain:

LLM slop: The world of software development has undergone a substantial shift in recent years, with open-source software becoming a major force

More LLM slop:

LLM slop: While proprietary software solutions have long driven technological innovation, the demand for transparent, adaptable, and community-driven development has propelled open-source software to the forefront.

The whole 'article' is just a words salad. Likewise, hours apart, LLM slop: (this one targeting "Linux" and "SSH")

Chinese Hackers Attacking Linux Devices With New SSH Backdoor

100% fake 'article'.

Also LLM slop: (notice the similarity/resemblance to the above; it's no coincidence, it's part of the same FUD network, always composed by slop)

Chinese Hackers Attacking Linux Devices With New SSH Backdoor

So the pattern seems increasingly clear; a lot of anti-Linux 'articles' are made by bots. Is that Microsoft's ChatGPT?

This LLM slop site also promotes Windows today... under the guise of "Linux" and "Ubuntu":

Ubuntu Officially Available on the Updated Windows Subsystem for Linux

It's a fake 'article'. Just like Fagioli's.

How many WSL 'articles' are just spewed out with permutations by Microsoft-controlled chatbots? Some of the articles from Microsoft-connected sites try to steer people interested in Linux into or towards Windows (WSL) [1-2], even conflating the two [3]. Perhaps we'll give more recent examples tomorrow.

The real news (to us) is that Electropages also became a slopfarm and entered our blacklist. How many sites will die this way?

This issue isn't limited to Linux. Based on this article, Yle heads in an eerily similar trajectory. A rough summary suggests: "The editing will 1) be moved out of the country, 2) be turned over to "AI", 3) [see] reduction in the number of journalists (according to a TV interview parallel to the above link)".

As someone put it, it is "a shutdown in all but name" because instead of exiting with some dignity they experiment with bots. It'll never work. Why even bother?

___________

  1. WSL 2 will soon get support for another popular, and legendary, Linux distro [Ed: Microsoft celebrates Windows being called "linux"]
  2. Why have I wasted time flashing USB drives to install Windows (and Linux) on PCs when I could have been doing this all along? [Ed: Not the route towards freedom]
  3. Windows Users Will Soon be Able to Say “I use Arch, BTW”

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