Don't trust Ars Technica on software issues

Summary: Dubious reporting and abject bias in a Web site that's known for good reporting on matters of Internet law

THIS MAY not have been pointed out before, but Ars Technica, and especially its writer Dan Goodin, has spent the past year throwing FUD at GNU/Linux on a very regular basis. It's all about security. That's their angle. Ars Technica, which offers very poor journalism in some areas, deserves to know where it is going wrong so that it can improve.

Some of Ars Technica's staff has got to be very dishonest and biased to do what it sometimes does (not to generalise to all the staff). It doesn't seem to be the fault of editors, perhaps the selecting (hiring) of writers. Here they have Microsoft Windows, which one of their writers advertises on an almost daily basis with no shame (Microsoft Peter) after another one did this (Microsoft Emil) and that's not even taking into account the load of paid Microsoft advertising in the site. Ars Technica should know that Windows is a Swiss cheese of an operating system, with massive issues like Conficker and the NSA-developed Stuxnet (Microsoft helps the NSA get back doors in Windows). According to new reports like this one, "PCs running Windows 7 or Windows Vista have a higher chance of being infected with malware than Windows XP computers, according to Microsoft's latest Security Intelligence Report."

Vista 7 was advertised as being secure, but it has been a total sham when it comes to security, as we showed in dozens of posts. Vista 7 has NSA back doors, so it's not surprising that it is not secure. It's insecure by design. Don't expect the Microsoft section of Ars Technica to say this. It's just propagandistic.

Does Ars Technica criticise Microsoft Windows over security? Hardly. One of their writers, Dan Goodin, has seeded a lot of the past year's hype about GNU/Linux 'insecurity', ranging from alarmist reports about GnuTLS [1, 2] to OpenSSL [1, 2, 3. Watch Mr. Goodin making another menacing headline out of a bugfix for code-execution flaw in Linux.

Only Mr. Goodin knows why he's always picking on GNU/Linux, hardly ever discussing the elephant/s in the room. Our guess is, based on a long pattern of FUD, is that he's on some kind of Jihad against GNU/Linux and Ars Technica happily facilitates it, just as Ars Technica facilitates utters lies by Microsoft propagandists whom it employed (never mind the paid advertising from Microsoft). It should be noted that even the person who covers FOSS most often at Ars Technica is a 'former' Microsoft booster, replacing one who was actually very good (Ryan Paul). Is Ars Technica hiring writers to match the sponsors (advertisers)? ⬆