[thechat] conspiracies, was: [thelist] mainstream press and cookies

[Andrew Forsberg]

Moved from list to chat:

On Thu, 2002-03-21 at 15:38, aardvark wrote:
> am i the only one who hates the way the mainstream press portrays web
> stuff?  i mean, c'mon, i'm a fan of conspiracy theories, i look for black
> helicopters, i turn off JS and sometimes kill cookies, but this is just too out
> there for me...

I prefer:
http://www.guerrillanews.com/

> statements like this:
>
> "The CIA got caught with a hand in the Internet cookie jar."
> [...]

You'd think if anyone at CNN seriously thought the
black-cookie-helicopter was swooping down on innocent civilians they'd
attempt to get some sort of advice, e.g.: how to turn cookies off. A
news story without any call to action is far more attractive, I suppose;
it wouldn't make news if there was an easy-to-follow 3-step solution.

Besides odds are good someone who could advise CNN on how to disable
cookies would also tell them that the technical side of their story was
FFS.

> i mean, i think it's keen the government is down with the idea of banning
> cookies on its sites, i think that's great...

It's your monitor you have to be careful of:
http://rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_paranoia.shtml
(cf: the Roswell entry, the Croatian at the bottom makes good reading
too.)

> it still sounds like the press just doesn't get it... it sounds like it makes good
> news to whack the CIA for cookies... so play it up... make it sound
> newsworthy...

The press gets it, they just talk a different language. Ever been
interviewed by a journalist (apologies in advance to any journalists,
the same thing applies to most PR types <duck/>)? They can and will
obfuscate everything you say, then tell you that they need to edit it to
read like 'plain English'. Cue: you're either gonna look like a cowboy
or The Second Coming in IT form. I won't bore you with the 'medieval
scroll' photo shoot story... sheesh!

> hmmmm...
>
> does that qualify as a rant?

Possibly. My theory is that major news syndicates exist to raise the
blood pressure of those who don't have anything better to worry about.
FWIW, I'll bet a small amount of money to any takers that the CIA's
sites have a significant increase in traffic over the next few days.

CNN has to find something to scare the public with, what better than the
CIA tracking them? Remember the X-Files theory about how Roswell was
invented to take the public attention away from something far more
sinister? Still, the greys have been running the white house since the
'60s... :-) (joke).

Cheers
Andrew