I guess Facebook fell for this old joke

Posted Jan 28, 2025 2:28 UTC (Tue) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222)
In reply to: I guess Facebook fell for this old joke by NUXI
Parent article: Linux-related discussion as a cybersecurity threat

I may be embarrassing myself here, but I am very troubled these days.

Maybe I missed something. Is this actually a joke, or is the writer serious? Please let me know, because right now, I'm in a funk over how incredibly stupid some of the people around me have become. So stupid, in fact, that we are precariously close to a fascist dictatorship in my country.

If it was a joke, please tell me what I missed. Maybe the "Lunix" thing?

I don't know, but it seems to me most of the nastiest computer criminals use Windows , or learn to abuse Android.

I guess Facebook fell for this old joke

Posted Jan 28, 2025 3:57 UTC (Tue) by Heretic_Blacksheep (guest, #169992) [Link] (4 responses)

It's a series of tropes and cliches that mainstream society, aided and abetted by Hollywood (War Games, Hackers, The Matrix, others, but especially War Games) and legal theater (like Kevin Mitnick's sentencing* which was a travesty of justice), have for the hacking community at large. It was more obvious back in the day when it was written this was a tongue-in-cheek characterization of a code and hardware savvy computer enthusiast. Too many people take Hollywood & TV fiction as realistic. Don't get me started on how effed up CSI, NCIS, Law & Order, etc are on both criminal justice and forensic sciences and furthering these tropes. The post is meant to poke fun at the "OMG, my kid is a criminal!!!!111" panic that tends to grip luddites that fear what they don't understand or don't like different points of view on technical or legal topics like with Aaron Schwartz and the JSTOR archive incident^. Many people consider computer science as arcane magic. When people don't understand a topic or subject it's too easy to twist that into fear and panic through lies and mischaracterization.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Arrest,_convi...
^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

I guess Facebook fell for this old joke

Posted Jan 28, 2025 7:59 UTC (Tue) by vasvir (subscriber, #92389) [Link] (2 responses)

Thanks

I was also missing the context here like ccchips I wasn't sure if I had to laugh or start shivering...

I guess Facebook fell for this old joke

Posted Jan 30, 2025 11:56 UTC (Thu) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, we *do* live in a reality where I sometimes have to double check news headlines whether it's The Onion or not. It's surprisingly difficult to tell sometimes.

I guess Facebook fell for this old joke

Posted Feb 2, 2025 0:00 UTC (Sun) by sammythesnake (guest, #17693) [Link]

I'm old enough to remember when satire & parody took cues from reality, rather than the other way around:-/

I guess Facebook fell for this old joke

Posted Jan 28, 2025 17:38 UTC (Tue) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

Thank you. At least I know what was intended now. Sadly, though, this doesn't leave me feeling much better. I believe my country is on the way to being like Germany in World War II, and the abusive behavior toward Free Software looks like another symptom of it.