http://www.dbskeptic.com Skepticism. Critical thinking. Podcast. Community. Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:30:05 +0000 en-us hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 Digital Bits Skeptic brings skepticism and critical thinking to a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture. Andy Kaiser no Andy Kaiser skeptic@dbskeptic.com skeptic@dbskeptic.com (Andy Kaiser) 2009 Skepticism and critical thinking in a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture skeptic, skepticism, critical thinking, new age, religion, pop culture, skeptical articles, critical thinking articles, philosophy http://www.dbskeptic.com/images/dbskeptic-logo-144.jpg http://www.dbskeptic.com 2009skeptic, skepticism, critical thinking, new age, religion, pop culture, skeptical articles, critical thinking articles, philosophyScience & Medicine/Social SciencesReligion & SpiritualitySociety & Culturedbskeptichttp://feedburner.google.comSubscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with GoogleSubscribe with Live.comSkepticism. Critical thinking. Podcast. Community. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/Xt6xd2xyCBw/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/09/10/digital-bits-skeptic-update/#comments Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:26:35 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2190 By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 156 Hi everyone, I wanted to give an update on the status of Digital Bits Skeptic. The short story: I&#8217;ve pushed the pause button. Subscribe to updates at AndyKaiser.com for my continuing adventures. The longer story: You may remember my writing effort, the League of Scientists? I wrote it. Then I [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=Xt6xd2xyCBw:LiGAEVHct5c:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/Xt6xd2xyCBw" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/09/10/digital-bits-skeptic-update/feed/ 0 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/09/10/digital-bits-skeptic-update/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/yMRvKX1xZcM/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/06/08/the-bible-word-of-god-or-myth-of-men/#comments Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:38:56 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2175 [Like other articles by the prolific R.C. Symes, this article's length makes it unsuitable for a podcast, but I still want to publish it. Good stuff. -Andy] By R.C. Symes Article ID: 155 If the Bible has many errors, contradictions and falsehoods, can it truly be the word of an all-wise God? Or is the Bible more [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=yMRvKX1xZcM:1pudBqPctoc:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/yMRvKX1xZcM" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/06/08/the-bible-word-of-god-or-myth-of-men/feed/ 15 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/06/08/the-bible-word-of-god-or-myth-of-men/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/SOrIPsboY50/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/02/09/defaulting-to-ignorance-what-bill-oreilly-and-the-insane-clown-posse-have-in-common/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:57:18 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2137 By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 154 Bill O&#8217;Reilly is a conservative political commentator who is best known for his TV show &#8220;The O&#8217;Reilly Factor&#8221; and its many associated books. Recently, he got into some hot water over comments he made about life, the universe and everything. This is the quote you&#8217;ll hear often regarding this [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=SOrIPsboY50:fceBHNbXptE:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/SOrIPsboY50" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/02/09/defaulting-to-ignorance-what-bill-oreilly-and-the-insane-clown-posse-have-in-common/feed/ 4 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 154 - Bill O'Reilly is a conservative political commentator who is best known for his TV show "The O'Reilly Factor" and its many associated books. Recently, he got into some hot water over comments he made about life, By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 154 Bill O'Reilly is a conservative political commentator who is best known for his TV show "The O'Reilly Factor" and its many associated books. Recently, he got into some hot water over comments he made about life, the universe and everything. This is the quote you'll hear often regarding this issue: "Okay, how did the moon get there? How'd the moon get there? Look, you pinheads who attacked me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd the moon get there? How'd the sun get there? ...Can you explain that to me? How come we have that and Mars doesn't have it? Venus doesn't have it. How come? Why not? How'd it get here?" Here's the video of the above: This comment was made in response to viewer feedback, after an earlier broadcast had him claiming that the Earth's tides were proof God created the Universe - since we didn't know how the tides worked, O'Reilly claimed, that was proof of the existence of God. Every commentary I've read on this issue so far addressed the point that O'Reilly is factually wrong: Yes, we do know how the tides work. We know how the moon and sun "got there". These issues have been addressed in plenty of detail by people much smarter than I. So I'm not going to tackle them here. Most criticism of this issue misses a more important point than O'Reilly being factually wrong. Yes, he didn't know some basic science. He then proceeded to plant himself deeper in his hole by backing up his claim with more examples of Stuff We Don't Know, although it turns out We Do. O'Reilly's problem is not in knowing specific answers. His problem is in assuming that because we don't know something, then "God did it". In his response to scientific criticism, O'Reilly moved from talking about the tides to talking about the moon and the sun. I see where he's going with this. If we then tell him how the moon and sun are formed, he'll pull back the camera to encompass an even bigger picture. He might say something like: "Okay, pinhead, then how'd the solar system get here? How'd the Universe get here? Why is there anything at all?" O'Reilly claims that because we don't know something, God (presumably the Christian god) is the answer, because if something exists, it must have had a creator. That sounds nice on the surface, until we use his technique and pull back the viewpoint. We might respond with something like this: "Okay, Bill, then how'd the Universe get here? You say your god made it? How did your god get here? Why is there anything at all?" The answer to this question: God always existed. He exists outside of time and space. However: 1) How is it that a god can always have existed, but the Universe can not? It's frustrating to me that, when religious people claim that their god created the Universe, they don't worry about the creation of their god, who supposedly has always existed. If you can accept a god that always existed, why can't you accept a Universe that always existed? 2) Saying 'I don't know' does not mean 'I give up'. O'Reilly's attitude indicates that a sensible person must respond to him with, "because I can't answer your question, God must be the answer". Listen to the rest of his commentary - he seems to believe this himself, and expects his audience to follow this same logic. However, I don't have a problem saying 'I don't know'. But I do have a problem with people who explain their ignorance by defaulting to an even more unknowable and complex explanation. They shrug their mental shoulders and default to a "god did it" explanation. To me, this is the same as saying, "Because I do not have an answer myself, there must be a supernatural answer and I will not search further. I see no need to learn about this or research it. I won't evolve and life will not improve." This is the refusal to explore our world's many mysteries. Even worse, it's to state that you have no interest in doing so. This is willful ignorance. This is mental stagnation. Andy Kaiser clean 8:20 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/02/09/defaulting-to-ignorance-what-bill-oreilly-and-the-insane-clown-posse-have-in-common/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/130-154.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/tijwDJUIOaQ/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/02/06/digital-bits-skeptic-on-the-kindle-and-the-league-of-scientists/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 03:11:08 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2147 By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 153 League of Scientists book reviews &#8211; the reviewers and you Many of you remember my associated project &#8211; &#8220;The League of Scientists&#8221; &#8211; a book series that stars a bunch of science geeks who use skepticism and critical thinking to solve seemingly-supernatural mysteries. Multiple people now have compared it [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=tijwDJUIOaQ:0HVRxYSfsQc:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/tijwDJUIOaQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/02/06/digital-bits-skeptic-on-the-kindle-and-the-league-of-scientists/feed/ 0 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 153 - League of Scientists book reviews - the reviewers and you - Many of you remember my associated project - "The League of Scientists" - a book series that stars a bunch of science geeks who use skepticism and critical ... By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 153 League of Scientists book reviews - the reviewers and you Many of you remember my associated project - "The League of Scientists" - a book series that stars a bunch of science geeks who use skepticism and critical thinking to solve seemingly-supernatural mysteries. Multiple people now have compared it (in a good way) to the mystery-solving process in 'Scooby-Doo'. More and more, I'm grudgingly agreeing with this analysis, because at the heart of it all, it's true. The League investigates weird mysteries, and similar to the Scooby gang, finds that the ghosts and goblins have completely natural and understandable explanations. The book isn't available yet - the latest estimate from the publisher is that the League of Scientists book #1: Ghost in the Water will be out in late 2011. So while I have to be patient, I've got plenty to do in the meantime. And I'll of course let you know as soon as possible when I have a printed copy in my hands. I have some great reviews from leaders in the skeptical and critical thinking community. My thanks to everyone. Here are some of those reviews. "I read Ghost in the Water by Andy Kaiser. This is pitched for sixth grade level, but don't let that fool you; it's a very nice story. Five bright six graders form the secret-membership League of Scientists to solve supernatural mysteries by explaining them in natural terms. It reminds me of the old radio program, circa 1950, House of Mystery, that did something similar, only for adults. I remember when the head of a cursed castle had to go down in the dungeon overnight to face the malignant spirit of a criminal ancestor whose body was shackled in chains; prior men had done this and been found dead in the morning, unmarked. Indeed, the spook was expecting him: the coffin stood upright facing the door. What a manifestation! It turned out that the tide came in and flooded the dungeon, drowning the poor men locked there. The coffin was standing because the chains around the ancestor's feet weighed down that part, and the water lifted the rest up. Okay, Ghost in the Water is not as ugly, but you get the idea. The school's leading swimmer is attacked by a green ghost in the water and doesn't want to swim any more, meaning the rival teams will win by default. Time for the League to step in; there has to be a natural explanation. Doesn't there? The protagonists are realistically described; one is being pursued by an implacable bully, complicating his existence, because of course the school authorities are oblivious. I loved this novel, and believe most readers of any age will too. It's one great adventure with an educational theme, with luck the first of a series." Piers Anthony Science fiction and fantasy author "I found the first chapter so intriguing that I couldn't stop reading until I finished the entire book." Stephen Barrett, M.D. Founder, QuackWatch.org "As I read this book, I kept remembering Carl Sagan's answer to a reporter asking what his favorite scientific TV show was: 'Scooby Doo!' For the same reasons I can heartily recommend this adventure in scientific thinking." Ann Druyan Co-writer of the Cosmos TV series and wife of the late Carl Sagan "This is the kind of story I wish I could have read as a kid. It would have put me ten years ahead in my understanding of why science is both fun and important. Science is all about solving mysteries. The League of Scientists reminded me that it's an adventure too. Even when it's in the middle of the night and you've been working for thirty hours straight, in a way you're a superhero blazing new trails and learning things nobody's seen before." Brian Dunning Science journalist, Skeptoid.com "This adventure of The League of Scientists is… a wonderful introduction to scientific detective work and critical thinking skills – all wrapped up in a delicious mystery! Andy Kaiser clean 8:17 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/02/06/digital-bits-skeptic-on-the-kindle-and-the-league-of-scientists/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/129-153.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/jL1h0i_mAGo/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/23/the-myth-of-military-testing-standards/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:39:05 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2112 By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 152 [Pretend you're hearing a bunch of click-clacky gun-loading noises right now. Shotguns being loaded, pistol slides being racked, ammo cartridges being slammed into place.] Anyone who&#8217;s seen a shoot-em-up Hollywood movie in the last 60 years knows: That is the sound of Awesome. You&#8217;ve got the sound of heavy [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=jL1h0i_mAGo:1f6p38X8VGc:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/jL1h0i_mAGo" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/23/the-myth-of-military-testing-standards/feed/ 5 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 152 - [Pretend you're hearing a bunch of click-clacky gun-loading noises right now. Shotguns being loaded, pistol slides being racked, ammo cartridges being slammed into place.] - By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 152 [Pretend you're hearing a bunch of click-clacky gun-loading noises right now. Shotguns being loaded, pistol slides being racked, ammo cartridges being slammed into place.] Anyone who's seen a shoot-em-up Hollywood ... Andy Kaiser clean 7:50 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/23/the-myth-of-military-testing-standards/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/128-152.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/EVhoojiFXDA/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/02/bible-prophecies-and-myth/#comments Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:29:56 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2095 [Like the last article by the prolific R.C. Symes, this article's length makes it unsuitable for a podcast, but this analysis of examples of Biblical prophecies is important enough I still want to include it here. -Andy] By R.C. Symes Article ID: 151 The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies claimed to be the word of God. [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=EVhoojiFXDA:yk7Rc2DQfDU:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/EVhoojiFXDA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/02/bible-prophecies-and-myth/feed/ 4 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2011/01/02/bible-prophecies-and-myth/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/FtDTaHVmtC0/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/11/21/skeptical-parenting-critical-thinking-around-the-family-dinner-table/#comments Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:22:39 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2080 By Celestia Ward Article ID: 1414 Is skeptical fun possible with children? I have heard this question voiced by people who think childhood must be a sacred place, populated with Easter bunnies, unicorns, lollipops, Santa, fairies, dragons, and a complete lack of critical thinking. Basic rationality is the apple in that childhood garden of Eden, [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=FtDTaHVmtC0:WY9cCGbtnVk:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/FtDTaHVmtC0" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/11/21/skeptical-parenting-critical-thinking-around-the-family-dinner-table/feed/ 1 Celestia Ward By Celestia Ward Article ID: 1414 - Is skeptical fun possible with children? I have heard this question voiced by people who think childhood must be a sacred place, populated with Easter bunnies, unicorns, lollipops, Santa, fairies, dragons, By Celestia Ward Article ID: 1414 Is skeptical fun possible with children? I have heard this question voiced by people who think childhood must be a sacred place, populated with Easter bunnies, unicorns, lollipops, Santa, fairies, dragons, and a co... Andy Kaiser clean 17:49 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/11/21/skeptical-parenting-critical-thinking-around-the-family-dinner-table/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/127-1414.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/0GHlf3Gkp0A/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/08/13/the-veil-of-ignorance-dont-confuse-tools-with-the-buildings-they-create/#comments Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:54:54 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2052 By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1413 The &#8220;veil of ignorance&#8221; is a thought experiment: Imagine you have to design a society. You have to decide if slavery will be permitted or not. Are women supposed to stay at home? Are they allowed to work? Or must they do a bit of both? How high are income [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=0GHlf3Gkp0A:zbjySZAEuv8:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/0GHlf3Gkp0A" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/08/13/the-veil-of-ignorance-dont-confuse-tools-with-the-buildings-they-create/feed/ 4 Navin Kumar By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1413 - The "veil of ignorance" is a thought experiment: Imagine you have to design a society. You have to decide if slavery will be permitted or not. Are women supposed to stay at home? Are they allowed to work? By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1413 The "veil of ignorance" is a thought experiment: Imagine you have to design a society. You have to decide if slavery will be permitted or not. Are women supposed to stay at home? Are they allowed to work? Or must they do a bit of both? How high are income taxes? How are they applied? After you design your society, you become one of the positions in that society. Here’s the kicker: you aren’t allowed to choose your position. You get one at random. So you could end up male or female, rich or poor, black or white, slave or owner, scientist or secretary. Since you don’t know what position you will occupy, you are said to be designing this society from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. How would you design such a society? What would it look like? You could end up as a coal miner or a CEO. Will the CEO be heavily taxed to subsidize the coal miner’s healthcare? Most people are risk-averse: they would rather have a million dollars guaranteed rather than a 50% chance of having 2 million dollars and a 50% chance of having nothing. This is fairly logical: with the first million you will buy what’s important: a house, a decent car, a retirement fund, et cetera. The second million will get you a fancier car, a holiday house and maybe some nice suits but the happiness (in economic terms, the utility) you get out of the second million is less than the happiness you get out of the first million. (Mathematically, let’s say the first million gets you a utility of 50, while the second million gets you a utility of 40. If you just take the million your utility is 50. Winning gives you a utility of 90, while losing gets you zero. Therefore, if you take the gamble, you have an expected utility of (.5 x 90) + (.5 x 0) = 45. Thus taking the gamble will, on average, give a lower overall utility and less happiness.) John Rawls, the philosopher who invented the concept of the veil of ignorance, concluded that because people are risk-averse, they would construct a society where everyone is equal rather than one where there are rich as well as poor people. Since this is the kind of society that we would choose if we didn’t know our positions, this is the kind of society which we must try to create in the real world. Right? To use the example above, you’d want to hedge your bets and tax the CEO if you weren’t sure if you’d become him. Rawls took this idea one step further. He argued that people would want a society where there is equality of outcome: everyone ends up in the same place, regardless of intelligence, talent or strength, because even these things are randomly distributed at birth. You might be born stupid, weak or talentless. Wouldn’t you want to hedge your bets against that affecting you? This equality of outcome hasn’t really caught on in a big way. Even egalitarians accept you’d need some degree of inequality to convince people to put in a decade of work to become a doctor instead of a jazz musician. Even so, Rawls’ conclusions about an equal society being a just one are very influential. These conclusions have been subject to a variety of criticisms. Are people really that risk-averse? What about those thousands of ‘actors’ who end up doing bit roles for tiny amounts of money their entire lives so they have a one-in-ten-thousand shot at becoming Tom Cruise? And how do you decide the best ratio of security versus liberty? Let’s focus on one criticism, that of Rawls’ society where a fixed amount of wealth must be distributed. Everything else being equal, a person would prefer a society where incomes were $10, $4 and $4 to one where the distributions were $3, $3, $3 because in the first example all incomes are higher in all cases. To simplify the analysis, assume that all people are risk-averse, and we’ll use the Veil of Ignorance as our tool of choice. But rather than designing a society, let’s say that the person behind the Veil is designing a civilization. Andy Kaiser clean 8:34 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/08/13/the-veil-of-ignorance-dont-confuse-tools-with-the-buildings-they-create/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/126-1413.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/gRsibCQGdqA/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/07/22/research-methods-how-to-find-answers/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:04:08 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2035 By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1412 Here’s how you can research the answer to (almost) any question you can think of, and how you can be reasonably certain that the answer is correct. All research begins with questions. Researching a topic means you need to know more about it, which means that there is something you [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=gRsibCQGdqA:gKvYwnP5D40:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/gRsibCQGdqA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/07/22/research-methods-how-to-find-answers/feed/ 9 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1412 - Here’s how you can research the answer to (almost) any question you can think of, and how you can be reasonably certain that the answer is correct. - All research begins with questions. By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1412 Here’s how you can research the answer to (almost) any question you can think of, and how you can be reasonably certain that the answer is correct. All research begins with questions. Researching a topic me... Andy Kaiser clean 10:34 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/07/22/research-methods-how-to-find-answers/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/125-1412.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dbskeptic/~3/krWE9cMBa7I/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/06/01/the-myth-of-computer-security/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:09:23 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2019 by Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1411 &#8220;The computer: an extension of the human intellect. &#8230;soon, the ultimate tool will become the ultimate enemy.&#8221; - Tron (1982) Greetings, programs! Let me tell you about a myth, a story, a fable that’s been concocted and perpetuated by certain groups in the media. It’s a story about how [...]<div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?a=krWE9cMBa7I:-A4qDstuIoA:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/dbskeptic?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/dbskeptic/~4/krWE9cMBa7I" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/06/01/the-myth-of-computer-security/feed/ 28 Andy Kaiser by Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1411 "The computer: an extension of the human intellect. ...soon, the ultimate tool will become the ultimate enemy." - Tron (1982) Greetings, programs! - Let me tell you about a myth, a story, by Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1411 "The computer: an extension of the human intellect. ...soon, the ultimate tool will become the ultimate enemy." - Tron (1982) Greetings, programs! Let me tell you about a myth, a story, a fable that’s been concocted and perpetuated by certain groups in the media. It’s a story about how – with proper protection – your computer is immune to cyber attacks, viruses and other malware. That’s the story but it’s not true. I’m talking about the myth of computer security. There’s no conspiracy here, just unprepared software. Microsoft and various security companies are doing their best against the bad guys, who are attacking faster and more creatively than the good guys can keep up. The days of the independent lone hacker are gone. They’re still around, of course, but the brunt of the malware industry is focused at a much higher level, where the bad guys are multinational groups, or are sponsored by enemy governments, or are run by organized crime syndicates. So yes, there is a war. And the good guys are not winning. With increased complexity comes increased chance of failure The problem is that the methods of computer attack are so advanced, we need extremely complex software to protect against them. It’s so complex that security software sometimes causes more problems than it’s worth. In May of 2010, the “Sunbelt Vipre Enterprise” antivirus software released updated versions of their malware protection, which they do multiple times per day. However, the update versions 6272, 6273 and 6274 caused the PC CPU to max out, essentially making the computer inoperable. The fix was to kill the Vipre process long enough to install the quickly-released patch, often requiring a system reboot. That’s not too bad, right? It could be worse. It could be, for example, like what happened in April 2010 with the McAfee VirusScan Enterprise product’s recent update version 5958. That update mistakenly identified a critical system process as being a virus. The result is that affected computers would crash and bluescreen and would no longer boot. The fix usually required a few minutes of physical access to the PC. Some unlucky users had to reinstall Windows. I’m picking on these companies because they were recently in the news at the time I wrote this article. I can easily blame other antivirus products as well. In fact, I love McAfee VirusScan Enterprise – I’ve personally recommended it to and set it up for many of my clients. Same with Sunbelt’s Vipre Enterprise – in fact, that’s my employer’s current software of choice. They’re good products. But the very nature of what they’re meant to fix makes them complex, more invasive and unstable. [Author's edit: Many readers took the above to mean that I endorse or recommend all versions of McAfee. Not true. I hate the preinstalled and retail McAfee junk. But the corporate-level, partner-resold McAfee software – "McAfee VirusScan Enterprise" is a good product, and is something a home user would never see. This is the only McAfee product I like. Unlike their bloated, ugly home versions, VSE is lightweight, has a tiny footprint, is super-functional and customizable, and is easily managed. My goal in writing this section was not to recommend any AV package over another, but just to illustrate that no solution works really well, and all are open to self-inflicted damage.] Remember that in the above cases with Vipre and McAfee, I’m not talking about single PCs in someone’s home. I’m talking about centralized networks of hundreds or thousands of computers. How would you like to be an IT admin that day, when you realize that one thousand of the computers you are responsible for are completely out of commission? Phishing and user tricks The previous examples are just problems where our protection fails us. But there is yet another class of malware, the kind that either tricks the user into installing it, Andy Kaiser clean 14:18 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/06/01/the-myth-of-computer-security/http://www.dbskeptic.com/audio/124-1411.mp3 Andy KaisernonadultSkepticism and critical thinking in a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture