What the FUDD, c|net?

I expect more from c|net than this type of FUDD article.

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

Secret demands mark escalation in Internet surveillance by the federal government through gaining access to user passwords, which are typically stored in encrypted form.

Sounds really intriguing, huh? Gets your attention? Maybe even pisses you off a bit? That’s what that headline does for me. Well, headlines do sell, or so they say. Unfortunately, if you actually read the entire article, as I did, you’ll find that there’s not much carne in the stew here, folks. 😦 What there is in that article is a lot of spokesperson would not say, declined to disclose, would not say, did not respond to queries, and my favorite, doesn’t recall. Now, does that sound to you like an article with some verified sources?

The article does have a lot of interesting technical baloney thrown in as padding, but the main gist, of the article based on what the headline says, kinda’ misses the mark. You know, if you’re some cheesy part-time blogger, like this Nocturnal Slacker fellow, you can get away with posting tripe like this. Your readers (all 19 of them) will love you for you who are, regardless. However, if you’re a big Internet site with a reputation to uphold, you shouldn’t be posting shit like this on your site. That’s just how I feel about it.

And if you don’t think this article was posted primarily to just stir shit, read the comments posted by the assorted whack-jobs, Obama-haters, tea-baggers, and other miscellaneous Michelle Bachman/Sarah Palin loving wing nuts.

Don’t be thinking that the ol’ Nocturnal Slacker is naive enough to think that BIG Gov is innocent of all charges here. The fact is that I’m very pissed off about the ever deepening intrusions perpetrated by this big, ugly, multi-limbed surveillance state monster. My point in writing this particular article is that if you’re going to be a real media outlet and not just play at being one online, then post articles with some real meat!

Hey, looky… at least one sane individual posted a salient comment to that article:

phocusplease 7 hours ago

It’s always “The Feds”,  or “The Government”, or The NSA”, but never a name.  Who is the PERSON behind these privacy crushing moves?  We should have names…and we should have a press that wants to know.  Instead we are shown only what ‘they’ want us to see and we have no real investigative reporters anymore.  We need names….

Well, that’s all for now.

Later…

~Eric

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