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OS X hack teaches a lesson in journalism
ZDNet Australia's report featuring a hacker who claimed that it took him less then 30 minutes to hack into a OS X system is… well… plain wrong. The reporter failed to note that the "hacker" already had access to the system through a legitimate user account. If was effectively as if the hacker was sitting behind the computer and was already logged in.
The reporter in this case failed to check his facts. I don't expect him to understand the entire case, but he should have asked others that could have. And he should have identified those sources, allowing us readers to get a feeling on their reliability and knowledge.
A colleague at my first journalist job used to joke that trends are what you find if you have two sources confirming the it. Because it takes two points to draw a (trend)line. If all you have is one dot, there is no story. Especially is that dot is an anonymous hacker without any credentials.
Things get different by the way if the source has authority. If Bill Gates or Steve Jobs say that the world is flat, their credibility becomes the foundation of the story.
Tags: os x, apple, hacking, security
March 7, 2006 at 02:56 AM | Permalink
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