Pixelated Semantics

Free speech attacks reportage

The Irish Silicon Republic curiously headlines reportage of the latest anti-Microsoft worm outbreak targetted at Windows 2000 machines as "Worm attacks free speech". Presumably this is because several major "victims" of the worm are large media outlets, including CNN. One commentator observed "the prime distinguisher of this outbreak is that some of the world's most trusted media has been hit" - however it seems to be a large stretch to assume the primary intent of the worm's author was to 'attack free speech' as claimed. There is simply no evidence to support the assertion, and there are certainly other companies afflicted. Indeed, they report it is not 'immediately obvious which worm has caused the infection as a number of viruses exploit the vulnerability, including Tpbot-A and Dogbot-A, as well as the Zotob, Rbot and Tilebot-F' - further undermining the assumption.

Compare the Financial Time's very balanced coverage - and the FT was itself apparently a victim of the worm(s). Their well-versed reporter observes the worms 'appear to target corporate users' though not specifically media outlets. In fact, one expert interviewed offers 'free speech' as a potential defense for the worm's author(s), rather than as motive for attack.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:45 am ::