A friend of mine and I were having a conversation tonight about IT professional who spout shit on the internet and either get paid or somehow, earn kudos for it, and get consulting jobs.
The verbal wanker I am referring to is this bloke, who apparently thinks that internet chat rooms are full of criminals swapping personal and private details of stolen cards. I am sure that yes, there are rogue IRC networks where this takes place, as well as filesharing networks, even paedofile networks which are underground - and when found, are taken apart and dealt with.
Thing is, there is so much negative publicity about chat networks, how they are insecure, full of internet predators, criminals, desperadoes, there isn’t alot of emphasis on the good bits about chat networks. The positive side to chat networks where people can congregate and chat about similar interests. Lots of niche networks exist, such as quakenet, or family based networks, company based networks. I have many friends that I have made over the years on the various chat mediums that I have used over time. Through Lycos chat, MSN, IRC, ICQ, Yahoo!. Some of my friends have married others they have met over IRC.
I think if there are going to be “IT Experts” in security that are going to point out the negatives to what in reality is a positive medium, they should spend time getting to know the positive networks. Stop looking for the bad stuff and start enjoying the odd coversations they may come across.
What a dag the IT expert was — I can thank IRC for knowing you my friend!
Does sound like a bit of a wanker but knowing the media he has probably been quoted out of context to make the story more sensational since no one reads the stories they used to roll out about everything on the internet being bad, preditors on the net blah blah blah
On a side note, its a shame that companies still haven’t learnt that it is a really bad idea to transfer more information than is necessary to laptops and then loose the laptop some how.
I agree with you on that point greg. Just get tired of reading the negative stuff
Jus, IRC has done alot of things for us to be thankful for.