Truth About Computer Security Hysteria

Comedy vs. hysteria, part 2

[Editor's note: it will help if you first read part 1 of this column.]

STEVE GIBSON'S "MISSIVE to the masses" touched on our face-to-face meetings at the Gnomedex 2002 convention:

Vmyths is the best there is at what we do — but what we do isn't nice. We make people laugh at people like Gibson.

I also finally met VMyths' Rob Rosenberger who, as you may recall, took the opportunity [in 2001], during the raw sockets drama, to draw traffic to his site by launching his own attacks.

Yes: I did take the opportunity to draw traffic to Vmyths by attacking Gibson's messiah complex. At the Gnomedex speakers' dinner, I told everyone Vmyths picks up a serious spike of visits whenever I rant about him. I then turned to Gibson (sitting at another table) and laughed something along the lines of "you're the best thing that ever happened to us," and I meant it.

Let's face it: Gibson's hysteria begs for the comedian's touch [this & that]. Have you read what he puts out? He could double for the Iraqi information minister if he'd just wear glasses and lose the caterpillar under his nose.

Gibson ranted at length about "seven very smart guys [at Microsoft] who quite literally hold the future of the Internet in their hands." Gibson cut off his tirade about raw sockets in 2001 with a fire-and-brimstone proclamation: "now that Microsoft has been clearly and carefully informed, the responsibility is only theirs, while the consequences of their continued stubborn recalcitrance will be ours to bear."

Come, now. "Recalcitrance"? How can you not ridicule such obvious grandstanding?

Gibson's holier-than-Rosenberger attitude continued in his sermon to the mujahideen:

I would have been pleased to let sleeping dogs lie, but Rob's speech was the first one of the conference (Leo [LaPorte]'s Keynote speech was the last — and it was great). Rob referred to me so many times during his presentation — and even fantasized that I had been drunk the night before — that I felt I had to respond a bit during my presentation later that day. (Others who were with me the first night, and knew that I was drinking coffee all evening, after Leo and I had shared a single bottle of Cabernet during dinner, were quite upset since they knew I was absolutely alert and sober.)

I mention all this because audio files of the Gnomedex II speeches will be available at some point once they are assembled. If you were to listen to mine, it wouldn't make much sense without first hearing Rob's. So if the speech files are made available, and if you wonder what I had to say, you ought to first listen to Rob's presentation (which he considers to be comedy) since I was left with little choice but to incorporate a response to him into my talk.

Ask yourself: who dismisses levity as irresponsibility? Who excludes comedy from the debate? Answer: the holier-than-thou fearmongers and their fedayeen loyalists. They do it to maintain the purity of the mujahideen.

Ask the doc­tor to in­crease your thora­zine in­jec­tions if you can't laugh at Gibson's ego­maniac prophesies of doom and his boy-king temper tan­trums and his holier-than-thou attitude.

Gibson likes to pass himself off as a benevolent king in computer security, yet he orders Microsoft to obey his royal decrees and he labels criticism as an "attack" against the realm. As for Vmyths? We're the court jesters who make the peasants laugh — by pointing out the king's absurdities.

But hey, let's give Gibson credit where due. The messiah used humor at Gnomedex 2002 (supremely effective, I might add) to make key points and to downplay his renown as a computer security fearmonger.

Ironically, Gibson spent roughly half of his time on stage at Gnomedex 2002 talking about his previous genius escapades during a speech titled "the future of hacking & viruses." But let's not digress...

BITING HUMOR HITS home with the virus fighters who work in the trenches. They've struggled for years to improve their firms' security (with limited success) and they come to Vmyths whenever they need a break from the relentless hysteria.

They love every one of our killer jokes. They love every one of our inspired turns of phrase. They love every insightful commentary we publish. They laugh at the many preposterous absurdities in computer security.

Vmyths opens their eyes to it in the process.

Our biting humor also hits home with the Joe SixPacks who log on each night after work. They don't know what to make of computer security and they, too, need a break from the relentless hysteria. They, too, love every one of our killer jokes. They, too, love every one of our inspired turns of phrase. They, too, love every insightful commentary we publish. They, too, laugh at the many preposterous absurdities in computer security.

And Vmyths opens their eyes, too.

Critics by their very nature will point out absurdities; human beings by their very nature will laugh at absurdities. Therefore, critics can turn into some of the best comedians in their fields of expertise. You know what I mean if you own Roger Ebert's hilarious book on bad movies. "In writing strongly negative reviews," he notes, "I am tempted to take cheap shots, and although I have fought that temptation on occasion, there are other times when I have simply caved in to it..."

Likewise, comedians make excellent critics because they focus on society's many absurdities. You know what I mean if you own Richard Belzer's book on conspiracies or Dennis Miller's rants on society at large. People love every killer joke. They love every inspired turn of phrase. Most importantly: they love every insightful commentary.

"Which he con­si­ders to be comedy"? That's the prob­lem with fear­mongers — no sense of humor.

Those critics and those comedians open people's eyes.

Vmyths is the computer security industry's resident critic and its resident comedian. We're the best there is at what we do — but what we do isn't nice. We make people laugh at people like Gibson. We make people laugh not just at the computer security fearmongers, but at the absurdities they represent. We threaten the power base of people like Gibson.

The computer security world begs for sarcasm, burlesque, irony, and satire. Ask the doctor to increase your thorazine injections if you can't laugh at Gibson's egomaniac prophesies of doom and his boy-king temper tantrums and his holier-than-thou attitude.

Well, I gotta hand the mic to the next comedian. You've been a great audience! Tip your wait staff: they salted each of those glass rims just for you. My name is Rob Rosenberger, thank you very much for your time...

[Credit where due: I stole the "best there is" line from a Marvel comic book.]

[Continued in part 3]