Every year US-CERT releases a list of vulnerabilities for the previous year. And every year the press and media misrepresent these security vulnerabilities as being a big deal and that Microsoft is clearly winning in this effort against all other operating systems. This just simply isn't true and if one of these lame reporters would just call anyone they know who understands Open Source Software or computers in general they would get set straight. There are some great articles already discussing this such as:
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US-CERT's FUD
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On CERT's 2005 Software Vulnerabilities List
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Red Hat disputes CERT vulnerability figures
I see this happen all of the time with various media outlets. They report on some technology story and get the entire concept wrong. Don't get me wrong, I do not fault the reporter for not knowing everything about technology. That isn't their job. But what large media outlet on the planet doesn't have an IT department or other department filled with resident computer geeks? Why don't these reporters take advantage of the resources they have in house? On a story like this it would only take 10 minutes to explain why their conclusions are just plain wrong and save themselves the embarassement of having a million geeks E-mail them corrections. Not to mention that some of the corrections are going to be, well... unfriendly in nature :)
If any reporter out there has a quick technology question they need fact checked, please send it to a geek you know. If you don't know any geeks feel free to send it to me. I can't guarantee a response time, but the lack of your own personal embarassement should be well... priceless!
