Displaying items by tag: FUD

When I started DecryptedTech it was to counter all the crap marketing I saw from component makers. I wanted to prove people with a clean and simple way of understanding what a product could and could not do. I also wanted to counter the massive amounts of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) that was thrown around from different players in that industry. When I stepped away from the PC component market and began covering the industry I worked in (cybersecurity) I continued this, but only in a narrow way. I did not cover the horrible marketing and FUD efforts that I saw on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (now X). Well… now, things have changed. I am not going to just watch the shit marketing and FUD get pushed around so, to quote John Wick, Yeah, I guess I am back. I will be diving into a recent misuse of X Premium in a marketing effort on behalf of a few major studios. (I will get to gaming, cybersecurity, and other FUD as well).

After creating quite a stir a couple of months ago the specter of Intel BGA CPUs for the “Desktop” has risen from the internet again. This time the new is in a form that many would see as confirmation that Intel will be phasing out the traditional socket in favor of the non-upgradable BGA package. According to information posted over at VR-Zone Intel already has three BGS CPUs on the map that could launch with Haswell in the next few months. As you might expect there are already articles claiming that this is (or could be) the beginning of the end for the desktop socket. Fortunately for the DIY market even a quick look at the CPUs listed rules out that chance. From the specifications Intel will be sticking to the lucrative desktop socket for a while.

FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) is annoying to read regardless of what side is doing it. Today’s bit of FUD is about Apple decreasing the amount of memory they are using from Samsung for the next iPhone. To start off with the decrease is nothing new nor is it unexpected. Apple used Elpida as the primary source for memory in the third generation iPad last year. They liked the product and the price so we would not expect them to drop that particular connection. Another supplier of memory to Apple is Micron Technologies. By an amazing coincidence Micron is also planning to buy Elpida some, like Citibank even feel that Apple might have encouraged Micron to make the purchase last year.

FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) comes in many forms. The most common is through the use of the News (printed and internet) here as hundreds of millions of people consume content from multiple sources the seeds of misinformation can be sewn with relative ease. Over the past few months we have seen the NSA, the FBI, Fox News, Symantec and others start to pain the Anonymous (and other) online movement as villains. The FBI, CIA and NSA have even begun the campaign to throw them into the same category as terrorists. Most of these have not met with success as more and more people are beginning to read between the lines of the daily news, but it still has an impact.

Symantec, perhaps in an effort to reclaim some of their reputation, has released a report claiming that some people involved in the DDoS attacks after the MegaUpload take down may have been tricked into downloading a data stealing virus. In a post on Symantec’s own blog they have built a nice (and plausible) timeline of events complete with images (although no links) showing how this happened right around the 20th of January. Many news sites have picked this up and are busy wirting articles about how Anonymous has been hacked... Now the question is, is any of this true?