Day: September 21, 2010

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For Both of My Readers Who Are Relatively Naive Windows Users…

😉

During a brief “drive-by” watching some *shudder* TV (I have thins to watch on Hulu and other videos, but the thing was on and.. yeh, that *heh*) , some commercials aired that I thought from the presentation were for bogus products/services. One was for MyCL3anPC.c0m and another for D0ubleMySp33d.com. Notice the lack of linkage and the lame faux-obscuring of the sites’ names? *heh* That’s because anyone who visits these sites is apparently in for some computing hell. This guy has a typical review of the sites.

The short version? The ads are, IMO, come-ons, cons, commercial phishing expeditions designed to suck in naive, unwary computer users. As such, they are little different to the “Antivirus 2010 (2009, 2008…)” and variants that are such a plague. Both vectors for infesting one’s computer with what is apparently malware depend on naive users doing themselves in. In this day and age, naive computer users are very nearly an identity with “stupid computer users” since information about threats is so very prevalent, it takes almost willful ignorance to just blythely succumb to such things.

Now, the two relatively naive users I referred to in the post title are also relatively new to computer use, and they are coming up to speed as quickly as possible, so they get a “bye” on the “stupid” comment, but too many others out there just haven’t bothered to learn how to practice safe computing, so all y’all just use this short lil cautionary post to warn those you know, ‘K?

And another good thing about using a ‘nix computer: the app the company uses to mess with folks won’t work on ‘nix-based computers. Of course, I could have nstalled it using WINE on the Linux VM I used to double check that assumption, but why? 😉

NOTE: My opinion was colored by my initial exposure to the commercials, which promised unrealistic results and used unrealistic scare tactics,but the preponderance of commentary, as well as the detailed information presented at the site I linked formed my final opinion: ignore these ads and warn others off them.

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Quick Comment on Argument

Just saw it again in a forum where I have come to expect such things (which is why I don’t frequent the place but just drop by maybe once a month or so): some idiot making a false accusation of “ad hominem attack”. *sigh* I commented there and am cutting/pasting here, with redactions to obscure the original comments.

Saying, “You are a monster, therefore you believe such and so” is an ad hominem attack, because it falsely argues that the cause of a line of argument lies in the character of the arguer. While that may be the case, argument must be made against what a person asserts and not who the person is.

OTOH, saying, “You have done monstrous things, therefore you are a monster” is an arguable assertion and not an ad hominem attack.

And again, simply stating an opinion, based on observation of what someone has said and done that someone–based on the evidence in hand–is a dumbass, idiot, cretin, politician *spit* or some other derogatory appellation, is name-calling that does not fall under the rubric of “ad hominem fallacy” UNLESS it is presented as an argument attempting to refute another’s assertion. Such name-calling may be simply accurate labeling.

Since Mohamed, for example, did monstrous things and commanded that his followers do likewise, we can accurately label him as a monster, but any argument against his teachings must be based on what he said. Now, it may be possible to make the “monster Mohamed” argument against Islam, because Muslims are enjoined to look to Mohamed as the perfect man and to emulate his life. That being the case, we could, I suppose, legitimately argue that Islam is a monstrous hate cult based simply on the life of its founder, since ALL Muslim are to emulate him (Muslim females are to simply be the properly submissive property of some man, as taught and demonstrated by Mohamed), and his life and teachings are examples of monstrous, evil behavior.

Accuracy in labeling doesn’t have to equal ad hominem attacks.