I was listening to the Mooney Show on RTE Radio 1 this afternoon when a chap called Vincent Byrne was introduced as a man who “knows everything about computers”. Unfortunately, it appears he doesn’t know nearly as much as RTE think. Perhaps he was relatively knowledgeable a few years ago but now he seems uninformed about open source, security, hardware or anything beyond the world of Microsoft. He said too many things I could take issue with to list them all so I’ll just mention the four that annoyed me the most.

[tags]RTE, Radio, Ireland, Computers, Mooney[/tags]

There is a World Beyond Redmond

When asked about the software people need Vincent seemed to think “MS Word” and “Word Processor” were interchangeable terms. He told people they would have to buy MS Office to get a word processor or a spread sheet application. He made no mention of even the free Open Office, let alone other commercial solutions like iWork. In my opinion such a narrow view of computing is not good enough from someone paraded as “knowing everything about Computers”. I sent the Mooney show an email suggesting they tell people about Open Office. They didn’t bother.

OS X Exists

The presenter seemed more clued in to matters IT than the ‘expert’ and tried to start a discussion about choosing your OS but the expert killed that with some story about how Apple were behind the times in their choice of File System about a decade or so ago and how Windows is more advanced. Rather than admit that he doesn’t know anything about Mac he talks about Apple as if they still use Classic Mac OS. OS X seems to have passed Vincent by. A true expert knows the limits of his knowledge and simply says they are not the right person to properly answer the question.

Security Evolves – WEP is NOT Secure

A whole load of people relying on WEP for security have now been lulled into a false sense of security. Vincent told people that if their WiFi needs a key then it is secure. This is a very dangerous un-truth. WEP is fundamentally flawed and can be hacked in minutes, people who still use it need to know just how vulnerable they are. Security needs to be a very important concern for all computer users and for a supposed expert to be so un-informed is not good enough in my view.

Hard Ware Evolves

Computer hardware moves on. Even two years ago 32 bit computing was more or less ubiquitous. 64 bit machines were rare and not seen in the average home or business. In such an environment it could perhaps be argued that for the sake of simplicity it is acceptable to pretend all machines are 32 bit. A big limitation of the 32 bit architecture is the 4GB limit to addressable RAM. With 64 bit architectures the limit lies massively higher. At this moment Apple ONLY sells 64 bit computers, many other manufacturers also ship 64 bit machines and there is a version of Windows Vista that works at 64 bits. Today, 64 bit computers are common-place in our homes and offices. Given this reality it is just beyond belief that a supposed expert can come out with the following (from memory):

What computer makers don’t tell you is that computers can only use 4 GB of RAM.

People Need To Be Given Basic Security Advice

There were a number of security related questions asked and I was very disappointed that Vincent didn’t take the opportunity to hammer home the basics of computer security to users. This was a segment aimed at beginners. The people phoning in were eager to learn. These are also the very people that most need to learn the fundamentals of computer security. Yet there was no discussion of the basics such as keeping your OS and ALL programs that access the internet up-to-date. There was no mention of needing to run a firewall and very little discussion of virus scanners. Users were not told that virus scanners are not perfect and that they still have to use their common sense. This was a lost opportunity to really help people.

Conclusion

RTE need to be a lot more careful about how they talk up their guests. When you talk people up to be experts they really need to be experts. In this case Vincent Byrne simply didn’t know as much as his introduction would lead people to believe. In my mind this casts doubt over all the so-called experts RTE uses in it’s various programs. I have sent the Mooney show two emails pointing out the flaws in Vincent’s answers. If I do get an answer I’ll post it here but in all honesty I’m not expecting a reply. I have no doubt that Vincent thinks he is qualified to answer listeners questions and that he did his very best to help the people who called in. However, the fact remains, he gave poor advice, and he made factual errors.