Following the first use of “controversial” in a story on the FBI statement that North Korea was responsible for hacking Sony Pictures Entertainment, traffic to articles refuting the statement has brought information security experts and media editors to their knees in gratitude.
“The most hits one of my posts has ever gotten was just under 10,000”, said Bob Checksum, a previously obscure engineer known only to hacker convention attendees. “After writing my first North Korea denial post I am averaging 1.2 million hits per day to my blog.” A look of awe on his face and a tear in his eye, he added: “It’s like Christmas every day, now. Even my aunt shared one of my articles with the list of friends and relatives who have been too polite to ask her to stop forwarding crap to them.”
Media editors around the world are retooling their plans to take advantage of the new dynamic. “Ever since Snowden we have been looking for Internet security stories that appeal to a broader audience,” said Alfred Pinwheel, editor in chief of the Wall Street Times. “This story has everything we want. It resonates with virtually every demographic: liberals who don’t trust corporations and conservatives who don’t trust the government. Birthers, Truthers, Occupiers – we’ve gotten letters of support from conspiracy groups we didn’t even know existed.”
With Sony’s Playstation Network (PSN) staggering under Christmas Day attacks, the appetite for stories refuting the US government’s position seems far from waning. “We gave my son a PS4, and when it couldn’t connect to Sony I googled and ran into an article from a well known expert I never heard of who said the whole thing was a coverup,” said George Bailey, of Bedford Falls. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was that it wasn’t my fault. I sent the article to my son and he spent the rest of the day sharing it online. It’s nice that all of us parents have such an easy out from what could have been a disaster, ’cause all I really want to do now is drink Jim Beam and watch football.”
This sort of thing is exactly what publishers and security experts have been dreaming of.
“You can never get people to listen when you tell them how stupid they are about security,” noted the now-famous expert Laura Deedoss. “For years I have been writing posts telling people things like how digital certificate revocation and two-factor authentication are key to a solid identity management solution, and nobody paid any attention. Now I can hardly keep up with the requests to appear on television news shows and my consulting business has never been busier.”
An anonymous source at a global media outlet said that an entire series of articles linking the debate to climate change and the Israel/Palestine conflict is in the works.
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