This guy @forest has mentioned in several comments that he thinks Steve Gibson of Security Now is a fraud/quack/etc. I came across the podcast from classes in InfoSec and have more or less stuck with the podcast over the years.

I don't always with Steve and/or Leo, and I've noticed he has made a few mistakes, but Forest's animosity is a new thing I had never come across before. I'm only able to find some buthurt regarding some things said circa y2k and many references to an article that is no longer online purporting to give you all the dirt.

@YetAnotherRandomUser well, his main claim to fame is a product that... people swear works, but seems wrapped in mild psudoscience and mysticism....

(spinrite)

spinrite has pseudoscience?

I chalked up the tutorials on the podcast due to Steve and Leo being older guys and that's what older guys think are cool. I've never had an oppurtunity to require spinrite, thankfully

groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!original/comp.dcom.xdsl/…

that's ... almost old enough to drink in many countries ;p

"magnetodynamic" is a cool word lol

> GRC said in 2006 that this issue would be resolved in version 6.1, anticipated to be a free-of-charge upgrade for SpinRite 6.0 users.[14] As of March 2016 version 6.0 is the current version

(this is about sata drives... so it dosen't work anyway)

yeah, I've been waiting on 6.1, but not holding my breath lol

yup

I don't know, when I read this, it seems to me that this is someone relying on "fame" earned 20 years ago

just ask @forest him/herself

that tooooo

attrition.org/errata/charlatan/steve_gibson

wow, this guy has some serious haters

allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/steve-gibson-is-a-fraud

yup

I only heard of attrition a couple days ago when @forest mentioned it, and it's basically about 20 year old problems that are no longer relevant. If Steve were such a quack, there should be a neverending stream of his quackery and the mockery thereof

A comment on a ServerFault Q&A: I was trying to point out that SpinRite may just be too clever for its own good--i.e., that Steve seems to have a habit of overengineering his solutions without properly researching the problems. For example, he wrote two utilities in assembly to enable/disable a couple of network ports in Windows and wrote a big, long article about it--only to find out later that he could have easily done the same thing by unchecking a box in Windows. – rob Aug 10 '09 at 19:49

Basically, call i can see is that a few people don't like his approach and want to use strong words to that effect. I don't see how that's any different than any other disagreement. In what limited experience I have with techy people, they tend to exaggerate and over exaggerate criticism of things they don't agree with.

Given that he's been around for so long, and has high visibility in the media, the quantity of haters seems really low.

most people... don't bother? ;p

@YetAnotherRandomUser there kind of is across the industry :-)

@YetAnotherRandomUser he used to be really high visibility, then was shunned by the media because of some major snake-oil issues

Now - he's considered mostly harmless quack

@YetAnotherRandomUser uhh there is. Hear of his brilliant SQRL?

and spinrite is the tech equivalent of healing crystals.

@JourneymanGeek yeah this. He's such an obviously clueless putz its not worth debunking him most of the time.

@AviD cause there's better things to do. Can't announce an exploit without a website, cute name and logo :p