Strangest rumor/lie/misinformation you have ever heard

[Brandel Valico]

Okay I was sitting around reading the forums and ran across a thread where a respondent mentioned a rumor he had heard about Linux being a hacker OS.

It got me to thinking about the various rumors / lies / and misinformation the various OS's toss around to scare us away from the other guy or entice us towards them.

I recalled one a friend of mine told me back in the Windows 98 days (He was a loyal Mac/Apple user) it basically was this.

"Windows has a hidden file that inserts a subliminal message into the refresh time of the monitor that flashes by so quickly you never see it. That causes you to believe it is the best OS using various messages."

So what I'm curious about is what is the strangest thing you have ever heard about an OS.

[damis648]

This was meant as a joke, and is pretty darn funny.

[Sealbhach]

Okay I was sitting around reading the forums and ran across a thread where a respondent mentioned a rumor he had heard about Linux being a hacker OS.

Do they mean hacker or cracker? There's a big difference. Hacking is generally a good thing. Cracking is the bad stuff.


.

[I-75]

Okay I was sitting around reading the forums and ran across a thread where a respondent mentioned a rumor he had heard about Linux being a hacker OS.

It got me to thinking about the various rumors / lies / and misinformation the various OS's toss around to scare us away from the other guy or entice us towards them.

I recalled one a friend of mine told me back in the Windows 98 days (He was a loyal Mac/Apple user) it basically was this.

"Windows has a hidden file that inserts a subliminal message into the refresh time of the monitor that flashes by so quickly you never see it. That causes you to believe it is the best OS using various messages."

So what I'm curious about is what is the strangest thing you have ever heard about an OS.

I heard that Windows has back doors that go to certain government agencies. Supposedly it started with Windows 95...I have been hearing that rumor for years.

[Kernel Sanders]

I heard that Windows has back doors that go to certain government agencies. Supposedly it started with Windows 95...I have been hearing that rumor for years.

LOL!

That rumour has been doing the rounds for a few years now. Apparantly Vista was developed in conjunction with the NSA, and as such contains many backdoors for them and other government agencies to snoop on you and steal your data.

A few years ago a few Microsoft employees came out and said that it was all pure fiction, and that they would never work on any software project that contained backdoors to allow people/the government to snoop on the users.

I think it stems from the fact that Microsoft have been actively consulting with the US Government for years. After all, they want Windows to be on every computer in the US administration and every computer in every state's administration. For Vista they did work with the NSA and various hacker groups to beef up Vista's security, and it worked. They even spoke openly about it. Lack of security is not something you can bash Vista for.

However, the rumour mill started, and it spread that Microsoft was working with the NSA to put backdoors into Vista. FAIL.

Don't get me wrong though, Vista contains a hell of a lot of DRM, but nothing that would allow Governments to snoop on you

[Ocxic]

Vista Banned on gov't computers, http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html

[BLTicklemonster]

I read somewhere online that the banks knew that they were loosing money on the home loans and decided to take drastic action. They decided to put money in petroleum and drive the price up sky high, which is why the price of gas went through the roof. They realized that the gig was up when people started blaming the high price on speculators, and pulled out. Things were so bad that, shortly thereafter, the housing market bubble popped, and since then the price of gas has fallen precipitously. The timing of it all sort of makes sense. I have yet to be able to find where I saw it. Like it was pulled from the internet shortly after it was put up. Anybody else see anything like that?

[Grant A.]

That Duke Nukem Forever would one day be released.

[MikeTheC]

I read somewhere online that the banks knew that they were loosing money on the home loans and decided to take drastic action. They decided to put money in petroleum and drive the price up sky high, which is why the price of gas went through the roof. They realized that the gig was up when people started blaming the high price on speculators, and pulled out. Things were so bad that, shortly thereafter, the housing market bubble popped, and since then the price of gas has fallen precipitously. The timing of it all sort of makes sense. I have yet to be able to find where I saw it. Like it was pulled from the internet shortly after it was put up. Anybody else see anything like that?

*looks around*

*shakes head*

Nope, nothing like that going on around here. You?

[Kingsley]

According to one of my roommates, it's a proven fact that Macs are better than PCs. A professor of his supposedly said so.