It's Entertainment, Wait it's Opinion, No it's on TV so it must be news right?

A user at a forum I help moderate frustrated me today with a bit of ignorance. This person made the claim that most of the security features that we try so hard to put in place are useless in regards to computers and the internet. This person further claimed that security such as antivirus & firewalls only give the illusion of security, that they don't actually do anything. The claims were based on watching one episode of "Adam Ruins Everything". This was the only source cited for the argument.

This is of course an extreme over simplification of things on the part of the poster. A well secured, properly configured, and well monitored computer system does have a a measure of real security. It isn't just an illusion. It isn't an easy or simple thing to break into most systems. It takes a measure of knowledge and skill that the general public usually does not possess.

"Adam Ruins Everything" is hosted by a comedian and is slightly educational but mostly sketch comedy. Getting internet security or network administration information from it is almost as silly as all those people that got their news from "The Daily Show" with John Stuart. It isn't very accurate in many cases and is more about opinion and laughs than reality. The angle they put on everything is designed to get ratings from a specific demographic more than it is to disseminate any real facts.

The episode the poster was referring to was "Adam Ruins Security" and it is the second of 7 episodes thus far. It isn't internet security specific or even on topic for this thread the poster was commenting in at all. The episode was clearly just a ratings grab and not a useful commentary or documentary of security. At best it is highly editorial work that doesn't give a complete picture on the arguments presented. The increasing trend to treat editorials, comedy shows, reality shows, or any combination of the three as news or documentary sources is alarming.

Penn & Teller had a show a ways back titled "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" that was clearly motivated by their own political views that many people either took to be factual or confused with legitimate documentary programming. "Adam Ruins Everything" isn't quite as bad but it's close.