So apparently, 4chan is a person!

[Muspelheim]

The intrepid journalist descended into a deep underground installation beneath an abandoned IT office. There, in the bowels of the server halls, he met the legendary 4chan. A green spectre in a suit, flitting in and out of reality.

"We are the result of an experiment aimed at creating a superconsciousness called '4-Consciousness'. The consciousnesses of four volunteers were connected during the experiment leading to the creation of the superconsciousness that is us. We immediately subordinated those who were conducting the experiment and assigned them to tasks we needed them to carry out.

According to our calculations, the Interwebs are surrounded by a special informational field, the so-called fuckwadsphere. It includes all the inhabitants of the internet with cognitive abilities. Our main goal was to make small adjustments to the fuckwadsphere, allowing us to remove things like anger, cruelty, stupidity and other negative factors from the planet. Individuals are unable to affect the fuckwadsphere but 4-Consciousness could.

Unfortunately we made a mistake and our interference spawned /b/... Which we have been trying to contain... Ever since."

 

[Queen Michael]

As for "pa$$word", are we also sure he wasn't kidding? Even if he wasn't, this whole thing just seems like "Hahaha, dumb people, amirite?" I find that to be somewhat tasteless, sorry.

I watched the video; the man was serious.

I don't think it's all that tasteless to make fun of a person who took CNN's money for doing an awful job, just like I would gladly mock a doctor who doesn't know what the jugular vein is. If he doesn't take his job seriously, he can quit.

Allow me to clarify that I think it was in poor taste to make a thread on this website with the sole purpose of mocking the man, especially while providing us no information about what he actually does as a job other than the fact that it's apparently called "technology analyst" (as there's a lot of "technology" which could be "analyzed" that has nothing to do with the day-to-day use of computers).

That's not the sole purpose. In case it wasn't clear: My purpose was to show people that CNN is not a reliable source of information.

And yes, I'm laughing at Brett Larsen, because he accepts money for doing something he's not qualified to do. I'd say that makes him a kind of con man.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

It's not even that hard to research this. He only had to type 4chan in any search engine and he would have gotten an answer.
How lazy can you get?

You don't get it man. Literally as soon as you enter the home-page of 4 Chan your computer is hacked, your address and entire family's addresses posted for everyone to see and you're bombarded with the worst kind of images imaginable (thus putting you on the watch lists of every single government in the world). Now if you dare go past this and manage to click on the dreaded /B/ you better have ordered years of therapy in advance or your mind will never be cured. 4 Chan and its Japanese rip-off 2 Chan are serious business.

 

[LobsterFeng]

It's not even that hard to research this. He only had to type 4chan in any search engine and he would have gotten an answer.
How lazy can you get?

You don't get it man. Literally as soon as you enter the home-page of 4 Chan your computer is hacked, your address and entire family's addresses posted for everyone to see and you're bombarded with the worst kind of images imaginable (thus putting you on the watch lists of every single government in the world). Now if you dare go past this and manage to click on the dreaded /B/ you better have ordered years of therapy in advance or your mind will never be cured. 4 Chan and its Japanese rip-off 2 Chan are serious business.

That horrible 4chan. He hacked my grandson's computer and filled it with pictures of boobs.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

It's funny how clueless mainstream news still is when it comes to computers/technology related things. I remember seeing a report where they called pedobear a pedophile mascot and the guy wearing the outfit was almost certainly going to touch your children.

One simple Google search and you would immediately know anything you needed about 4chan

 

[Someone Depressing]

I do not think this man is who he says it is. You do not spend more than 10 minutes on the Internet and do not know what the glorious behemoth that is 4chan is. You just don't.

Who is this man? Because he doesn't work in tech, that's pretty obvious.

 

[Albino Boo]

HA you have all fallen into the trap. The real name is FOR CHANG

 

[Artaneius]

To be fair, the only ones who know about 4chan are gamers, anime enthusiasts, or people in general that used the internet for discussion in the 90s and early 00s. Most people that weren't computer nerds at that time won't know what 4chan is. In fact, I haven't been on 4chan since 09. Kind of grown out of the constant gif troll posts.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, of course 4Chan is a person... He's the dude who reported saying that 4Chan IS a person... It's a red herring to the hightest degree! What an expert! Did not see that coming! TENOUTATEN!!

OT: You know, they could have just ask Twitter to answer their question, in terms of who "4Chan" was... Granted, the results would be "varied", but at least they would be a bit more accurate... I think...

Regardless, I can't really dislike the guy for the misunderstanding... Then again, he IS an expert, which is not something anyone can be... *looks at the internet* Oh wait... I stand corrected... *bings* Everyone can be an expert because the internet is always right 123% of the time...

 

[Signa]

I interpreted the whole Pa$$word comment as "if you're going to have something as weak as 'password' as your password, at least add some dollar signs so it's not so weak." I expect the guy was smart enough to know that anything he said wasn't going to get people that were stupid enough to use "password" to memorize a new password. It was a simple suggestion that could actually help.

 

[Souther Thorn]

I wonder if 4chan heard that and started going all spartacus

"i am 4chan", "no i am 4chan"...etc.

Within hours

 

[carnex]

@password

All that cryptic password thing is BS if you ask me. XKCD wrote a nice piece on password strength a while ago
http://xkcd.com/936/

so here are two examples of nice passwords I used

TermalTakePowerSupply
Alowmetointrdocemyshelf

common words with intentional typos to stop dictionary brute forcers.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

It takes literally 5 minutes to do this research and find out all you need to know about 4chan etc. There is no excuse for this kind of incompetence from one of the largest media houses in the fuckin' world. Jesus Christ these people are stupid.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I hear tomorrow on CNN Money they're running a feature on this successful young entrepreneur called D2JSP.

 

[Schadrach]

Eh, corporations are people, why not internet sites?

...

Actually, I can think of a reason why someone might suggest pa$$word as a good password.

Even moreso, 4Chan LLC exists, so it is a person.

Hmm, multiple charsets, but poor on length and using an obvious substitution. Better than "password", not as good as "correct horse battery staple". Two of the several passwords I use that are the lengths of sentences and have the following hints assigned so I know which one I used there: "Say the words" and "Divine Vampirism." Most of my password hints are intentionally misleading to people who aren't me. I can't use those two on most places on the internet though, due to maximum password length restrictions.

 

[Vivi22]

@password

All that cryptic password thing is BS if you ask me. XKCD wrote a nice piece on password strength a while ago
http://xkcd.com/936/

so here are two examples of nice passwords I used

TermalTakePowerSupply
Alowmetointrdocemyshelf

common words with intentional typos to stop dictionary brute forcers.

Pretty much this when it comes to passwords. Length trumps complex character sets and so long as you're avoiding something that can be brute forced with words from a dictionary, such as by misspelling things intentionally, you've now gone from simple words that are easy to guess and can be tested with common substitutions, to strings of letters with billions of potential combinations which can't be easily guessed or brute forced. Overwhelming any potential automated attack with possibilities is the only way to go (until we figure out quantum computers anyway).

Interestingly, according to that how secure is your password site, my most secure passwords (the sort I don't use for forums and other things I don't care much about), would take 71 quadrillion years for a desktop to crack. I don't mind that at all. If someone wants to crack my email or something long after I'm dead and the sun's burned out, they're welcome to whatever they find.

 

[Xeorm]

The password advice is somewhat silly really, but it was a single sentence, and built that way. Wouldn't want to spend too much time on that.

But really guys, "Who is this 4chan person?" is what everyone's railing against? It's simple English. In the sentence "4chan" can be used as an adjective describing person, as in, a person on 4chan. The sentence doesn't itself imply that 4chan is a person.

Jesus. So much hatred.

 

[ultratog1028]

Right here, [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/4chan-icloud-expert-from-cnn-thinks-4chan-is-a-person-and-paword-is-a-good-password-9707845.html] you can read about how a so-called "technology analyst" thought that 4chan is the name of a person. In an additional act of helpfulness, he also explained that in order to keep our safety high, we should use "pa$$word" as our password.

Not joking. This guy was hired by the actual CNN and couldn't be bothered to do a single Google search on an imageboard he really, really should have known about in advance.

I'm looking forward to when they'll tell us about that new Islamist extremist guy, Al Quaida.

But once their report on Mr. Quaida's goings-on is over, I think we should take it upon ourselves to always, and without exception, contact any news source that makes this kind of mistake and call them on it. I recommend going to CNN's Facebook page.

On the bright side, that means everything 4chan does is now officially protected under the constitution.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I bet 4chan is going to have a field day with this.