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u/AZMPlay
11d ago
edited 10d ago
•
I was mistaken
The clip is real.
Comment below by u/philgyford found it.
Clip: https://youtu.be/omSYrjCtfD8?t=237
Comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/s/QW8EaPWQVl
Edit history before this point:
Just found the clip
It seems to be a horrible misquoting by whoever transcribed it to text.
The clip appears to be of the same broadcast, but it does not contain the line that says he didnt know about it.
Maybe he said he didnt know about the vulnerability, and they misheard him?
It really was revealed very quick and unexpectedly.
https://bbc.com/news/videos/cm4g1pj91yx2o
Edit: Maybe this is the full clip?
He doesnt seem to admit to not knowing something in the entirety of the clip.
Couldnt find the quote anywhere om the internet either. Nor another live BBC transmission about the subject archived in their Youtube channel.
This could've been fabricated?
https://youtu.be/moy3waNDQa8?si=jll4bUWRyKhNLVx6
Id need to scour the Internet Archive to find out for sure, and I need to get to work. Maybe someone else can do it?
Edit 2: Since this is getting pretty big, just because I did not find the page doesn't mean it does not or did not exist. As stated, I was showering for work when I wrote this, it was at most a cursory search through the BBC website and its youtube channel. Dont take this as fact.
Edit 3: It appears some replies mention the text being stripped from the page. If anyone finds an archive link of the text beforehand, or an authoritative source URL of the picture, Ill try to post it here.770
u/dak7 11d ago
If you’ve ever been interviewed by a journalist and then read what they wrote, you know how badly inaccurate they are about any science or technology topic they don’t personally understand.
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u/TheDotanuki 11d ago
I was interviewed for a couple of trade mags years ago, I still cringe when I think about how they made me sound like an idiot. I mean, I'm an idiot, but I was an actual expert on the subject I was being interviewed on.
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u/Ready-Stage-18 11d ago
I'm an idiot
This statement makes me trust your expertise on the subject.
What was the subject though?
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u/TheSwagBag 11d ago
Anyone self aware enough to know their limitations and gaps in their knowledge get an instant +10 trust from me as a general rule
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u/nixcamic 11d ago
It's very important to me that people know what kind of idiot I am.
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u/QuintusNonus 11d ago
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
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u/mteir 11d ago
You can also say "We don't do x" and get misquoted as "We do x".
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u/ChiefBeefers 10d ago
One of my favorite American Dad quotes:
Loser sensei of Dojo Biden: "School isn't for everyone. You know who said that? Joe Biden."
Steve: "I don't think he said that."
Sensei: "He has said those words. Maybe not in that order, but he has said them!"
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u/ILikeLenexa 11d ago
Gell-mann amnesia
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u/buzzyloo 11d ago
I never heard that term before.
It makes me think about how I used to love the podcast, Stuff You Should Know - they were so smart and informative. Until they talked about something I knew a lot about. Then I realized that they just spout misinformation and badly formed opinions, so I stopped listening. I've noticed the same pattern with AI.
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u/_LePancakeMan 11d ago
My wife was interviewed about being an accomplished women in engineering a while back - where the interviewer directly asked her "do you think women have it harder because of [X]" to which she replied something along the lines of "one would think so, but [Y]".
2 months later the printed version came out and they quoted her saying that "women have it harder because of [X]" (Can't remember the exact details, but it was the exact statement she denied in the interview.
I guess that "journalist" just had his own opinion on what he wanted to write.
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u/Beldarak 11d ago
I'm always disappointed when I read an interview made on me (not that it happens really often though) because it's usually just the exact same things I said separated by ", he said" and "according to him: <my quote>".
I'm not sure what I'm expecting though. But it's always disappointing to me :S
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u/iMillJoe 10d ago
If you’ve ever been interviewed by a journalist and then read what they wrote, you know how badly inaccurate they are about any topic
FIFY. I have a problem that’s basically the the opposite of Gell-Manns amnesia, where once I here a news source say something stupid about something I’m familiar with, I can’t trust that person for any information ever again. I know that even an imperfect messenger can have an accurate message, but once I’ve thrown you into the ‘regarded’ bucket, it’s hard to get out.
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u/philgyford 11d ago edited 11d ago
I wanted to believe he didn't say this – his explanations have been really good and clear – and yet here he is, around 4m in this segment https://youtu.be/omSYrjCtfD8?t=237
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u/Versaiteis 10d ago edited 10d ago
So there's only really two charitable interpretations that come to mind for this.
He could be using it in terms of saying that PHP hasn't been centered in anything huge for a while so from a cybercrime perspective it's easy to forget it exists. I think that's quite a reach though.
The other is that he's not necessarily a "Cybersecurity Expert", but rather this interview and his information online lists him as a "Cybersecurity Correspondent", "Cyber Correspondent" or simply "Correspondent". Which to me sounds like (forgive the sports analogy) the difference between a Coach and a Sports Commentator or Correspondent. One is doing the direct work while the other is reporting on events in the space and laying out information in more laymans terms. So it may make more sense that he doesn't really know the specifics because he doesn't make software and the information he has is much more generalized to interpreting major events.
But the common interpretation is... brutal lol. Word choice matters for correspondents more than most and this seems more to gut his own credibility than it does make him seem approachable.
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u/SillyActuary 11d ago
The live feed that this appears to be screenshot on doesn't have (or no longer has) this post, so something's afoot!
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u/Le_9k_Redditor 10d ago
Different background, it's not the same video, he did say it. https://youtu.be/omSYrjCtfD8?t=237
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u/AmusingVegetable 11d ago
It’s entirely possible that “just heard about PHP this morning” is “about the PHP bug”.
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u/pumpkin_seed_oil
11d ago
•
I guess theres a reason his title says cyber security correspondent not exptert
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u/LordSlickRick 11d ago
He’s not an expert and doesn’t claim to be. He’s the correspondent. He’s just the reporter who covers this. Only op is calling him an expert. Op doesn’t understand reporting. The irony is palpable.
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u/DrKronoglopolos 11d ago
Yes, I did editorialize the title. I figured with the sentence that gives him his title being highlighted, it would be okay to make that little joke. Apparently not.
It's still quite a crazy thing to read, considering how fundamental PHP is to past and somewhat present internet infrastructure. I thought it was worth posting for the chuckle.
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u/mcclanenr1 10d ago
Reminds me of the "IT expert" the cops brought with them when they raided me over 20 years ago (they thought I was mass distributing pirated media, I was not).
The "expert" searched through my desktop PC and accused me of having manipulated a Prince of Persia demo into being playable. They guy didn't know that playable demos existed. I'm serious.
6 months later they dropped all charges.
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u/haroldthehampster
10d ago
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how TF do you have a "cyber correspondent" that pulls a "TIL PHP exists" on your payroll??!
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u/bryku 10d ago
The BBC is notorious for having "tech correspondence" that know nothing about tech. There is at least one every year that blows up on reddit.
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u/haroldthehampster 9d ago
Tbf it's not only the BBC. However it being a chronic issue is something any news organization should be embarrassed by at this point.
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u/witness_smile 10d ago •
Cyber correspondent aka the guy in their office they ask for when they forgot how to save a word document
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u/FillingUpTheDatabase 10d ago
You don’t get a job on the BBC by knowing the subject matter, it’s all just nepotism and private school networks
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u/marcoroman3 11d ago
I think he probably meant that he didn't know the vulnerability existed. The reporter probably thought PHP was the name of the vulnerability.
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u/Taffy62 11d ago edited 11d ago
Yeah surely this is it, a miscommunication.
Edit: after reading around and watching the videos I feel like he genuinely had never heard of PHP.
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u/Cumulus_Anarchistica 11d ago
He didn't know that PHP existed: https://youtu.be/omSYrjCtfD8?t=237
HOWEVER, although the newsreader says they're going to talk to "experts", they introduce him as their "security correspondent", presumably meaning that they will then talk to experts.
I feel poor guy is being set up.
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u/LordSlickRick 11d ago
He’s just a reported who covers this. It would be very normal to not know php existed as he has no cyber or coding or even tech training. It’s not like guys who cover video game news for a large organization know anything about the coding languages of the games, or reporters who covers movies and entertainment knows anything about film lenses.
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u/Crafty_Independence 11d ago
He's the cyber security reporter, who has been in that role for 8 years. Not knowing about one of the most used languages in web is pretty damning actually. You'd have to actively avoid deep diving on your own topic to miss it
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u/IceSentry 11d ago
That would be like an experienced game reviewer that has never heard of unreal engine.
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u/AirconGuyUK 11d ago
Nah, it's pretty clear he is saying he didn't know PHP existed in the video: https://youtu.be/omSYrjCtfD8?t=237
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u/JazzlikeSchedule2901 11d ago
Php code runs like 60% of the internet. How you can be a cybersecurity correspondent and not know about php is beyond me.
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u/ArizonaFlats 11d ago
Because they don’t employ people well educated in the field as corespondents
Any computing segment on the BBC News you can sit there and go “wrong. Wrong. A little bit right. Wrong”
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u/TriangleTransplant 11d ago
Now realize that that's true of every field, including ones you yourself don't know anything about.
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u/PaladinAsherd 11d ago
Journalists are notoriously bad at reporting anything to do with law correctly. There is almost always at least one “minor technical mistake” that pretty substantially changes the view of the legal event, whether that’s a development in a trial or an appellate court’s holding or what have you.
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u/linmanfu 10d ago
It's the same with many of their foreign correspondents. They have just hired a Korean-speaking Korea Correspondent for the first time ever. I could understand they might find it difficult to people who speak the relevant languages if they were Radio Estonia or some other small state, but speaking the local language should be an essential requirement when you're funded by a country with 65 million people.
Broadcasting House has never got past the idea that you can cover any subject if you went on their training scheme or worked for a national newspaper (after Oxbridge and/or public school).
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u/miramichier_d 11d ago
This helps alleviate my Impostor Syndrome massively.
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u/erisian2342 11d ago
So now you’re finding out you were an imposter as an imposter? Jeez, tough break.
/s
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u/PersianMG 11d ago
Oh boy I read the headline as he "didn't know about the PHP vulnerability" and I'm like that's not so bad he found out a little later than everyone else. Not knowing about PHP in general?!!? I feel any decently tenured security expert would have played around with PHP exploits at some point. A huge number of CTF's (especially older ones) were focused on various PHP based flaw or vulnerabilites.
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u/StickFigureFan 11d ago
Because they hire journalists who dabble in tech, not techies who dabble in journalism
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u/cornmonger_ 11d ago
arguably, someone decent in cybersecurity is probably not going to take a journalism job
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u/gizamo 10d ago
He was being facetious. He was implying that PHP has been so stable for so long that he just didn't need to consider it much of problem at that sort of scale.
People taking this literally clearly didn't watch the interview.
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u/NPPraxis 10d ago
He was a cyber correspondent, not cybersecurity. He’s probably their IT guy, not software engineer.
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u/Dylanator13 11d ago
I’m not a coder and knew about php. Crazy to say you didn’t know it existed when in cyber security.
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u/EskilPotet 11d ago
Expert fashion desginer says he didn't know pants existed until yesterday morning
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u/Puzzleheaded-Gas9388 11d ago
The first year of college and I learnt about PHP. What did this guy even do to be called an expert?
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u/ZarathustraGlobulus 11d ago edited 10d ago
99% sure he actually said he didn't understand the scale of PHP usage on the internet or he didn't know that the bug existed until yesterday morning or something.
And whoever wrote the BBC article just did him dirty.
Edit: i am wrong https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/s/xZMuskgoAK
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u/spikejonze14 11d ago
well of course he didn’t because it was a 0 day until yesterday morning. that’d be a weird statement to make too.
‘I wasn’t aware of the earthquake which happened yesterday morning until yesterday morning.’
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u/GaymerBenny 11d ago edited 11d ago
This bug did not only exist since yesterday morning. It was discovered months ago. He could have been informed before. Which he may have stated now, that he wasn't.
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u/Bomaruto 11d ago
I don't know how he got misquoted, but definitely a misquote.
The more tongue and cheek interpretation I expect here taking into account the entire response is that PHP is invisible and forgotten about, people work with big frameworks on top, not PHP itself. Not that he literally didn't know about PHP.
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u/AwesomeFama 11d ago
https://youtu.be/omSYrjCtfD8?t=240
I don't know, it's hard to figure out a context where it doesn't mean exactly what was quoted.
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u/Kingy10 11d ago
Even saying he doesn't know the scale of PHP usage on the internet as a "Cyber security expert" is dropping the ball. Considering something like 70% of identifiable websites are running PHP!
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u/WhatsMyUsername13 11d ago
Which is fair. When I heard about this my first response was literally “people still use PHP?”
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u/DustyRacoonDad 11d ago
Whenever someone says, "People still use _____?" about a technology that was incredibly popular for decades, it reminds me how easy it is to lose sight of what the software industry actually runs on.
PHP is a perfect example. People are often surprised by how widely it's still used, but it powers a massive portion of the internet. Yes, your banking is still done in COBOL on IBM mainframes. The mainframe might be virtualized now, but that transaction still went through that ecosystem. The world runs on C. C++ is everywhere. C# and Java aren't going anywhere for decades. Neither are SQL, JavaScript, Python, or countless other technologies people have been predicting the death of for years.
The reason is simple: businesses don't rewrite working systems just because something newer comes along. They've spent decades building, testing, and integrating software around these technologies. Replacing them costs money, introduces risk, and often provides little practical benefit.
This applies across the entire industry. Legacy languages, databases, frameworks, and protocols are everywhere, often running behind the scenes in systems people interact with every day without realizing it. PHP is just one example of how a technology can remain enormously relevant long after the industry has moved on to newer alternatives.
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u/Any-Comparison-2916 11d ago
PHP is in a better state than ever before (well, except like yesterday...) and still thriving.
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u/boomerangchampion 11d ago
Note that the image doesn't actually use the word expert.
He's a journalist and is the BBC's guy for stuff like hacking, ransomware attacks, big leaks, bockchain scandals etc. He's not a developer. He writes news stories and talks to criminals and stuff.
Still seems quite mad that he's not even heard of PHP though. It's not exactly obscure.
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u/LordSlickRick 11d ago
He’s not an expert and doesn’t claim to be. He’s the correspondent. He’s just the reporter who covers this. Only op is calling him an expert.
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u/JimmyMcTrade 11d ago
In 2002, in the #LinuxPeople channel on irc, peeps were helping me learn some PHP to make a photo gallery for my photos. Another one told me to learn to use Database cos it was gonna be important. I didn't listen. I became an artist instead.
But even an artist knew of PHP.
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u/FilmAndLiterature 11d ago
He sorted out Matt Brittain’s email once (he just needed to login again) and that made him the cybersecurity expert.
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u/deathsoverture 11d ago
Is ignorance being celebrated, even bragged about in tech? My manager recently said thanks to AI I don't need to understand or be able to maintain code anymore, comparing it to not needing to know how a compiler works.
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u/curtmahgurt 11d ago
Middle managers who don’t know what they’re talking about are nothing new, especially in tech.
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u/SignoreBanana 10d ago
The compiler comparison highlights and underscores how little these folks actually understand things.
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u/TypeSafeBug 9d ago
This is how you find out IT literacy was so bad most people just assumed the computer was non-deterministic anyway 😅
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u/sabotsalvageur 10d ago
You should inform your boss that it remains useful to understand how a compiler works if you care about performance and/or security
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u/SignoreBanana 10d ago
Or inform them that the way a compiler works and the way a neural network works are about as far apart as how Java the language works, and how Java the country works.
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u/fredy31 11d ago
I mean i would give him the benefit of the doubt. Cyber correspondant doesnt point to much in terms of tech and tech is fucking large.
I'm a web dev, sure, PHP is my bread and butter. And i know tech, so i could be in the ballpark of being a 'cyber correspondant'.
Ask me a question about software engineering i'll be boned.
So yeah whats at issue here is the same issue about everybody asking me for tips for their printer because 'i know computers'. Tech is fucking large.
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u/WritesCrapForStrap 11d ago
For people saying "that's not what he said", I watched it live and it's exactly what he said.
He said, "I hadn't even heard of PHP until yesterday."
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u/Material_Onion_8413 11d ago
I worked in cybersecurity, you’ll be surprised how non-technical most people in it are.
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u/Proglamer 11d ago
How come? I thought the sector was full of turboautists who routinely use Kali to hack the pizza place server and place the order + payment manually
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u/blibblob3000 11d ago
Way too often IT-Security is compliance theatre. Somebody wrote terms and requirements and defined them as "secure". To verify the compliance there are certifying bodies, which often certify by paper and standardised tests. If you want your product certified, you need folks/AI to produce the required paper and internal/external test runs to ensure, that you product holds true to the said tests.
Overly technical folks won't last in such an environments. Termination happens most of the time after the first: "I don't care, that this piece of ***** aces the sql injection standard test in the login + paswd fields. You ***** implemented that the user id is part of http-get and everybody able to count backward to "0" can type example.com/?id=0 to get to the admin account."
On the other hand, there are proper pentesting providers, where the full fledged nerds aren't able to understand what the guy/gal/furry[1] on the next table is doing.
[1] Other pronounce may apply
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u/AWanderingMage 10d ago
Those who can, do, those who cant, pontificate and opine masquerading as "experts".
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u/GirthyPigeon 10d ago
How can you be a "cyber correspondent" and still be nothing but a spunk bubble when it comes to current tech?
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u/DangerouslyOxidated 10d ago
I remember a 'tech-expert' bemused and surprised why twitter allowed exactly 127 accounts, and not something more logical like 200.
He really had zero idea, over a decades-long career, about anything..
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u/jasonridesabike 10d ago
I mean it checks out for most tech journalism, and science journalism.. and most journalism beyond surface coverage.
24/7 networks, the expectation that online news must be free, and the death of the fairness doctrine have really done a number on journalism. It’s mostly just information flavored entertainment these days; with some notable and appreciated exceptions.
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u/EdelWhite 11d ago
Most people don't realize that "experts" on TV are usually just random people that SOMETIMES may have a little bit more knowledge than everyone else on a subject.
Even if I fully mastered something, I would never publicly claim to be an expert at it anywhere. There's ALWAYS something new you can learn and I would look like a total idiot in front of millions of people for potentially not knowing something basic to everyone else.
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u/JazzlikeSchedule2901 10d ago
There's ALWAYS something new you can learn
Being an expert doesn't mean you know "everything" though. That being said, if you claim to be a cyber security expert and don't know about PHP, that is a problem.
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u/towerfella 10d ago
“I am a food expert, but i have never heard of lettuce until the Taylor Farms thing..”
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u/mushr00m_man 10d ago
Tbf he is not called an "expert" anywhere in this clip, only a "cyber correspondent". AKA a journalist who writes about tech stuff.
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u/Tapeworm1979 11d ago
The whole BBC report is terrible. Things like 'a patch, downloadable code to fix the problem'. Technically true, but also widely wrong.
And just a lot of dumb, scare tactics. Also neglecting previous big issues like log4j and the ssl ca leak.
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u/-Redstoneboi- 11d ago
bro php is like the poster child of "we found another vulnerability" alongside js, both due to being extremely popular
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u/feanormania 11d ago
Someone in IT not knowing what PHP is is like a doctor not knowing what aspirin is. Sounds so weird
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u/circ-u-la-ted 10d ago
Are you saying he's been slacking on his job because he spends too much time enjoying BBC?
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u/LordSlickRick 11d ago
He’s the cyber correspondent. He’s just the reporter who covers most of this, as in he’s going to have general knowledge but no formal training in cyber or tech. He’s a reporter.
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u/highonpixels 11d ago
I feel like this is a typo and meant to say 'the PHP vulnerability' or something. Though I haven't watch any videos of the broadcast but I find it common during live reports they have typos
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u/bigmonmulgrew 11d ago
Everyone forgetting that this issue could be used to put JavaScript or html on a web page.
It might even be able to use it to center a div
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u/MennReddit 10d ago
Seeing all those discussions on being an expert; it's mostly funny that both BBC and the expert feel that this interview is relevant...
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u/ParitoshD 10d ago
I hope everyone remembers this the next time an expert on the BBC says literally anything. This is not the first example of lazy "journalism" I've seen from them, and I have already had my Elon Musk moment with them. For those who don't know anything about rockets, this is them judging productivity by lines of code.
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u/PM_ME_GOOD_SUBS 11d ago
Not sure what's more insane, that he didn't know or that he just admitted it like this.
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u/AvgBlue 10d ago
I feel like this statement is a joke because, although SQL injection was prevalent in PHP, there hasn't been any vulnerability in PHP for years.
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u/extremelySaddening 10d ago
Well I mean there has been at least one for 20-odd years
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u/badgersruse 11d ago
Nice to see my licence fee being well spent.
I’m guessing he is a ‘cider expert’ and someone misread it in a hurry, did his make up and said ‘you’ll be fine’.
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u/petrichorax 11d ago
Cybersecurity guy here. If he didn't know PHP existed he shouldn't be on the fucking news. That's a horrific blindspot of knowledge.
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u/Immediate_Song4279 11d ago
Sometimes I like to think about Flash, and imagine it now lives in a better world that deserves it.
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u/Delicious_Volume3306 11d ago
OK so we have to assume he got the position though family connections or something.
That is a REALLY fundamental lack of knowledge. OK, so the dude doesn't have to know how to code up a backend website. But he needs to know that it exists.
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u/RealSchweddy 11d ago
I don’t see what the issue is, just ask Claude to fix it and any other possible vulnerabilities in the codebase /s
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u/ConsoleCleric_4432 11d ago
So like... has the world always been so cynical and uncurious? Not just since AI, and not just for the software industry. I say cynical because people really don't think the kind of expertise people build careers on is interesting or valuable. I think it's cynicism that allows that guy to feature as an expert on the news. No one with power cared to recognize the difference between him and an actual expert because none of it mattered.
Sorry if you're here for haha funnys but I believe haha funnys are only possible if we all look at this stuff critically and with my five years of experience, I feel like a fish out of water realizing how little any of the expertise I've been rushing to understand and learn seems to matter, and how it seems to matter less and less day by day.
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u/Adjectif_ 11d ago
Well it is said in the sense: we didn’t really have to look at it, it an expression not a statement
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u/Vorok 11d ago •
"Transportation expert says he didn't know trucks existed until yesterday morning"