User swore hacker called General Failure had invaded his PC ⁠25%

By Simon Sharwood⁠0%

7/3/2026, 6:30:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Biased Writer Voice, and Pessimism Bias, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 18.3% saturation with 69 hits. Analysis detected 914 faulty-reasoning hits from 377 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37% and a BS Rank of ⁠25% (16,606 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 75.90% of the article peer group.

ON CALL Fronting up to work on Friday morning can feel like a mistake, but The Register tries to make it worthwhile by bringing you a new installment of On Call – the reader-contributed column that shares your tech support stories. 
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Lee" who told us about his time as sysadmin at the headquarters of a retail company. 
"It was about the year 2000 and I was a newly minted Certified NetWare Engineer administering Novell servers," Lee reminisced. 
Before long, Lee was running the teams that managed email servers and provided desktop support for over a thousand users. 
"I got to know just about everybody in the HQ and became known as the go-to guy for all things technical," he proudly told On Call. 
One Friday afternoon, a vice president called to complain he couldn't access any files from his PC because someone else was using them. 
Lee found this a little odd, so he asked if the veep was seeing a "file in use" dialog in Word or Excel. 
The veep replied that he was indeed seeing an error that read "General failure is reading Drive C" – but that was obviously someone using the handle "General Failure" to mask their identity. 
Lee's next question was very precise. 
"I asked if the error message read 'General failure is reading Drive C:'" he told On Call. 
The VP re-read the dialog and corrected himself, telling Lee the exact text was "General failure reading Drive C:" 
At this point, Lee had good news and bad news. 
The bad news was that the error meant the VP's disk had died. 
The good news was that nobody was using the handle "General Failure," so the company didn't have a miscreant rummaging around on the network. 
Lee arranged a support call and advised the veep that he would be getting a new disk and might even be in line for a whole new PC. 
Have your users misinterpreted an error message? 
If so, click here to send On Call an email. 
We can't be clearer than that – or more sincere in our desire to share your story with your fellow Reg readers. 
® 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 13.8%Simon Sharwood: 4.6%The Register: 3.3%Confirmation Bias13.8%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.4%The Register: 1.0%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 3.4%Simon Sharwood: 3.2%The Register: 3.2%Availability Heuristic3.4%This article: 6.1%Simon Sharwood: 2.8%The Register: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic6.1%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 1.2%The Register: 1.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.9%The Register: 2.3%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 13.5%Simon Sharwood: 1.6%The Register: 5.0%Framing Effect13.5%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.7%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.8%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 18.3%Simon Sharwood: 4.4%The Register: 3.0%Optimism Bias18.3%This article: 15.1%Simon Sharwood: 3.5%The Register: 2.6%Pessimism Bias15.1%This article: 15.1%Simon Sharwood: 8.2%The Register: 8.2%Negativity Bias15.1%This article: 12.7%Simon Sharwood: 1.5%The Register: 1.9%Self-Serving Bias12.7%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.8%The Register: 0.8%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 8.8%Simon Sharwood: 0.7%The Register: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias8.8%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.4%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.7%The Register: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 12.2%Simon Sharwood: 1.1%The Register: 1.4%Halo Effect12.2%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.4%The Register: 1.9%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 6.4%Simon Sharwood: 0.7%The Register: 0.3%Primacy Effect6.4%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.7%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 2.2%The Register: 4.2%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 7.4%Simon Sharwood: 1.3%The Register: 1.7%False Dilemma7.4%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.7%The Register: 1.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 10.6%Simon Sharwood: 7.4%The Register: 6.2%Hasty Generalization10.6%This article: 6.4%Simon Sharwood: 0.5%The Register: 0.3%Red Herring6.4%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.7%The Register: 0.7%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 5.8%Simon Sharwood: 1.4%The Register: 3.0%Appeal to Emotion5.8%This article: 3.4%Simon Sharwood: 0.8%The Register: 0.9%Begging the Question3.4%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 1.1%The Register: 2.0%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.7%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.6%The Register: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 17.5%Simon Sharwood: 5.6%The Register: 2.2%Anecdotal17.5%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 13.3%Simon Sharwood: 2.5%The Register: 2.1%Ambiguity (Equivocation)13.3%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 5.3%Simon Sharwood: 2.5%The Register: 2.3%Unattributed Quote5.3%This article: 8.8%Simon Sharwood: 2.6%The Register: 1.3%Quote-first Misdirection8.8%This article: 16.7%Simon Sharwood: 13.0%The Register: 7.3%Biased Writer Voice16.7%This article: 8.2%Simon Sharwood: 0.8%The Register: 1.5%Indoctrination8.2%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.2%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Simon Sharwood: 0.0%The Register: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 13.5%Simon Sharwood: 1.0%The Register: 2.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…13.5%

377 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker30%attributed speech263writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 41 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 100.0% coverageLee • 20 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageLee • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coverageLee • 23 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 33 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverageLee • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageLee • 28 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Lee

100%flagged-word coverage
114 attributed words100% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%12.5%25.0%Biased Writer Voice-24.0 ptsWriter: 24.0%Lee: 0.0%0.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -19.4 ptsWriter: 19.4%Lee: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote+17.5 ptsWriter: 0.0%Lee: 17.5%17.5%Quote-first Misdirection-12.5 ptsWriter: 12.5%Lee: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-11.8 ptsWriter: 11.8%Lee: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.