While I suspect that this is actually true, the way he presents it is a little odd: "All these 'trusted health organizations' (his words) present different times. They are wrong. Here is the correct time, according to [trusted health organization]"
It is true that pathogenic organisms will be killed by bringing water to boil.
However, this is not gauranteed to destroy toxins produced by organisms. For example, Clostridium botulinum needs to be boiled for ten minutes to destroy the toxin. Cyanobacterial toxins aren't killed by boiling.
Like another poster said, bringing water to the boil will eliminate most safety risks.
I would suspect that this is where the practice of preferring moving water over still water comes in... If the water is moving and home to animal/plant life then I would have to assume that any microbial toxins are only present at low levels (along with any other introduced toxins).
It's a statistics game. Bringing water to a boil will eliminate a huge fraction of the risks associated with consumption, but it's not proof of safety.
The first Wikipedia page is about fringe organisms which live in hot water and die in cold water.
Arsenic is in all unfiltered water. You'd have to dig a well to get a high enough level of arsenic to poison yourself.
It is extremely unlikely you'll get sick from drinking boiled water taken from a stream. Sure, nothing is proof of safety. You could distill pure water and then accidently inhale some of it and dry drown.
It's a lot more likely you'll die if you avoid drinking water.
What's this got to do with HN, in any case? 'Survival skills' for hackers is probably more akin to having to cook for yourself if the local pizza/mexican/chinese/whatever place is closed (to play on a stereotype; plenty of hackers are good cooks).
Ugh, you're just like my family. "Why can't we just go camping in the woods, like normal people? Why do you always want to descend two miles below the surface of the pacific?"
A weekend trip to the bottom of the pacific sounds lovely* but I think I'd take fresh water along rather than going to the hassle of desalinating. But camping is nice too ...
* Sounds like something a wife would say "sounds lovely dear but I booked us in to visit my mother, maybe next time".
Great to know! I can personally attest that boiling water of unknown provenance (even in cities/small towns) is definitely a good idea... I've had Giarda twice from drinking contaminated water (rain/tank water that I thought was safe) and I can say that both times were extremely unpleasant.
