Worst Problem on the Net: Stupid Users - Comments Page 1

A person who gets drunk and staggers down a back alley in a bad neighborhoos can't really be surprised if he is mugged. But the problem is not his stupidity. It's the criminal behavior of his mugger. The mugger is the one prosecuted, not the victim.

In the case of etards, education is certainly the way to go. We should make it easy to understand and distributed freely. But sometimes one just has to learn the hard way. I've met many etards who are proud of their computer ignorance. It's hard to make folks like that learn. So keep turning out the virus protection programs, the spam killers, and all the rest of that good stuff. We need it because not everybody is a geek but everyone need to use the internet. -- Alice Campbell

I agree with the geeks, and not too much with Alice Above...:) Ask any administrator, any good administrator, and he will tell you that he has done his job. He has posted netiquettes and codes of conduct regarding the use of the Internet numerous times. Hell, he gives a standard sermon to each user that he hands the login credentials, begging them not to enter the office email address on web sites, for any unofficial purpose. And yet he watches with dismay, when the stats show that that very new user got spammed within one week of that sermon.

By requiring all those antiviruses, spam filters, personal firewalls and pop-up blockers, a huge ballast is created to slow down computers. And much of that software was added, because the proud etard just won't learn the simple rule of not opening a mail attachment from an unknown source, or clicking a link in an unsolicitated mail. Users must take up some of the responsibility. No one is asking them to become geeks. Why can't a user just take a deep breath and call his/her tech guy, *before* opening a mail that he/she recieved from an unknown source. It's like looking both ways before crossing a street.....:)

A person who doesn't use protection knows there is a risk that they will get infected but they believe that always happens to someone else and they think they knows where all of their previous contacts have been. They then go onto infect their friends without telling their friends that they do not use protection, and because it is just as easy to infect 1 as 1000, thanks to their address book, they don't even hesitate to share their experiences with everyone and anyone, after all in our world, the more contacts you have the more skilled you are presumed to be.

So should this person be prosecuted? YES, Are they a Victim? Hardly, they knew the risks and chose to ignore them.

Oh wait, we were talking about the internet right?

This sounds to me very much like "blame the victim". We do expect a certain minimum capability to participate in modern society -- consider the amount of knowledge needed to drive a car, for instance. Once that knowledge is in place, if something goes wrong [say, one's car is stolen], surely the blame attaches mostly to the criminal who steals the car, even if it was unlocked and in a 'bad' neighbourhood.

The problem is, I think, that we don't want to restrict use of the InterNet to a technical elite, so we have to make allowances for how much the non-technical person is willing and capable of learning. There is no real value in blaming them -- that just makes them part of the problem, not part of the solution.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I agree, so long as they are willing to learn, and will not flout the instruction given. Someone who adamantly refuses to run anti-virus or apply security patches is just as dangerous to others online as is a motorist who does not maintain his/her car in safe driving condition.

Just like you can compare using the internet to having sex, you can also compare it to driving a car. If you drive carelessly and get involved in a crash, you're not a victim.

It's neither one or the other. If you drive drunk and have a wreck, you're a criminal. If you get into a car with a drunk, and wreck, you're a victim. Both are caused by poor judgement. Users need to be educated to the hazards online, and if they choose to ignore good advice, there should be severe consequences. At work if you disobey safety policies and get hurt, they fire you.

First of all, regarding Alice's back-alley drunk, he never would've been mugged if he'd made better choices while he was sober, so hate to break it to ya, but the mugging was partly the victim's fault. Any victim who INTENTIONALLY puts his or herself in a dangerous situation is at least partly to blame for whatever happens to them, because let's face it. There are some bad folks in the world and they do bad things to others, so it's our OWN responsibility to protect ourselves whether it's from muggers, hackers, thieves, or spammers.

But since we all know that some people can't or won't do what they must to protect themselves, here's an idea (as far as technology goes). While the computer manufacturers out there are busy preinstalling all the usual stuff (IE, Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect Suite)...after they're done suing each other over who's software will be installed in the first place...why not also preinstall a nice privacy suite that includes a spamblocker, virus protection, pop-up blocker, and identity theft protection. I realize that some manufacturers already include these items, usually in a 30 or 60-day trial. But let's go for a full year folks. The cost is not THAT much more. And if they can't do that, how about at least some proven freebies like Ad-Aware and Spybot. Most regular folks have never even HEARD of these, much less know they're freebies, or where to get the downloads. If nothing else, at least their computers will be protected from SOME of the garbage floating around in cyberspace.

I think your car analogy is flawed.

When society allows someone to drive a car, that person has to exhibit a certain very basic level of competence. If we gave car keys to anyone with a pulse, and then that person ended up causing a car accident, then who is at fault? In my opinion it is the person who decided to drive without some basic info.

I mean, how easy can we make computer safety? Most anti-virus and some anti-spyware programs update themselves and set themselves up to do scans at a certain time of the day or week without any effort by the e-tard.

The only reason spam exists is because it is profitable. If everyone stopped buying products from spammers, spam would not be profitable and spam would stop. It's basic capitalism! We live in a capitalism-based society so we should all know this, or at least understand it when someone tells us.

Opening up strange attachments - how long has that been going on for???? At least as far back as when Anna Kornikova was popular. Personally, I think employees of a business should be fined if they do something THAT stupid, at least more than once.

And as far as sending money to a former Nigerian dictator's son, well, if someone still falls for that, then they never deserved to have money in the first place.

Angelo

I have been in IT for many years and have used driving automobiles as an analogy. Especially in the corporate world, users are given computers and left to "figure it out on their own". That would be like giving a 16 year old a car and telling them to have fun.

What happens if someone doesn't become a good driver and goes out and has an accident? Even if another person isn't involved, we all suffer through higher insurance rates.

When most people get a computer, they don't expect to have to worry about responsibility and the industry continually tells people that "anyone can use a computer". When a user mis-uses a computer, are they the only one who suffers?

Even if I personally do everything right, I still suffer because of the ignorance of others. I may protect my email address from spammers only to have someone to whom I have sent an email forward that email on without removing my email address. If the email is continually forwarded, eventually it is going to end up on a spammers list.

So it is a fact of life that we are going to have to deal with these issues. Education can certainly help to reduce the issues, but it is unlikely that they will be eliminated.

I think educating the new users would help. When i first got my computer I knew little about them, and even less about the internet. I had to learn about adware and spam and such as I went. Now after a few adware infections and reading I know how to protect myself from these things. As far as spam goes I don't think it will ever go away just like junk mail wil never go away. I really don't have to deal with spam since my web mail has spam blockers as part of the service and it does a good job of filtering out the spam. I've used it long enough now that there are few messages that I want that get put in the spam folder and like wise few that are spam that end up in my inbox. Since I don't use an email client I have no use for a seperate spam filter on my computer.Bottem line education will help but it will not eliminate the problems.