Geeks Put the Unsavvy on Alert: Learn or Log Off

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/te...gy/05VIRU.html
(free registration required)

An interesting glimpse into the mind of technophobes and the clueless who
open attachments and spread malware like MyDoom.

Unfortunately, there is only brief mention of Microsoft's responsibility
for providing a defective OS, and no mention of Linux's near
invulnerability to such malware.

From the article:

"Miriam Tauber, 24, makes no apologies for her lack of computer knowledge.
To her, computers are like "moody people" who behave illogically. If
people like Mr. Rubenstein expect her to understand them, she suggests,
perhaps they should learn to speak in a language she can understand,
rather than ridiculous acronyms and suffixes."

"There are these MP3's and PDF's and a million other things that you don't
even know what they are," Ms. Tauber said. "I don't feel like I need to
figure out computers, because my instinct is there's just no way." [...]

"David Hale, 25, a lawyer in St. Louis, said he had rebuilt his parents'
virus-ridden computer from scratch several times in recent months before
he learned that his father, Dale, was replying to every piece of his spam
e-mail, asking to be taken off the spammers' mailing lists. Dale Hale, 47,
also frequently clicked on pop-up ads that appeared to be messages from
Microsoft telling him to upgrade his computer."

--
Tony Sivori

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 15:41:04 -0500, Tony Sivori wrote:

<snip>

LOL. Somebody should tell this dude that a simple format and reinstall
would do.

--
Powered by Mandrake Linux
Registered Linux user 337927 - http://counter.li.org/

Tony Sivori <TonySivoriMSWORMS@yahoo.com> quotes:

Jeez... How stupid.

Though I'd imagine that this is how most Windows users react to
potentially dangerous e-mail attachments.

On 2004-02-06, john <john@linux.local> blubbered:
With WinDoze, a format and reinstall *IS* a rebuild, what with having
to install all of the patches, drivers, applications, updates to
everything including drivers and applications, firewalls, virus
scanners......The fact you're only rebuilding a mound of sludge doesn't
make things any easier.

--
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like
the Windows people."

On 2004-02-06, Tom B <tom@invalid.address> blubbered:
I have a boss that sometimes BCCs me when he replies to spam (he thinks
he's being cute and wants to share his wit). I've told him time and
time again to /never/ reply because spam begets more spam if you reply
to it. I often play deaf when he bitches about all of the spam he gets,
mostly because he keeps replying to the crap anyway.

--
CodeRed - Innovative Microsoft peer-to-peer software.

john wrote:
Given the context, I would imagine that a format and reinstall is exactly
what is meant by "rebuilt from scratch".

But he could save himself a lot of time by making a Ghost image of the
fresh install. When ma and pa get too much malware infesting the computer,
just ghost in the image (preferably the image would be made after
installing the a firewall, running Windows Update, configuring the
Internet connection, and installing any user desired software). He'd have
them back up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Still, I feel his pain. I'm thinking of gifting my mother with a PIII 650
system that I'm not using for much. She has zero computing experience, so
Linux would be as easy for her to learn as Windows. It would be
interesting to see if she could break Mandrake.

--
Tony Sivori

Tony Sivori wrote:

Makes a very strong case for smart appliances.

Really, what these companies should be doing is building an "Entertainment"
network standard that would allow a central internet appliance to send
movies and music to the DVD/CD player and not execute any content at all.

--
Donovan Hill
Linux User, Canadian.... All around nice guy!

All email to the reply-to address above will automatically put your IP in a
blocklist and qualify you for a free security audit.

Sinister Midget wrote:

He wouldn't happen to look like that pointy-haired thing in "Dilbert", would
he?

Tony Sivori wrote:

Count me among the "technophiles". It just beguiles me to see how clueless
people are when it comes to using their computers. Can't OEMs put in some
kind of tutorial on basic security that a user has to run through before
the OS loads for the first time?

Tony Sivori wrote:

My parents are technophobic when it comes to computers (even the VCR is
a challenge). Still they have no problem *using* the Gentoo system I
set up for them. The fact that I can remotely administrate it from 40
km away if a *big* plus, though it's rarely required these days.

--
PeKaJe

Life is a serious burden, which no thinking, humane person would
wantonly inflict on someone else. -- Clarence Darrow

John wrote:
Maybe people should have to have licences to operate computers. But
seriously, this touches on a point that is often ignored or denigrated
by the computer-savvy (I include myself). The vast majority of home
users have no interest in knowing about computers, just as the majority
of drivers have no idea how to change a spark plug. The computer is a
commodity item, like VCR or microwave (and how many VCRs around the work
are still flashing 00:00 or 12:00 all day?).

And the fact is, this is a reasonable attitude. These people want to
send some email, surf the web, maybe do some accounts and play some
games. If they have to invest hours and hours learning arcane knowledge,
then the computer stops being a useful tool. I have a thirty year-old
car in the garage that requires constant attention (in spite of being a
VW). Most people would not put up with a car so demanding of effort.

So, it's not the users who are at fault. It's the fault of the IT
vendors who have promoted the PC as an essential domestic gadget while
failing to produce systems sufficiently bullet-proof. The Mac has
probably come closest, which is why the iMac was such a huge hit among
non-geeks. Windows XP comes close in terms of usability - but as we all
know, Microsoft's complete failure to address the security issues has
created this virus nightmare. Linux is obviously much better on that
score, and is close on the usability issue - but with a few last holes
to plug - such as easier and more consistent installation of downloaded
software, and my own personal bugbear, its font handling (I don't so
much mean the look of the fonts, more where they're stored and how
they're handled by the system - I don't seem to get the same font list
twice in any two applications). Once KDE and/or Gnome close that last
small gap in slickness between themselves and WinXP and OSX, Linux has won.

On 2004-02-06, John <spambegone@127.0.0.1> blubbered:
No. He's actually a decent and level-headed guy in most things. But
he's bug-stupid in this regard.

The two times I paid attention to his spam complaints were to offer him
another email account. And I offered a way to download his current
stuff, have spam filtered out, then have it all delivered, only until
he'd had ample opportunity to advise others of his new account. He
never took me up on the offer. But he's BCCed me a few more times with
his replies to spammers, and still bitched some more about all of the
crap he has to wade through daily.

This is the type of person (though I *think* he's smart enough to not
do this one) that clicks on things because the email sounds friendly.

--
Nimda: An original Microsoft web crawler.

Sinister Midget wrote:

BWAHAHAHHAAH!!! You're a fun guy.


--
Your Free Insult: Thou illegitimating, epitomising, three-way hogchoker timbering fly.

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:53:32 -0500, Tony Sivori
<TonySivoriMSWORMS@yahoo.com> wrote:

My mother has not been able to break Debian in over two years. She has
sometimes got herself pretty confused and "fixed" things by turning the
computer off. But even that hasn't hurt it (ext3 filesystem). Of
course she's had no viruses either while most of her friends have been
hit by one or more.

I set her box up with a remote dial-in capability but haven't had to log
in to fix anything since I set up her new printer early last year.


--
-| Bob Hauck
-| To Whom You Are Speaking
-| http://www.haucks.org/

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 04:34:24 -0500, Dick Cheney wrote:

Computers may be sold as commodity items, but that doesn't mean they ARE.
They are multipurpose devices...extremely flexible in what tasks they
can perform. With this diversity comes complication. If you want to
specialize, get a specialized device for it!

On top of that there are quirks in how it works that periodically
appear...@#%!

I doubt that. For the end user, it's still going to be far too
complicated. I'm amazed how far Apple has succeeded on putting an
end-user friendly interface to a UNIX...Linux's audience is not from the
"everyone should use a happy fuzzy computer that's easy to use"
background, and it shows.

Not that I'm complaining...

Regarding clueless users, to extend everyone's favorite analogy a little
a more, everyone driving cars is expected to know some things. C'mon!
You can't easily drive if you don't know what the symbols on the
gearshift mean. You need to be able to distinguish the accelerator and
brake (although I have no doubt that there are people who'd be lost if
they saw three pedals under the dash...how times have changed :-)

We have symbols that designate highbeams and fuel gauges and windshield
wiper controls. You should know what traffic signals and signs mean. We
have a basic knowledge to the degree that we can USE the vehicle, and if
you don't know these things, you aren't licensed or will end up arrested
for doing something illegal (or dead in an accident).

If you've been licensed and have driven for a month, you should be able
to sit down at just about any average car at the dealership and take it
for a test drive with little trouble.

Drivers don't really NEED to know how to change a sparkplug. They don't
need to know about fuel injection, or what a catalytic converter is.
They don't need to know how to change a transmission. The nuts and bolts
of how the thing works isn't necessary to operate, but there is still a
BASE LEVEL that people DO tend to know and SHOULD know to use the damn
thing.

NOW there are people who know some things but for convenience they pay
someone else to do it for them. A lot of people can change their own oil
in the car...but they are willing to pay $25 to drive to the corner
quick-e-lube where there's special equipment outfitted to the
drive-through to change your oil and top off fluids in ten minutes and
send you on your way. There are people who could, with enough time,
change brakes in the car or do any of a number of other things to it but
pay other people to do it for them. There are people who can drive, but
pay people to drive them around in a limo instead...they may know how to
drive, but they pay to not have to.

The problem is that in the computer user world now, the vast majority of
users want to be the people with the drivers so they don't have to drive
themselves. They don't want to learn (and are unwilling to try) to learn
even the basics...things like DON'T CLICK ON THE GODDAMNED ATTACHMENTS IN
EMAIL. They don't want to learn how to find a document that they've
managed to save "somewhere" on the computer. They can't even be bothered
to learn what a "format" is so they don't give the blank stare when you
ask them to save a document in PDF format or RTF/"Rich Text".

Technophiles aren't necessarily saying these users need to know the nuts
and bolts...the number of pipelines in the CPU in their computer, the
differences between NASM and TASM, the distinction between cooperative
and preemptive multitasking. But they should know enough to be
responsible users. These viruses/trojans/etc. are affecting other users,
and the "technophiles" are starting to get pissed to the point where
there's going to be more lashback against the clueless users. It should
be a wakeup call when articles like this one are getting into mainstream
media.

It's getting rediculous...sooner or later someone will write a worm that
runs like the "SCO worm", only instead of doing a DDoS on a site it will
run a spreading payload and then after a period of time will disable the
computer so it won't boot anymore, in some misguided attempt to keep the
clueless who were dim enough to double click the attachment in the first
place from continuing to plague the Internet...

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:53:32 -0500, Tony Sivori wrote:

<snip>

Well, if you install 9.2 she won't have to...it's already broken

Still, I like it, despite its quirks. Can't wait for MDK 10 with the
2.6 kernel and KDE 3.2, though.

--
Powered by Mandrake Linux
Registered Linux user 337927 - http://counter.li.org/

Blip! wrote:
I have a friend who told me about his wife whom casually mentioned to him
that the car's "genie lamp" had been lighting up for a few days. She was
saw the oil can symbol on the low pressure warning light as a genie's
lamp. Obviously, it was nothing for her to be concerned about. :-)

I think the lesson is that you'll never make things simple enough for all
people. The reason for the idiot lights on dashboards was so that those
without mechanical inclination would not have to interpret actual readings
(although cost was also probably a factor).

--
Tony Sivori

John wrote:
It'll never happen. The users would complain, and likely as not, MS would
punish the OEM for fear mongering.

--
Tony Sivori

john wrote:
Heh, I stuck with 9.1 myself. Too much pain and too little gain with 9.2
to make the upgrade worthwhile.

--
Tony Sivori

Bob Hauck wrote:
Yeah, if I fixed my mother up with Mandrake my biggest worry would be
phishing and similar scams. She'd never buy anything on line, but there is
a new phishing scam that pretends to be from the Department of Homeland
Security. Unlike most of them, it is well written and tricks the unwary
into giving up personal information.

--
Tony Sivori