🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ald9tgo6bku8v49seqqgjk22064nqdetr@4ax.com>, no@no.dont.invalid 
(Mike) writes...
> Hal Burgiss wrote in <slrn99cu2l.djb.hal@localhost.localdomain>:
> 
> >On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 14:23:21 GMT, Joe King <cluelessnewbie*@home.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>The up side of it (if there is one) is that it just might start
> >>publicly pointing the finger at people who refuse to RTFM and take
> >>reasonable precautions to secure their systems, and others who plain
> >>just don't give a damn about what is going in or out of their
> >>system/connection.
> >
> >Catch 22. By definition these people are 'clueless', don't RTFM, and
> >don't know what is going on with their system. I doubt they would ever
> >know that they are being 'used'. Even if their harddrive fills up with
> >somebody else's stuff, they'd probably just buy a new one, or whatever.
> 
> Oh, so its the victims fault? Clueless they might be...so what? Do you
> know all there is to know about everything you own? Are you positive the
> vehicle you drive doesn't have a defect that could injure yourself or
> another? Trust is the key word here. How about blaming the software
> developer for the design decision, or lack thereof, for shares being
> automatically exposed to the 'net.


I disagree.  It's time for people to take responsibility for
themselves.  They go out, download Napster, publish every
file on their PC for the whole world, and then wonder why
their PC is "slow"... or why their CD tray comes out at
weird times or see weird messages on their screen???

I regularly take Microsoft to task for implying that their
various OS's and apps are secure when they aren't.  But 
there's a reason we license car drivers -- the community 
wants assurance they know what they're doing behind the 
wheel.  There is no such test for internet users.

In the rush to sell PCs and OS's and internet service and
applications, the vendors downplay the security issue.  But 
that isn't an excuse for clueless users to blame everyone 
but themselves when they get hacked.


(I also happen to think that the internet community, or 
even local governments, should start taking a dim view of 
opportunists like "ShareSniffer", Scour before them, and 
all the other twits that think that the internet is their 
personal sandbox waiting to be exploited.)


-- 
Philip J. Koenig         The Electric Kahuna Organization       [anti-spammed]
----------------Computers & Communications for the New Millennium-------------
* To send email, remove numbers and spaces:  pjkunet64 @  ekahuna27 . com    *
*      Vision impaired?  Try taking off the blacklist-colored glasses.       *
* Simple answers are for simple minds.  Try a new way of looking at things.  *