|
Cojawfee posted:Unless you are a child, I don't see how anyone could be novice user anymore. The internet and computers have been super mainstream since the late nineties. It all comes down to seeing the word "technology" and refusing to learn anything about it because it must be really hard. Which is why people still have devices that blink 12 and unplug their phone when a thunderstorm rolls through.
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 04:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:25 |
|
|
All of the examples he gives are of people who simply refuse to learn anything. They think they are smarter than the guy who gets paid to work on whatever they have and won't listen. His examples of people being victims of bank fraud or theft don't really apply. Those people had something happen to them that they had no reason to expect. Blindly clicking things away is figuratively childish in that they just want to get to whatever boring website they want to see and will click yes to anything that comes across their path.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 07:54
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:All of the examples he gives are of people who simply refuse to learn anything. They think they are smarter than the guy who gets paid to work on whatever they have and won't listen. His examples of people being victims of bank fraud or theft don't really apply. Those people had something happen to them that they had no reason to expect. Blindly clicking things away is figuratively childish in that they just want to get to whatever boring website they want to see and will click yes to anything that comes across their path. You must enjoy making old ladies cry
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 13:51
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:Unless you are a child, I don't see how anyone could be novice user anymore. The internet and computers have been super mainstream since the late nineties. It all comes down to seeing the word "technology" and refusing to learn anything about it because it must be really hard. Which is why people still have devices that blink 12 and unplug their phone when a thunderstorm rolls through. You must not deal with people very often. The majority of computer users are dumb, ignorant idiots, my parents included. They will click, accept, and do just about anything a popup tells them to. There's a reason there are botnets with 6+ million computers on them.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 14:26
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:All of the examples he gives are of people who simply refuse to learn anything. They think they are smarter than the guy who gets paid to work on whatever they have and won't listen. His examples of people being victims of bank fraud or theft don't really apply. Those people had something happen to them that they had no reason to expect. Blindly clicking things away is figuratively childish in that they just want to get to whatever boring website they want to see and will click yes to anything that comes across their path. The funny thing about learning is that you generally have to have somewhere to start. There are a thousand companies out there with a vested interest in making computers sound as complicated as possible so they can sell books, CDs, and instructional videos on how to double-click. The most immediately-available resource -- the people reading this post -- are often fixated on "Gawd, why don't you know this already? I'll just do it for you," and unlikely to be seen as a potential source of information. People are embarassed to not know things most of the time. I'll grant that a small minority actively strive to not know anything about computers, but it's more likely that someone who gets comfortable with you will apologize for "being technologically retarded" than that they'll light up a big fat stogie and chuckle at you for being one of them thar geeks. If you're generally of the opinion that they're idiots for not learning things ex nihilo, that will probably come across in conversation and generate defensive hostility, and overall no one will get anywhere. quote:There's a reason there are botnets with 6+ million computers on them. Let's be fair now, you don't necessarily have to click anything in particular to get Conficker.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 14:43
|
|
|
Midelne posted:Let's be fair now, you don't necessarily have to click anything in particular to get Conficker. Not really. Both infection vectors for Conficker require you to do one of 2 "stupid computer newbie" things. 1. Not have a patched up system 2. Click on the fake autoplay prompt. Granted, point 2 is a brilliant infection vector and has probably caught it's fair share of people that know how to use computers well.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 15:00
|
|
|
Stanley Pain posted:1. Not have a patched up system I understand your point, but I was specifically referring to not needing to click anything; the first vulnerability, and the one that appears to be responsible for the overwhelming number of infections, just requires you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on a vulnerable system. I'll agree that not patching is a very, very bad idea but it's also fairly common -- witness the hospital in Britain that was taken down by MyDoom because their IT department decided that their best bet was to just stop patching so people would quit complaining about updates.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 16:00
|
|
|
Midelne posted:I understand your point, but I was specifically referring to not needing to click anything; the first vulnerability, and the one that appears to be responsible for the overwhelming number of infections, just requires you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on a vulnerable system. IT departments caving in to the demands of the witless masses. For shame  The likely hood of getting 0-day exploited before a patch drops is pretty slim though, and a good set of A/V software can, and does protect you from such 0-day exploits for the most part. Still, the vast majority of people using computers are hopeless idiots.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 16:07
|
|
|
Stanley Pain posted:IT departments caving in to the demands of the witless masses. For shame Well, in all fairness, if I remember the article correctly their original update plan did not take into account that the computers might be in use in surgery and some brilliant sysadmin enabled the force-logoff for installation policy in a medical facility. There are vastly better ways around that than disabling the updates, but at least there were good reasons for the witless masses to be upset. I've got a Trojan.BHO popping up from time to time that our fully updated McAfee Enterprise doesn't touch. Once it's installed on a system (which should be never again since I've got McAfee set to globally block BHO installations now) McAfee will catch the characteristic buffer overflow it generates as IE starts, but by blocking the overflow it prevents IE from fully starting and you get to stare at a blank white screen with a title bar labeled "Internet Explorer" for as long as you like. I'm just glad incidents like this are by far the minority.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 16:16
|
|
|
Midelne posted:The funny thing about learning is that you generally have to have somewhere to start. There are a thousand companies out there with a vested interest in making computers sound as complicated as possible so they can sell books, CDs, and instructional videos on how to double-click. Yeah, learning to use a computer responsible is actually very straighforward. All it takes is a lack of fear, but that doesn't sell a lot of books.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 16:27
|
|
|
Midelne posted:Well, in all fairness, if I remember the article correctly their original update plan did not take into account that the computers might be in use in surgery and some brilliant sysadmin enabled the force-logoff for installation policy in a medical facility. There are vastly better ways around that than disabling the updates, but at least there were good reasons for the witless masses to be upset. McAffee, icky  I could see how forcing an update onto medical equipment in use would be a bad thing to do, but that's what group policies are for. ER/OR Equipment should be updated under a different policy. I'd hazard to say that a clear and concise update policy would not have been hard to create and manage. Lazy IT work is what this was. At work here, our computers are segmented at the network level depending how "how much internet" they need to access, on top of godawful McAffee
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 16:29
|
|
|
It's good to see computer experts hating on computer illiterates, but at the end of the day all that disrespect does is cause the illiterates to trust the experts less. It is like financial policy or in depth health care; it isn't that someone couldn't necessarily find out, but that they spend their time doing other things (and find the subject matter dry). I wouldn't insult you for not knowing what shorts are (I know a few weekend investors who still don't), I wouldn't insult someone for not knowing the windows command prompt, and I wouldn't insult someone for not knowing how to patch the kernel in FreeBSD. They are domain-specific pieces of knowledge. The majority of users don't use the computer because they like computers, they use the because they enable them to do their job. How it works inside is a black box to them, just like to us, except we can see some points of light inside.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 17:06
|
|
|
Kelson posted:It's good to see computer experts hating on computer illiterates, but at the end of the day all that disrespect does is cause the illiterates to trust the experts less. It is like financial policy or in depth health care; it isn't that someone couldn't necessarily find out, but that they spend their time doing other things (and find the subject matter dry). And not only is it a black box, but they don't care to find out more. Seriously, for most people, computers are something they have to use, not a fun toy to play with. Begrudging users for not spending time studying 'computer' instead of more enjoyable or productive activities makes you (sound like) a jerk, and helps no one. Your users/family/friends will like you more if you don't treat them as sub-human; it might even make your computer repair experiences more enjoyable.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 17:16
|
|
|
I'm yet to find a good way of explaining to someone how to judge when an error message is legit or if it's indicative of some problem. More often than not we "just know" because we stay on top of things, but what can you say to someone beyond that, especially when they're not technical? Then again I hate myself for saying it, but if at the end of the day I make £50 a throw for removing malware from someone's PC after they clicked the wrong thing, I'm tempted to not care too hard, and brace for the inevitable Karma that will no doubt catch me out and erase everything on my own hard drive a few months from now.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 17:20
|
|
|
Kelson posted:It's good to see computer experts hating on computer illiterates, but at the end of the day all that disrespect does is cause the illiterates to trust the experts less. It is like financial policy or in depth health care; it isn't that someone couldn't necessarily find out, but that they spend their time doing other things (and find the subject matter dry). You don't need to be a computer expert to have common sense. Unfortunately, it, goes out the window for most people the second they sit in front of the computer. Don't take my "witless user" comments too seriously. The only thing that really gets me mad on any level is when users repeatedly do things they have been told time and time again not to, or ask how to do the same task for the 50,000th time. Adding a printer is not rocket science. Nor should reading and understanding a popup while browsing be any different. To use a horrible car analogy, when your check engine light turns on, guess what? 
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 17:33
|
|
|
HauntedRobot posted:I'm yet to find a good way of explaining to someone how to judge when an error message is legit or if it's indicative of some problem. More often than not we "just know" because we stay on top of things, but what can you say to someone beyond that, especially when they're not technical? Anyone I've dealt with in my IT past, I've told them when in doubt (which should be almost always) click no, cancel, or abort on top of if there are any animated icons/graphics/text close that mofo down. It really boils down to the fact that most people don't care enough to educate themselves to the point of gaining some form of commonsense.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 17:36
|
|
|
HauntedRobot posted:I'm yet to find a good way of explaining to someone how to judge when an error message is legit or if it's indicative of some problem. More often than not we "just know" because we stay on top of things, but what can you say to someone beyond that, especially when they're not technical?  Backups beat karma 99.95% of the timeSeriously though, I don't think that there really is a way. If we're talking about malware popups, it's almost impossible to give any specifics other than "if a popup tells you to buy something, it's no good", and that doesn't cover a wide variety of things whose only goal is to get installed good and tight on your computer. I think the best we might be able to do is install a decent AV and anti-malware setup, set them to autoupdate, and then tell them that whenever they're in doubt they should run full scans on both. It doesn't give them many details, but they can at least operate the machinery that will catch most of their problems. edit: Stanley Pain posted:Anyone I've dealt with in my IT past, I've told them when in doubt (which should be almost always) click no, cancel, or abort on top of if there are any animated icons/graphics/text close that mofo down. It really boils down to the fact that most people don't care enough to educate themselves to the point of gaining some form of commonsense. Clicking anything at all will doom you with the XP Antivirus family, remember, because it's not actually a window, just essentially a picture of one that'll infect you no matter what you click because you have to kill iexplore.exe to avoid infection. If you're not already infected with something else by that point.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 17:47
|
|
|
Stanley Pain posted:You don't need to be a computer expert to have common sense. Unfortunately, it, goes out the window for most people the second they sit in front of the computer. Don't take my "witless user" comments too seriously. Common sense requires some background with the material in order to translate it to some meaningful logic. You wouldn't be able to tell me how to cut a finger in order to replace a missing flap of skin (Y cut!) and it is so far out of most folks depths, I wouldn't expect them to. Stanley Pain posted:Nor should reading and understanding a popup while browsing be any different. Except those pop-ups are made to trick folks. This isn't a car where things just break, it is a competition between the trickery of the malware authors and the knowledge of the users (most of which have none). I've seen very experienced computer folks fall for the tricks.. why are you putting up this unreasonable expectation? The most popular ones may not be the most difficult, but if they failed they'd just be replaced with more successful ones - there are billions of dollars to be made tricking folks here. Stanley Pain posted:To use a horrible car analogy, when your check engine light turns on, guess what? This is completely misrepresenting the situation. The car has sensors which detect mechanical wear and tear. They aren't made to detect deliberate tampering; for example, car bombs or cutting the brakes in specific ways. They definitely can't handle someone intentionally disabling the sensors. Computers are the same type of beast; they're able to detect quite a few of the mechanical failures, but how do you beat someone that has the benefit of more time and prior-knowledge of your defenses? We don't do a very good job protecting computers (yet), but we're doing a lot better than several years ago. There are still tons of vulnerabilities (just like with cars - they're just operating in a less reactively-hostile environment).
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 19:56
|
|
|
Kelson posted:Common sense requires some background with the material in order to translate it to some meaningful logic. You wouldn't be able to tell me how to cut a finger in order to replace a missing flap of skin (Y cut!) and it is so far out of most folks depths, I wouldn't expect them to. The trick here is getting educated about something. Comparing simple computer operation, to something like surgery is moot since one requires several years of medical school and the other a few well placed google searches, or questions directed at someone in the know. Most people just don't care enough to put in a small amount of effort to protect themselves, or have some working set of knowledge. Of course these malware popups, et al are intended to trick people. A lot of advertising is based on the similar mechanics, which leads back to my initial statement, most people are witless idiots .You say that it's unreasonable for someone to understand and/or have some common sense when operating a piece of equipment? I don't buy that. By the same logic I could extend that into just about every part of our everyday lives. Again, the basis of my comment is that people will continue to be ignorant about these things even after they have been educated several times on what not to do in a given situation. Commonsense should kick in at some point, but it usually doesn't. Anyway, I'll digress. I'll agree to disagree with you here.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 20:12
|
|
|
Stanley Pain posted:You say that it's unreasonable for someone to understand and/or have some common sense when operating a piece of equipment? I don't buy that. By the same logic I could extend that into just about every part of our everyday lives. Again, the basis of my comment is that people will continue to be ignorant about these things even after they have been educated several times on what not to do in a given situation. Commonsense should kick in at some point, but it usually doesn't. My point was that computers are easy for you and I, but not to many other folks. I know less about my car, for example, than car folks know about their's - it just isn't something I've had time or inclination to investigate. Similar to how most computer geeks are relatively naive about how cars operate, most non-computer geeks are relatively naive how computers work. The same can be said for folks interacting with cell phones (an incredibly complex system - see phreakers), locks (varieties in keys/input - see lockpickers), and gas stations. Common sense isn't very common, but more to the point, we must be careful not to assume other folks find things as easy, interesting, or engaging as we do. Most folks (unfortunately?) live in blissful innocence of the complexities of other professions. This specialization of knowledge is also one of the characteristics which allowed us to move up as a society.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 21:12
|
|
|
Kelson posted:The same can be said for folks interacting with cell phones (an incredibly complex system - see phreakers), locks (varieties in keys/input - see lockpickers), and gas stations. Lockpicks change the way you look at the world in much the same way that the first time you successfully monkey with Backtrack changes how you look at a Windows system. Only peripherally related to the thread, but interesting: no lock company in existence can legally claim to have a physically unpickable lock because they've all been picked as far as I know. There's one company out there that I think still has the claim on their website, but I've seen a video of that model being picked.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 22:33
|
|
|
Kelson posted:My point was that computers are easy for you and I, but not to many other folks. I know less about my car, for example, than car folks know about their's - it just isn't something I've had time or inclination to investigate. Similar to how most computer geeks are relatively naive about how cars operate, most non-computer geeks are relatively naive how computers work. The same can be said for folks interacting with cell phones (an incredibly complex system - see phreakers), locks (varieties in keys/input - see lockpickers), and gas stations. Cars aren't that hard either imho. At least not to get to a point of changing a filter here and there (kinda like not clicking every email attachment, etc). Computers rank in, around the same complexity in my part. I'm not talking about mastering something, just getting to a point where some things become "commonsense" and being able to add 1+1 together.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2009 23:06
|
|
|
Got a lovely rootkit by the name of UACd.sys on a work computer last night. It was looking like a pretty bitter fight but at the last minute, avenger was able to knock it out with an assist from the office's copy of Officescan. I guess avenger was able to keep it from hiding itself from the API long enough for the AV program to nab/delete it. Combofix cleaned up the rest. That thing prevented me from running pretty much everything I could throw at it: HJT, MABM, SAS, Combofix, Spybot. Ugh.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 00:46
|
|
|
Stanley Pain posted:Cars aren't that hard either imho. At least not to get to a point of changing a filter here and there (kinda like not clicking every email attachment, etc). Computers rank in, around the same complexity in my part. I'm not talking about mastering something, just getting to a point where some things become "commonsense" and being able to add 1+1 together. You apparently missed the most important line of his post: Kelson posted:it just isn't something I've had time or inclination to investigate Seriously, most people don't care enough about it to learn. It's worth it to them to just pay someone else to handle it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 00:55
|
|
|
Midelne posted:Clicking anything at all will doom you with the XP Antivirus family, remember, because it's not actually a window, just essentially a picture of one that'll infect you no matter what you click because you have to kill iexplore.exe to avoid infection. If you're not already infected with something else by that point. Unless the popup is some sort of javascript trickery inside the IE window, you can't have a borderless popup. You can click the X. But I still recommend jabbing ALT-F4 until you see the desktop. Stanley Pain: That was my entire problem. No one is willing to learn anything. I don't really care about old people, because no old person will learn anything. I'm sure there are still some old people who pump their brakes, and still pump the gas when trying to start their fuel injected car. My problem is younger to middle aged people who have decided to be functionally retarded. A lot of the time I can tell people how to use the programs I've installed and they don't come back with viruses anymore. But there are still the people who take five minutes figuring out where the menu bar is. The people who click whatever as fast as they can to make things go away. I can help an old man edit his registry and fix his problem over the phone; you'd think some people could learn how to run a program with big giant buttons that say "update" and "scan". I could go on all day about people who installed a windows update "even though they knew they shouldn't have" (who the gently caress encourages people not to update?). Or people who hate that vista even though it is the exact same as XP for many of the things they need to do. People will take any excuse they can to not learn something about anything as long as someone they have heard of says that it is hard.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 01:54
|
|
|
Stanley Pain posted:Cars aren't that hard either imho. At least not to get to a point of changing a filter here and there (kinda like not clicking every email attachment, etc). Computers rank in, around the same complexity in my part. I'm not talking about mastering something, just getting to a point where some things become "commonsense" and being able to add 1+1 together. The only problem with the analogy is that there is yet to be a car that will sometimes display a fake check engine light and ask you to drive to a shady mechanic who just wants your money.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 01:58
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:My problem is younger to middle aged people who have decided to be functionally retarded. A lot of the time I can tell people how to use the programs I've installed and they don't come back with viruses anymore. But there are still the people who take five minutes figuring out where the menu bar is. The people who click whatever as fast as they can to make things go away. Let's say this with less arrogance and a little more respect; As someone interested in computers, you have a remarkably large store of understanding, experience, and confidence that you draw upon when you encounter computer problems. This took time for you to build, and not everyone has it, or even the time required to develop it. You may find it entertaining to read tech support forums, and that's a real asset- but this is rare enough that people have need of you. Now, if you feel that people don't respect your skills, that's one thing, but afford them a mutual respect for their position. I'm sure there's thing you take excuses not to learn Doc Faustus posted:The only problem with the analogy is that there is yet to be a car that will sometimes display a fake check engine light and ask you to drive to a shady mechanic who just wants your money. Yeah, but it's also a real car related skill to be able to tell a real diagnostic from a ripoff, and a lovely mechanic from a good one. There is a real parallel to be drawn with the level of basic understanding needed to work with them. I don't know a loving thing about cars, probably should, and try to give credit to people that do. Typhoon Jim fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Mar 18, 2009 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 02:08
|
|
|
Doc Faustus posted:The only problem with the analogy is that there is yet to be a car that will sometimes display a fake check engine light and ask you to drive to a shady mechanic who just wants your money. That's not a very good analogy. This one is better: Onstar comes on and tells you that your engine needs to be checked up and such and such location (scammer's address) is the only authorized Chevrolet dealer for 300 miles. That's a bit closer to what we're dealing with.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 02:11
|
|
|
Rent posted:That's not a very good analogy. This one is better: Onstar comes on and tells you that your engine needs to be checked up and such and such location (scammer's address) is the only authorized Chevrolet dealer for 300 miles. Or, if you hear a funny noise, and go to a place, and the mechanic flips out and says OH GOD YOU GOTTA BUY A WHOLE NEW TRANSMISSION OR YOU'RE hosed LET ME TELL YOU. Isn't it a similar skill even to know what's a bullshit alert box? It's really a trained heuristic when it comes down to it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 02:12
|
|
|
Victory is mine, I love it when a plan comes together. Click here for the full 800x500 image. EDIT: dammit, I just noticed that it installed system to F:. Time to have him run through the install again, this time deleting off all of the disk partitions. Thank God for the NAS backup. devmd01 fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Mar 18, 2009 |
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 02:41
|
|
|
I just came across that Antivirus 360 poo poo going around for the first time on a manager's laptop. I have to admit, I could understand why some people would think it's a legitimate program. Whoever makes it did a bang up job making it look good. I didn't even bother examining it though, he just gave the okay to flatten and reinstall. When I find Limewire installed on infected machines, I've only had to explain to teenagers/parents once not to use it because that's the likely source of their infections. They seem to listen to the person fixing the computer (as they should.)
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 04:12
|
|
|
GREAT BOOK OF DICK posted:When I find Limewire installed on infected machines, I've only had to explain to teenagers/parents once not to use it because that's the likely source of their infections. They seem to listen to the person fixing the computer (as they should.) "I don't know how that got on there" "Oh I don't use that anymore" "What's limewire?" or they agree not to download it again only for it to show up again just a couple of weeks later
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 05:18
|
|
|
Cojawfee posted:Unless you are a child, I don't see how anyone could be novice user anymore. The internet and computers have been super mainstream since the late nineties. It all comes down to seeing the word "technology" and refusing to learn anything about it because it must be really hard. Which is why people still have devices that blink 12 and unplug their phone when a thunderstorm rolls through.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 05:21
|
|
|
GREAT BOOK OF DICK posted:I just came across that Antivirus 360 poo poo going around for the first time on a manager's laptop. I have to admit, I could understand why some people would think it's a legitimate program. Whoever makes it did a bang up job making it look good. You can thank these guys then Who puts "Spy Burner" on their portfolio anyways?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 05:23
|
|
|
Cardboard Box A posted:Tell me, how good are you at detecting when an auto mechanic is ripping you off? Well, I usually like to learn about the objects I own, so probably pretty good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 05:26
|
|
|
I got spammed that Geo-IP lookup virus last night and it's really loving smart. The email was from "Pat", the subject was "Is it everything okay?" and the body was just "We worry about you" and a link to the malware site. If the english was better, if it was from "Mum" then I might have clicked it. It's getting scary now, if the text had been written by somebody with a grasp of the english language then I know that my sisters (and most of the other members of my family) would have clicked it (and then tried to watch the "video").
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 11:41
|
|
|
kapinga posted:You apparently missed the most important line of his post: Which is exactly why I consider most people, in this case, stupid. No worries though, because there are lots of people out there willing to take your money, steal your information and all that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 12:40
|
|
|
Whats with all these car analogies? Computers aren't at all like cars. They're more like blimps...
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 19:51
|
|
|
Drighton posted:Whats with all these car analogies? Computers aren't at all like cars. They're more like blimps... Filled with volatile gas and are a rarely used means of travel?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 20:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:25 |
|
|
Drighton posted:Whats with all these car analogies? Computers aren't at all like cars. They're more like blimps... Popular with Ron Paul supporters?
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2009 20:25
|
|
