[LINK] Users tackling 10 new vulnerabilities a day

[Mike Shearer]

Various contributors have written

"i think that anyone who has worked in any kind of tech-support role is 
painfully aware of just how computer-illiterate(*) most people are.
:(*) and worse, most of them are wilfully and deliberately ignorant (as 
in "i don't want to know that" or "why should i bother learning that?")  
rather than just stupid or incapable of understanding.  And the higher 
up in the organisation you go, the more wilfully and
deliberately ignorant they become."

I am one of those who could be fairly judged as wilfully and 
deliberately ignorant.  I'm not high up in the chain making decisions 
about platforms to buy etc.  I'm a user, and the middleman between a 
great many other users and the suppliers of applications software.  For 
us the IT facilities are just a tool for getting non-IT things done.  A 
tool that has become incredibly over-complicated, over-demanding and 
over-dictatorial.  I could stop being an expert in the applications we 
run and try to reduce my IT ignorance.  But I choose to not do so, 
because there's too much catching up to do, it doesn't interest me, and 
the rate of change overwhelms me. 

Why isn't there an idiot's guide to being master of your own PC?   A 
single source that tells me how to get rid of Windows on my personal 
laptop and install Linux.  That explains how to replace all of the 
MS-oriented applications with equivalent Linux and OS ones.  That 
explains what to do about being a part of the internet without being 
terrorised by it.  I started to write one - and gave up.  The ground is 
shifting just far too fast.  There's too much for an outsider to master.

I shall continue to be wilfully and deliberately ignorant.  I shall 
continue to depend on other experts to protect me and to ensure that my 
tools do not become dangerous in my hands.  I shall probably continue to 
be disappointed that those experts seem to never have the time nor 
inclination nor (I suspect) the intellectual trait to be able to explain 
matters in ways that would help me to confidently lose some of my ignorance.

Mike


-- 
Mike Shearer
Systems Librarian
Information Technology and Resources

James Cook University
Townsville   Queensland 4810
Australia

+61 7 4781 4482  Fax +61 7 4781 5886