[LINK] Security efforts hindered by untrained users

[Rick Welykochy]

Stilgherrian wrote:

> No. Having worked a lot with relative naïve users over the years, I can
> report that any dialog which gets in the way of them achieving their aim
> simply isn't read. Since so many dialogs are meaningless (to them), and
> their world does not immediately cave in, hitting "OK" is a reflex action.
> 
> They click "OK" without reading what the dialog says.
> 
> Even if they did read the message, because they'd be being asked for every
> link, the vast majority of which would be legitimate, that click would soon
> become reflex if it wasn't already.

I resemble that remark! I would hope that Brendan was being a bit sarcky
with his suggestion about a pop-up. Here is a more comprehensive solution >>

A dialogue pops up with a text box labelled "Please explain reason:".
The staff member has to write in their own words why they are going to
visit the given link. After the staff member hits the "Request" button
in the dialogue, it is submitted to the Department of Redundancy Department
for further investigating and vetting. Once the link is approved by
the BOFH*, the staff member can happily surf to that site.

Wash, rinse, repeat, as required.

On a more serious note, the quoted article is a very long-winded puff piece
that says "stupid people offline are going to be stupid online as well; there is
nothing that can be done to unstupify stupid people." Yeah, so what? I guess
interesting things to write about were scarce on ground that day.


cheers
rickw


* BOFH: Bastard Operator From Hell
   http://members.iinet.net.au/~bofh/
   Highly comical and insightful net comedy!
   A must-read for every PBH.
   (But I think PHB originates in the Dilbert cartoon series)


-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

Any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic.
      -- Arthur C. Namesake