The weakest security link? You

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Ok, but ...

I accept that a certain amount of end user savvy must be assumed. Just as there are grown ups who must ask their kids to set the VCR timer, there are end users who will never be savvy enough to survive owning a PC. Every single poster on ZDnet is computer literate. The innate assumption is that "everyone" knows attachments are dangerous and exe files are executable and an email that says "From Thelma" on it may not have come from Thelma at all. But it is too much to reasonable expect all those millions of end users, mums, dads, teachers, nurses, shop assistants, plumbers, shop workers, painters etc etc, to have to come up to YOUR, professionally raised awareness of these problems. Ordinary end users who do not work in IT for a living will have NO AWARENESS of all the problems you seem to think "everyone" should know about. Why should they? And this is my point. Ordinary end users who do not use Microsoft Windows DON'T have to worry about clicking on attachments. Linux, Unix and Mac users can pretty much click on anything they want and viral destruction will not follow, because ONLY WINDOWS is so inherently prone to script kiddy malware that standard email functionality is simply NOT POSSIBLE on a WIndows PC any more. Windows users live in constant, justified fear the next attachment or email they open might be a NEW virus. And articles like the one we're responding to push the notion that this is because end users are stupid, not the truth, which is that Microsoft have a monopoly, their OS is a laughing stock with nearly 100 new virus attacking it every year, and nothing will change for as long as end users are forced to absolve the vendor of any and all responsibility before they are allowed to use the defective product.

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Posted by: whisperycat   Posted on: 07/22/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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