Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Anonymous
   Unregistered

   http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2216759/rsa-europe-2012-jimmy-wales-slams-general-public-for-lack-of-security-knowledge

   RSA Europe 2012: Jimmy Wales slams general public for lack of security knowledge

   The general public knows nothing about security, according to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

   Speaking at the RSA Europe 2012 security conference in London on Thursday, Wales said, "Generally speaking the general public have very little concept of [internet security]."

   Wales said that the problem is that people have default assumptions that "are sometimes quite false".

   "They assume that by going on Facebook... people can't see my stuff because I have a password and have to log in, so it's secure'," he said.

   "It hasn't occurred to them because they know nothing about it at all that they have just sent out packets over the Wi-Fi and people on the same network can see."

   "There's a long running dispute that [encryption] is expensive to do but now it's becoming clear that we can afford to do it," Wales added.

   "That is something that we should all be doing because we should be concerned about session hijacking."

   The comments came following a discussion over the upcoming Communications Data Bill that's being pushed through Parliament by the UK government at the moment.

   Wales made it clear his views are not in line with those in the UK government that want to have more access to people's personal data.

   To combat this problem, Wales said that internet users should move to the more secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) communications protocol.

   Posted 11 years ago #
2. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Wales in this case reminds me of an angry driver -- you've probably known one of these people [or know one now], who spend their time behind the wheel upset or maybe even irate at all the stupid drivers on the road. Truth is people learn what they feel is important for them to learn -- there's just not enough hours in our lifetime to learn everything. Complicating our lives further, not only don't we have enough time to learn everything, a good portion of everything we see, hear, &/or read is false -- much [most?] of the time we can thank marketing for that.

   So yeah, Wales is correct, we generally aren't experts at Internet security. And that's not a bad thing. If we were all Internet security experts, not only would that put existing security experts out of work, but it would deprive us of our doctors & nurses & farmers & every other field or occupation we depend on as we live our lives. Wales is also correct IMHO when he says the web should move to https, more secure connections, but that's their job, part of the reason the folks running web servers get paid. If knowing how PCs work was a prerequisite to using one, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon etc. would have never seen the light of day. If people had to know HTML to use the web, there wouldn't be one. Instead we pay for our PCs, just like we pay for the web, same as we go to the store & pay for more caffeine than we should really consume so we can use our PCs & the web better, longer.

   We live in an imperfect world. We need the people who single-mindedly push for advancements, providing a sort of balance to those dragging their feet, satisfied with the status quo. We don't need more angry drivers. It's fine for Wales to push for more Internet security, but he needs to realize there's a flip side to any coin... Up security & the crooks will up their game. Up the costs & complexity, some people &/or companies will quit the game. Change is needed & change will come, but positive change usually happens once everyone, everything is ready. Wales would do better IMO, would do more to accomplish his goals if he spent more time laying that groundwork -- you can get as angry as you want, yell all you want for another driver to get out of your way, but usually the only effect is making the people in your car suffer.

   Posted 11 years ago #
3. 

   Anonymous
   Unregistered

   mikiem2 thank you so right, but some don't know what a Administrator is and I tell them it not good to let kids go on as Administrator and add game with spyware antivirus 3 years old and not work.

   Posted 11 years ago #

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