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I always liked the next one in the series, too: And The Inevitable Occurs

Sanford Wallace?

LART That Pinhead!

Lack of competition and cost awareness. Really.

For example, take the data rates while abroad. Do you really think the extra cost of transferring data across the world (you know, like you're doing right now) justified a price that's often tens of dollars per megabyte? Or that in-flight calls really cost that much? They charge what people will pay, simple as that.

I have a card reader in my basement.

I see your 'get of my lawn' and raise you a 'And turn down that noise you call music'!

Forget it, dude. you can write your own drivers.

Couldn't resist.

The obvious Userfriendly cartoon to this topic: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19991114

Illiad already had that idea a decade ago. And it was already a good one back then. Unfortunately, how do you want to enforce it?

I wouldn't react with keeping the "dumb" people out. But I would highly recommend (not require, just recommend) that people get some sort of "internet 101, do's and dont's" class before hooking up. I'm honestly amazed that no bank or other financial page ever had the idea of offering such a course, free of charge. Just a few pages, informing you of the various scams and practices, as well as some counterstrategies when you think you might have already done something foolish. Setting up such a page, especially if you outsource it, runs in the four or lower five digit range. A single ID theft attack can easily reach 6 digits in damages.

So I wouldn't say that only "dumb" people fall for such scams. It's simply that people don't even think a lot of the things that happen are possible. When they click a link, they expect to visit the page this link displays, they don't even know it's possible to show a completely different URL than what you link to. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The idea that some BHO could hook into their browser and hijack a secure transaction is completely beyond their imagination. We have to educate the users. Information is the only sensible shield against ID theft.

On a related note: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080406

You should have used HTML formatting.

Put a <br/> at the end of each line, and instead of empty lines, use the occasional <p>...</p> tag pair. Empty lines are the worst, I'd say; they bring your average way down.

I learned it the hard way, too, but I've been posting my comments in HTML ever since.

P.S. Obligatory Userfriendly link

Carry a crowbar.

I don't care about the birds or helicopters. I'm hoping they do make mini black holes. I want one. http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080131

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080316&mode=classic

"Teh caek is a lie!"

'User Friendly' nailed it almost 2 years ago! http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060404 User Friendly Cartoon of April 4,2006

...without Iliad's take.

You mean this?

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060306&mode=classic

Ob. UserFriendly: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080131

I for one won't believe in any of this black hole nonsense until I actually see one.

Warning! Do not look into black hole with remaining eye!

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080131

You INSENSITIVE clod! :-)

You didn't mention THE site for linux/slashdotters:

http://userfriendly.org/

I read User Friendly as well.

I didn't know there were new stories of the BOFH! I mean, I've read the archives, but where are the new stories?

> And because it's never easy, in order to read the archives of the comic you're going to need to install Microsoft's Silverlight.

Obviously, they don't want me to read it then; I'm happy to oblige --- userfriendly is just fine thankyouverymuch...

There is something suspicious about this report. Some things can't happen the way people say they happen, and when that is the case we have to look at more likely scenarios.

I would bet the path of the TCP/IP packets route through compromised providers who have an injection strategy. Remember a few months ago how IPSs were injecting their own java script and ads into the pages of other sites?

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070703

This is the most likely scenario I can think of.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20011229&mode=classic

> Perhaps we will see the SCO obelisk [...] donated to the Computer History Museum.

"I do love how the free market gives you what something's worth" :)

(http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060902)

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010322/

Bah! Everyone knows that it takes a keyboard that shines in the dark to be FTW-worthy.

Wimp...;-)

REAL /.'s read the One and Only Truth at the following mystic nexus of the internet:

http://userfriendly.org/

There you will find the One...

And the One True Ring to Bind Them All,

And the number 42, etc., et cetera, ad infinitum...;-)

WTF!

Why does Darl even need a head?

I just noticed the userfriendly.org page today has a on topic link of the day. IT is a good read an would have been excellent to include in the original article.

http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/Privacy%20by%20Design.html
http://userfriendly.org/

More recent clients are supporting encryption by default as users are becoming painfully aware of the problems of poor privacy. Compromised online privacy is a big issue now that it has become dangerous.

something like this?:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010805

I likewise agree. On that note, it should be mentioned that, a few years ago, I moved to a small community in the Northwest Territories, and they only had 33.6 dialup there. During this time, despite the fact that I had a second phone line that was dedicated to this slow connection, I stopped visiting many of the web sites that I previously frequented. In fact, there were only two that I visited every day. One was slashdot, and the other was User Friendly. Slashdot kept me in touch with the tech community, something that was very needed in a community where there was a grand total of ONE technical person (aside from myself) in the whole town. That guy had to wear multiple hats - he was the IT guy for the oil company in town (the #1 employer), and he was the line tech for the phone company. He has moved on to bigger and better things, and now the new IT guy for that oil co is struggling just to maintain the status quo - he even begged me to move back and take over his job. Of course, to do that would be to give up my high speed Internet connection (AKA my lifeline), and that's not going to happen.

Anyhow, I digress. Slashdot has been a big part of my life. I first came across it when I was in high school, back in the early days, and am now on my second account (I lost the password on my first one, and no longer had the e-mail address) - and I love it. Slashdot has been my source for all IT related news for almost nine years now, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. Keep up the good work, guys, and we will all keep coming back!

I would also like to make a note that, in my younger days, I was involved in some minor Slashdot-related graffiti - I have on a few occasions written /. in bathroom stalls and various other places, a stark contrast to the graffiti that most people leave. I can only hope that this has encouraged some people to find out what the site was, and to increase the knowledge of the site. Unfortunately, I think it only contributed to the amount of work that the janitorial staff had to do. This isn't something that I continue to do, as I have grown into a much more respectable person than I was then, but I still am tempted any time I walk into a washroom that is covered in graffiti!

You can always try: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20030301

"now IT departments will require passwords to be 30 characters long, with at least 2 digits, at least 2 puncuation marks, mixed case, and use Unicode characters from at least 8 different international languages."

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20071001

Taking bets on weather this will be seen as a reason to make the game "phone home" about what users "look at" in-game ? I'd expect them to track your cursor, camera angles, and zoom at the very least.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070914

Maybe this this will enlighten you. :P

Illiad answered this nicely.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070716

I'm surprised no one posted this: http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/00jun/uf001930.gif

I dunno, is it anything like this?

Believe it or not, I found slashdot because of Seti@Home....

There were several of us at IBM who were running Seti@Home on our brand-new super powerful PII-450s - one of the guys emailed us the UserFriendly cartoon of Arthur formulating a plan to rescue Stef from Microsoft, but loosing a few cycles along the way. I ended up reading the entire UF archive. When I finished that I looked for something else to read and discovered this little teal button labeled "Slashdot"...

That was eight years ago and I've never been the same...

This summarizes it

Check out who they are competing against.

Here you go.

The important thing is...
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070812

You're welcome. And just so you can feel doubly victorious over me, you should also know that you shamed me into finally sponsoring User Friendly too, which is only fair since I've read his strip daily since it came out.

It seems Illiad agrees.

Larger minesweeper tiles!

"borrowed" from todays cartoon: http://www.userfriendly.org/