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Kazaa Usability Study
Anonymous Coward writes "We have just finished a study that shows how user interface design flaws allow users on Kazaa to share their personal files without their knowledge. In a laboratory user study, only 2 out of 12 subjects were able to correctly determine that Kazaa was sharing their entire hard drive. We looked at the current Kazaa network and discovered that many users are sharing personal information such as email and data for financial programs such as Microsoft Money. To see if other users on Kazaa were aware of this and taking advantage of users ignorance, we ran a Kazaa client for 24 hours with dummy personal files. During this time, files named "Inbox.dbx" and "Credit Cards.xls" were downloaded from our client by several unique users. The tech report is online, or see our lab web page."
Most people are idiots when it comes to technology, that isn't a surprise. Look back when cable modems first started to take off and you'll see lots of stories of people running PC Anywhere without a password, or using Windows File Sharing and sharing their entire drive.
Computers are complicated devices. Unless they are stripped down to do only one or two functions, like a play-only VCR, the majority of the public will not understand. Many of them don't WANT to understand -- they just want their e-mail, IM, MP3s and pr0n.
Case in point -- KaZaA. It is KNOWN spyware, and has an embedded secondary network (Britewave?) yet despite this being well publicized (CNN, FoxNews, regular geek news like Slashdot) it is wildly popular.
Why? It is *very* convenient, and people will put up with a ton of shit for convenience.
What would be a real interesting study, is get this one publicized as all get out then do it again in 1 year. I bet the stats would be about the same.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Just out of curiosity, I ran the install myself, and I observed that while the sharing scheme isn't 100% clear or too concerned about the user's privacy, it's still not nearly as bad as the outright installation of spyware, which Kazaa does anyway. I also asked a small group of novice users to try it out, and found that:
1) The default shared folder is C:\Program Files\Kazaa\My Shared Folder. A vanilla user with a vanilla install would not have had that directory, and would not have any private files in here to begin with. Most novice users I polled understood that this was the folder which the public would access, and that private files should never be placed there. So... simply clicking "Next" on the install repeatedly doesn't endanger the person's privacy. (well, spyware is still installed, but you get my point)
2) When selecting another folder to share, I found that all of the novice users I polled stored their music in a directory strictly for music, and that subdirectories would contain nothing but music. So, if someone is sharing C:\My Documents\My Music\, they would not be sharing files in the parent directory, where private documents are stored. Realistically, I can't think of too many cases where someone would store private files in a directory made specifically for music. Granted, the user could still accidentally put files there, or accidentally share C:\My Documents, but at that point, it's user error.
3) When selecting an entire drive to share and download music, eg, C:\, all (yes, all) of the users were unwilling to proceed, as they didn't want files piling up in the root directory, and they didn't like the idea of sharing the entire drive. (though this was never specified in the software)
So... what I'm saying is: Common sense and "install: next, next, next" seemed to prevail in the small group of novice users I polled... While I agree wholeheartedly that Kazaa does *NOTHING* to discourage or warn users of sharing their entire drives, I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise considering the company's history.
Just thought I'd share...
I have heard this argument before ..
We as techs believe that a user must have rudeimentary knowledge on how to OPERATE the computer. Noone is asking them to be techs but they should know the minimum required to use the damn thing.
If you are going to drive, you learn how to drive. If you are cooking you consult a cookbook and cook. Its not like you dont put effort into learning the task at hand.
What bugs me the most is that people believe the computer should just work on whatever task they want it to. Do you get in your car and it should immediately read your mind and take you where you want to go? Or do you put all your groceries on top of the stove and hope for a gourmet meal?
My mother went to a 2 week computer course when she bought a computer and she can do all basic tasks required. She knows where the Start Button is, how to get to the control panel and can distinguish between left, right and double click.
Thats really all we techs want from the users. When we try to help them they should know the basic functionality of the computer so we can help them with their problems
dvNuLL
File sharing is a dubious business at best, and most of the companies involved in it will try to manipulate your machine in one way or another.
So...let them. Let them prat about with your machine to their heart's content. Let them install all the spyware in the world. Let them share every file that's ever been placed on it. Just one thing - make sure it's not a real machine.
In other words, make use of the virtual machine programs kicking about. VMWare for most, Virtual PC in my case. Use that machine for nothing but running your P2P clients. No email, no web browsing, nothing. Just run your clients and enjoy. Let them spy on everything happening within that machine, because the only thing happening on that machine is the running of their own software.
Cheers,
Ian