Slashdot Mirror
When Does Usability Become a Liability?
nasteric asks: "I caught myself in the middle of a very interesting discussion last Friday over Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee. The discussion had to do with usability and security. Many of the Microsoft Administrators I work with argued the more user friendly Linux becomes, the more vulnerable it becomes. They claimed making Linux a friend of Joe User will require it to 'open itself up' and become more susceptible to attack. Needless to say, this became an endless debate between our Microsoft Administrators and our Linux/Unix Administrators that will undoubtedly continue into the morning. Therefore I pose this question to the Slashdot community. Will making Linux more user friendly result in it becoming less secure? Hopefully your expertise will help shed some light on (and bring to and end) our discussion." Does decent usability necessarily imply the presence of vulnerabilities? Macs seem to have this area down pretty well, with little in the way of vulnerabilities. Can Linux software follow the same route?
There is no need to log into an admin account to do any of this kind of stuff under OS X.
I've also never seen an OS X app that says you have to give all users all perms to the root folder, or have everyone running as admin, or open up the program folder for everyone to write to because settings are being stored in the wrong dang place.
Windows could be a lot more secure, but Microsoft doesn't go far enough to shame software vendors into sticking to the logo requirements. How many times have you Windows admins had to support a desktop app or driver for a peripheral that REQUIRES admin or power user rights? It's insane that there are Windows programmers that are still writing crap like this today.
Actually most virus arrivals now do need a luser. Email gateways are doing more scanning and keeping outlook users from becoming auto-lusers. However, one of the latest/best scams is to zip the virus and password protect it (quasi-encrypted) so the gateway scanner can not scan it. Then include instructions in the email that social engineer some luser into unzipping it with the supplied password and running it. I've seen some pretty good email virus scams recently, the text is REALLY good, definitely luser friendly.
Wrong. Language studies have shown that computer langauges are not equivalent to conventional lanugages . One study, in part, was undertaken to identify whether teaching and using computers at an early age is beneficial. Unsurprisingly, it showed absolutely no benefit. Unlike spoken languages, where the earlier you start, the better you are, computer languages showed no such advantage. That's good news for adults.
Sorry, I do not have the source available. The study was discussed in the NYT within the last year or so.