'Geek Speak' Confuses Net Users

jonney02 writes "BBC News is running the following story 'The average home computer user is bamboozled by technology jargon which is used to warn people about the most serious security threats online.' "

Comments

Uh-huh

[iehnll]

" a survey for AOL UK has found Bright bunch they are...

Re:Uh-huh

[ZephyrXero]

Not even taking AOL's reputation into account, if you are using AMERICA OnLine in Europe you're probably not the brightest bulb in the box...

Re:Uh-huh

[JustOK]

aren't all bulbs in the box dull, cuz, like, they don't have power? Or are u talking tulip bulbs?

Re:Uh-huh

[koreaman]

if you're using AOL in America you're not the brightest bulb in the box either. It doesn't matter where you live, AOL == stupid

Re:Uh-huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit, and I've been eating KFC in New York without even realising the implications of it.

Truly my wattage is tiny.

Re:Uh-huh

[JustOK]

So why don't they make glow in the dark light bulbs so you can find them when your light burns out?

Re:Uh-huh

[aldoman]

AOL UK provides a fairly decent no-limits, straight up PPPoA ADSL broadband connection, which you can use with any DSL router or modem -- you don't need their software anymore.

They also provide access to their email via IMAP4.

I wouldn't choose them, but they are extremely well priced in the UK broadband market and have a very good network (in terms of peering, latency and speeds) -- at least on the DSL side of things.

Nearly every other major UK ISP caps users. British Telecom for example has a 512k connection with a 1GB cap for hte same price that AOL does a unlimited one.

Also on the subject of UK Broadband news, UK Online have dropped the price of their 8mbit service to £29.99/month.. which isn't bad at all when you consider it's free activiation and a free 802.11g wireless DSL router.

Re:Uh-huh

[aldoman]

Yes, wonderful.

UK Online is going to be bringing 16mbit/sec uncapped for £30/month sometime in the summer. That's very close to what that is.

Also, BT has 99.6% of the UK population covered with basic DSL, which is the world's highest.

BT as a private company which takes zero funding from the government has rolled broadband out very well.

They are launching a nationwide 8mbit service later this autumn, and trailing ADSL2.

This is going to mean nearly all of the population can have high speed DSL, whereas in france only the big towns can have it. I don't think you'll see villages with less than 300 people in them enabled in france, but you will in the UK.

Re:Uh-huh

[Kejope]

/. would not let me post a reply properly or even preview, so I am trying this as a test. I'm sorry if it works (sort of)! :)

: This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)
:by Brooklynoid (656617) Alter Relationship on Wednesday April 06, @11:29AM (#12155329)
:I'm not sure why this would be a surprise to anyone; the communications gap between IT professionals and the
:general population has been around as long as computers have. This gap is present in any technical industry, as
:well; how many of the great unwashed understand everything they hear from their doctor or their auto
:mechanic? The difference is that we've been conditioned to expect to pay doctors and auto mechanics for their
:skill and for explaining things in lay terms where necessary. Folks seem to expect computers to be "easy" and
:support for them to be free, for some reason.

Hi! :)

I said it 15 years ago and I will continue to say it: It is only a matter of waiting for the young ones to grow up totally immersed in this computer environment. Then we will not hear these complaints all the time saying, *whiner voice* "computers are too hard to learn." They are not too hard to learn. They are simply different to learn. Already, I know of numerous children even as young as 4 years old, who can run circles around most of the adults I know. Maybe when they grow up, they will whine about how hard the holodecks are to learn. Maybe they will have a valid point, because holodecks perhaps would not be a practical daily life skill. Maybe people just like to whine. :>

I agree with your assessment. There is another important difference here, that should also not be a surprise. Pardon my cut/paste for effect. :)

"The communications gap between ... professionals and the general population has been around ... long .... This gap is present in any technical industry...."

A big difference between computer professionals and other professionals, i.e., doctors, physicists, and lawyers, is that computers (and the inevitable new terms and ideas that come with them) are now IN and AMONG the general population.

In contrast:

1} Doctors talk doctor-speak to each other all the time, but do not expect patients to learn most of the lingo. Why? Because theirs is a SPECIALIZATION skill. Only a small percentage of the population will have a practical use for knowing the jargon.

2) Physicists also talk physicist-speak amongst themselves, but they do not expect the layman to learn most of that lingo for the same reason. Why should the expectation exist? The layman will not use this knowledge in his everyday life. Physics thug: "At the velocity of C, before I propel this metallic slug into your body's atomic mass, tell me what is Newton's 42nd Law of Thermodynamics!?"

3) Lawyer-speak is a bit different than the other two examples, in that famous cases in the news have exposed the layman to many technical terms. Who doesn't know about class-action lawsuits, due process, pre-emptive strikes, copyright infringement, or "Court is now in session. Honorable Judge Wapner presiding," these days? And yet, not knowing these terms will not hamper productivity in daily life for most people, nor for those around them. (Although you might get a few odd stares.)

So, now we have geeks and geek-speak, which is used liberally and with abandon, not only in the office, on 1200 baud BBS's *shudder*, Usenet, IM's, [insert any of a million common computer-related communication methods here including but not limited to /.], but over mobile phones, in grocery store, at bus stops, and even at family dinner. It even amuses us to notice in mid-sentence that some innocent passerby is staring at us as if we were s

I cant say I blame them

[MrRTFM]

The sad thing is that most computer users dont give a shit. They have been trained out of it.

They are hit with so many fucking dialog boxes and 'warnings' that they aren't sure of , that in the end they just ignore ALL of them.
The average user just wants to get the job over and done with, and they couldn't care less if it the tool they use needs patches or virus checks or god knows what else.
"Why is it so hard" they always cry.

All we can do is keep educating, and hope that they listen.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[ZephyrXero]

As a rule of thumb, if your dialogue box asks a question that's over 7 words, people probably won't bother reading it...but some still won't even bother with reading something that short even...

Re:I cant say I blame them

[mboverload]

If someone was driving a car and didn't know what "check oil" meant they would be idiots, correct?

Then why is it so different with technology? Why do we not expect them to know these things?

Re:I cant say I blame them

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

And yet many users respond to long 419 scams and 30-word emails about enlarging penises. As the saying goes, "size doesn't matter; it's what you do with it that does."

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Nos.]

I wouldn't necessarily agree. Trying to train someone who doesn't want to learn.... well lets just say they're not going to learn anything.

Instead, alerts and so forth that the general public would see should stop using those terms. Instead of saying there's a new phishing scam going around about $somebank, the article should be about counterfit emails trying to get people to give out their account information. Then give very simple and straightforward adivce on avoiding the issue, for example explaining that they should not click the link in the email if they wish to visit their bank, instead they should type in www.$somebank.com

Same thing for viruses/trojans. Instead of arguing about if the latest outlook exploit should be called a worm/trojan/virus/etc. make alerts simple and clear. For general alerts, stick to one term, probably virus (most computer users are probably at least somewhat familiar with this one). The alerts should be simple, and probably skip, or at least not highlight the name. The general public isn't going to care that variant G of MyDumbExploit is now in the wild. Instead, the alert should be simple, and inform users to make sure they are running anti-virus software and to make sure it is up to date.

Now of course some of us are going to want more details and such, and the alerts should contain links to more detailed information. However, the general public will get confused if too much detail is given.

To put this in perspecitve, I don't know much about cars. I got a recall notice not that long ago on my car that told me something could happen with the transmission under certain conditions. I don't care if its actually a bolt that was tightened a little too much, or a bad gasket, just tell me the conditions to avoid and where I can book an appointment to get it fixed.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[wakejagr]

As someone who does internet connectivity tech support for a living, I can verify that this is totally true. People either ask me what to do with every window that pops up, or they just click the first choice in each window. Less than 10% actually read what's in those dialog boxes and warnings. Even if it's the one telling them why their precious email won't work.

Why must every response to "what error message do you get when you can't get your email?" be "An error message? There's a litle window that says 'this program has performed an illegal operation.' Can I get in trouble for that?"

Re:I cant say I blame them

[frankthechicken]

I think the difference is that after 'misunderstanding' what "check oil" means, there is generally a fairly hefty bill to pay to fix the problem.

After 'misunderstanding' the consequences of "Do you wish to open this attatchment? It may contain viruses", or whatever, the only consequence is a slightly slower computer, with possibly 'interesting' new features.

This is not the greatest conditioning tool.

If the virus/worm/whatever, actually killed the computer stone dead, and the user was then charged a fee to get it working again, I would imagine they would quickly learn.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Golias]

If someone was driving a car and didn't know what "check oil" meant they would be idiots, correct?

Then why is it so different with technology? Why do we not expect them to know these things?

Because your car doesn't say something like:

"Engine Lubricant pressure levels are below reccomended levels. Do you wish to continue with operation?
| Yes | No | Cancel |"

In an effort to hand-hold the newbies, OS developers (particularilly a very popular group of them from the state of Washington) have, time and time again, actually made things more difficult than they need to be.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[amanox]

Ok, if users are like that, from now on I'll start my warnings, messages, etc with one of the following :

"Get V1AGRA Anonymously!"
"80% off software!"
"8x Longer than V1AGRA, and cheaper!"
"PLEASE HEAR ME OUT ( GOD BLESS YOU ) ..."
"CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION"
"Pen1s enlarg3ment p1lls"
"CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU HAVE WON"

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Ironsides]

If the virus/worm/whatever, actually killed the computer stone dead, and the user was then charged a fee to get it working again, I would imagine they would quickly learn.

Considering this is what I do to make money on the side. Yes, they do learn. I recently cleaned off a WinXP computer full of spyware. It was easier to reinstall from scratch then to clean out. When I resetup the computer, The standard acounts did not all have admin privlidges this time (I didn't set it up in the first place), as the owner asked me to do. Got some spending money out of that. They do learn, it's just that some don't think it's a problem or don't realize what is going on. They think that a computer that's slowed to a crawl is just something that happens, not something that is caused by a problem.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[drooling-dog]

The sad thing is that most computer users dont give a shit. They have been trained out of it.

People seem to decide in advance what they will and will not be capable of understanding. It's kind of a learned helplessness. It amazes me that most people are able to operate an automobile - which is really quite a complex activity, if you stop to think about it - but will immediately throw up a stone wall against learning even simple concepts in an area that they've already decided is beyond them.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Twylite]

1. Many drivers are expected to demonstrate basic comprehension of the car interface as part of acquiring their driving license. There is no equivalent license requirement for Internet access because the Internet is not an inherently deadly technology.

2. Car interfaces have remained consistent over time. The top-of-the-line 2005 Mercedes and a cheap Japanese import from 1980 use the same basic approach to control the car and notify drivers about its status.

3. Despite that, many people have no idea what any car status information means. If they see a light on the dash that isn't usually there, they take the car to an auto garage.

4. Computers don't have such a simplistic model of status reporting as cars do, nor can they determine if there is a problem (as you can with many engine faults), not can a user be expected to contact an expert every time on account of the frequency of incidents.

Yes, users need to learn to use the technology and respond correctly. This is done by making the interface simple and consistent, and educating users.

Expecting users to understand the differences between a virus, a trojan, a keylogger, spyware, phishing, 419 scams, spam, junk mail, and a crash bug in Internet Explorer is not only ridiculous, but pointless. If you can detect the problem (the computer is behaving differently to normal) you can either fix it by hitting the "Download Updates and Check My System" button, or you call in an expert.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[cowscows]

Car - Computer Analogies tend to be problematic in most cases, but here's the differences I see in this case.

First and foremost, cars are generally just big complicated pieces of hardware, while computers have this whole extra level of complexity. It's called software. Cars nowadays have some software, but it's got to be so rigorously tested that the average car owner will never have problems with it.Computers, on the other hand, break in software a lot more than hardware.

My mom doesn't know too much about cars, but she has a good general understanding of how the everyday world works. Mechanical things wear out, they break, they need to be lubricated, etc. Software is a completely different beast. To someone who's never programmed, it's just this ephemeral, basically invisible thing that is always breaking. All you know is that it's very complicated, it doesn't work a lot, and nothing else that you've ever seen break in your life has given you much understanding as to what is wrong.

Add to the fact things like "Check oil" is just two really simple words. It's not telling you what's wrong, it's not asking you what you want to do next, it's giving you a command; Get your damn oil checked!" Software breaks a little too often for commands like that to be feasible in most cases, I guess better programming is the solution.

When computer hardware breaks, it's a little easier, because things stop working in much more understandable ways. I get phone calls from my mom asking for help when a program is repeatedly quitting with some weird error message. When a piece of hardware breaks, I get a call from her at a store/repair shop, asking me if a certain price for a new part is fair. She knows what to do when something physical breaks. The whole concept of software and how it actually works is just so foreign to her mindset that I don't think she'll ever understand it, even though her job requires her to spend 8 hours per day in front of a computer.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[LittleBigLui]

The same way that drivers don't need to understand the enginneering behind airbags, they just need them to work.

Some background knowledge can help them save their baby's life though. (I'm talking about backwards-facing passenger-seat baby mounting devices here.)

Re:I cant say I blame them

[LordNimon]

I think the real problem with users is that they don't think of computer maintenance as important. If a warning light appears on the dashboard, the car owner will bring his car into the shop. If a warning dialog box appears, the user would never consider bringing the computer to a repair person, and they would certainly never pay for support.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Morlark]

Those are my thoughts exactly. The terminology has been around for years, most of it is self-explanatory... there's really no excuse for not knowing. All that TFA really does is confirm what I've always said: lusers are stupid.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Golias]

If a warning light appears on the dashboard, the car owner will bring his car into the shop. If a warning dialog box appears, the user would never consider bringing the computer to a repair person, and they would certainly never pay for support.

That's because a car is a $10,000 - $40,000 piece of machinery which can kill you if it is not quite working perfectly. If a car owner follows the maintenence schedule correctly, most cars will work almost flawlessly for ten years or more.

A persional computer is a $300 - $2,000 gadget which can't do much more harm than losing some data, and is famous for being unreliable even when proper care and attention is given to maintenance. Furthermore, it's a piece of home electronics, and it is therefore (perhaps unfairly) held up against the expectations of trouble-free reliability we have for our TV sets and home stereo systems.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[obender]

Engine Lubricant pressure levels are below reccomended levels. Do you wish to continue with operation?
| Yes | No | Cancel |

The original joke was about Microsoft airbags asking the user to validate.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[ArsenneLupin]

you give engineers a bad name.. cleaning a spyware riddled machine may take a couple of hours.. but performing a clean install.. .thats just lazy..

Pray tell, how else can you get Linux on a machine that currently has windows on it, other than by doing a clean install?

Re:I cant say I blame them

[SatanicPuppy]

You know, that's a good idea. We could make a little idiot light that blinks in the upper right hand corner of the screen whenever something needs to be done to the computer.

Of course, if we did it it would imeediately be hijacked by spammers, and would blink forever until you bought their enlargements or whatever.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[DavesWorld334]

No, users are just really goddamn stupid. I (very unfortunately) currently work in tech support. The same people call like clockwork with the same problems all the time.

They never listen to anything offered that would educate them and prevent a repeat of their reoccurring issues. Simple rules designed to educate are always ignored. Basic warnings and instructions, reminder emails, popup boxes, it doesn't matter if the user won't do his part.

Really though, the reason techs and support folks feel users deserve every ill they bring upon themselves is simple. Users love to explain how some problem they're having is the fault of the tech or of tech support. One user in fifty, maybe, will actually admit the problem is related to their inexperience, ignorance, ineptiude, or inattention.

News Flash: if something's wrong with your computer and you're an end-user, it's usually your fault. You have ignored a rule, a warning, a message box, an email, or a memo. You have forgotten that passwords expire every month (yes, this month too; same as last month, and the month before that also), or that passwords do not magically update across all your applications just because you changed one of them.

We can fix it so that it'll stay fixed, but not if you continue to insist anything that happens with it isn't your fault. You have to take charge. If you don't change your car's oil, the engine is toast. If you don't learn the simplest of basics of computer operation, so is your productivity. It is no one's fault but yours.

Techs know users don't know about computers. This doesn't bother 95%+ of techs. What does bother us is users who don't listen, who don't learn, who don't read, and who don't take responsibility. If you ask a question, LISTEN to the answer. Take and write notes that you refer to. Why do you think Techs write stuff down; we're not smarter or better, we just use the advantages of evolution and technology to help us make things happen correctly. Please join us.

And above all, thank your technicians and tech-support folks. Everyone has time to scream about how pissed they are because they've again created their own problem (but, of course, is always the fault of the tech), but one in one million has the goddamned time to send an email or make a phone call that says "hey, the help I received was great and now I'm all good, thanks."

You can sum this entire post up thusly: Users Suck.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[mnbjhguyt]

When i was a sysadmin i frequently got calls like these:

- hey, my computer says blah blah, what should i do?
- how many button do you see on the dialog box?
- one, it says "OK"

- hey, my computer says it has been locked and can only be unlocked by [username]!, what can I do? help!
- what else does it say?
- well, it says "to unlock, press... oh nevermind"

- hey, my computer had this dialog with an OK and a CANCEL button and I didn't know what to do! And I don't remember what it said!
- what did you do then?
- well, i closed it with the X in the corner!

--
mnbjhguyt

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a significant difference between a car's "check oil" light and a computer's maintenance.

The car's "check oil" light is a matter of physical necessity. Real-world o-rings and seals age, mechanical parts wear, oil leaks. No matter how well you design the car, it will happen sooner or later. And if a car manufacturer put in a substandard engine that regularly leaked oil, or that suffered unusually excessive damage from low oil levels, they'd be in trouble quickly. A few lawyers and class action lawsuits and recall notices later, they should have learned the importance of good design.

Viruses, worms, and the operating system/application holes that allow them to propogate are not a matter of physical reality. A mechanical engineer can reduce but not eliminate friction between components; a virus writer can choose not to release malicious code. Software companies can choose to review and audit code and features for security concerns. Arguing that "the user would quickly learn if the virus killed the computer completely!" is like saying "if the headlights burn out, lock the steering wheel and disable the brakes. That'll teach 'em to replace the bulbs!"

Re:I cant say I blame them

[nametaken]

That's it! I'm going to the local junkyard. I'll put bright red "idiot lights" from the dash of an old minivan on the side of my mom's monitor. When the little red "VIRUS" light pops on (and stays on, until [dealer] reset), she'll know to take it to a [mechanic].

We just have to take the warnings off the screen... then they'll pay attention.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Just Some Guy]

I wouldn't necessarily agree. Trying to train someone who doesn't want to learn.... well lets just say they're not going to learn anything.

I'm just about to the point of saying, "heck with them, then."

Same thing for viruses/trojans. Instead of arguing about if the latest outlook exploit should be called a worm/trojan/virus/etc. make alerts simple and clear.

The general population is expected to tell the differences between the common cold, influenza, and pneumonia. The news outlets certainly don't run stories about "an icky new virus going around" when they mean E.coli in a city's drinking water.

No, I think it's about time we went the other way and took off the training wheels. For decades we've been told "make it easy for the user!", "make it easy for the user!", "make it easy for the user!", but I think we've been going about it the exact wrong way. The general public isn't nearly as stupid as Slashdotters would like to pretend, so maybe it's about time we start treating them like responsible adults. There'll always be a few boneheads, sure, but that's true of any arena of human activity.

I think it's quite possible (and should be expected) that public releases strike a happy medium between "The OutlookInf64.L worm infects the MBR and modifies the autostart registry entries" and "A new thingy writes stuff on your harddisk."

Re:I cant say I blame them

[NardofDoom]

If your buttons don't say anything except "Select" and "Okay" your users are going to click them without knowing what they do. Make button labels descriptive, because that's the one thing the user has to look at.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[Hyperspac]

That and the check oil light tells you something definate to do, check your oil. The "may contain viruses" message doesn't tell you how to check or what to do, it just gives you the choice of ignoring the warning or not being able to do what you're trying to do. Kind of like if a light in your car came on that said "you may not have enough gas to reach your destination, do you want to shift out of park?" everytime you started it.

Maybe we would be better off if it said soemthing like "Unknown attachment, do you want to scan for known viruses?" and then ran the attachment though a quick check, that way the user could be safe and still manage to do something.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[jc42]

feel this is a problem that most software has, too many unimportant dialog boxes. Give me one page where I can set everything up ...

Actually, this observation goes way back. In fact, it was widely described as one of the major technical advances of the first unix systems.

Back in the 1970's, there were a lot of the fancy new "time-sharing" systems coming out for what we now call "mainframe" computers. They all came with lots of applications, each of which had its own fancy tools for configuration and management. Learning to use these was a major time sinkhole, because every one of them was different.

The guys at Bell Labs came up with a much better approach: The apps didn't have configuration or management tools. Rather, they had "config files" that were read whenever a program started. All config files were plain text, and you only needed one tool to handle them: your favorite editor. Any editor would work. The config files conventionally contained examples of all the possible settings, mostly commented out. A few might be "live", and would show the default setting.

This was a major advance in usability. You could install, configure, and manage everything with a single tool, a text editor. After dealing with the config/management mess on commercial systems, unix's scheme was a huge relief, and won lots of converts.

Unfortunately, we're still fighting this battle. People seem to have the idea that a complex, flashy tool that's different for every program is better than a simple, consistent tool. And in the GUI area, this means zillions of little windows popping up, each dealing with just one feature of one program, using language that's totally ad hoc and often gives the user few clues about the correct choices.

But it's nothing new. It was bad design 30 years ago, and it's bad design now. Flashy, colorful, maybe. But still bad design.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[DunbarTheInept]

Yes. The problem is that it's the classic tale of "the idiot light that cried wolf".

Re:I cant say I blame them

[amokk]

You don't get it.

Users are starting to do the bare minimum that tech support tells them to do in order to fix their problem and ignoring everything else. The reason for this is that in a large portion of cases, the tech support doesn't give some of them the benefit of the doubt.

Let me explain:

I've been installing networks and maintaining small networks for years. Not enterprise level networks mind you, but simply the ones found in home offices, small businesses, etc. I know a thing or 10,000 about network configuration. One day, I can't get an IP address from my ISP. I first check my hardware to see if there are any problems. Satisfied that there aren't, I call up the ISP and report the problem. Now, my modem is hooked up to a linksys router and the router is reporting that it cannot get an address. I explain this to the tech and they say "routers aren't supported." So I play along and say I'll call back after I unplug my router. I call back a little while later and say that I can't get an IP address. "What OS are you using" they ask. "OSX" I respond. "We only support windows." "Yes, but this isn't the fault of the OS I'm using." "We only support windows sir."

At this point I get pissed.
I tell them that I'll boot up my windows machine and try again. Note that I don't actually boot up my windows machine; I only pretend to on the phone cause I'm getting frustrated as hell. After a requisite amount of time passes, I say that the machine is ready and doesn't have an address. They walk me through a series of steps that I pretend to do, still, no address. Clearly this is their fault.

At this point they say that I have a virus. I say, no, I don't. We argue back and forth for a moment and say that I must have some spyware installed. Again, more arguing.

The story is getting off topic, but the main point is this: Most tech support nowadays has a rudimentary grasp of computers but relies on the screen they are reading off of to actually do anything.

When the tech suggested that I reinstall my network card drivers, do a virus scan, and enable windows firewall I didn't listen. It's not the fault of my computers.

Of course, later in the day I get an e-mail from the ISP apologizing for the unexpected downtime.

Now, a large percentage of users are starting to realize this. Consequently, you're suggestions are getting ignored. Sometimes with good reason, sometimes without.

Re:I cant say I blame them

[matts-reign]

Just an example: I was at a friends house, watching TV. On his computer, 4 feet away, a dialog box pops up, from his firewall, warning of an attempt to connect on a port of a known trojan horse (subseven). Its bright red, with warning in big letters. Looks it belongs on star trek computers during red alert. So he clicks allow?!? i ask him why, and he says its been doing that all day and if he clicks deny it just comes up again in 10 minutes. Just to show how little people care about what things say on their computer. (he did actually have the trojan, he got it from a crack he downloaded. He had also set his antivirus to ignore it....)

Re:I cant say I blame them

[ConceptJunkie]

Does microsoft not do any kind of UI testing?

They fired all their HCI experts in order to hire 800 art students to create new and increasingly ugly WMP skins.

Next question?

What's worse is the type of dialog I see often:

You need to make a choice of whether or not you want to do this thing. Here is an overly wordly description of what we are trying to comminicate to you. We are asking you a binary question, but the choices are not "Yes" or "No". A good example is, "Do you want to empty the clipboard?" Press OK to leave the clipboard intact or "Cancel" to delete its contents.

...followed by "OK" and "Cancel" buttons. Of course, this means you have to read the damn thing every time since there is no mnemonic hint to what you are being asked.

Here's a clue that would take, oh, about, 2 minutes of the developer's time. Make the buttons say something actually relevant like "Delete" and "Leave".

But no, that would require thinking about usability, and that is so-o-o-o-o early 90's.

I have to..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I have to say so? Most people don't even know what a mother board is let alone what it does. If we dumb it down to "There's an ickky virus going around which sill hurt your PC!" then it's no use to us geeks with a clue. Just leave the real explination and put "Install this to fix the problem" at the bottom of the page for the idiots.

Re:I have to..

[Xiarcel]

Perhaps leave the "geek-speak" and have a section for non-geeks?

Something like:
"Dude, this is really bad, your mp3s could be TOAST"

Re:I have to..

[drooling-dog]

Just leave the real explination and put "Install this to fix the problem" at the bottom of the page for the idiots.

Which, of course, is as likely as not to be a spoof. The worst of the disadvantages of cluelessness is the inability to distinguish friend from foe.

Re:I have to..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I know exactly what your saying but yesterday I had a friend who had never even downloaded a program before and didn't know how.. are we ment to go and teach all these people how to do even the simplest things?

PCs are complex much like cars, you should do basic maintence and if you don't know any better then get in tech support if stuff goes wrong. This is basic maintence...

Re:I have to..

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Suppose you take your car to the mechanic, and he says, "It's broken, and you'll have to pay me a bunch of money to fix it."

You say, "Well, before I pay you all that money, how about you tell me exactly what's wrong?"

And he says, "You wouldn't understand all the technical jargon. Just trust me."

Would you give that mechanic your money?

No, I'm not blaming the "mechanics" (i.e., the people who write warnings and anti-malware) here. I'm blaming the people who, even if they can't actually fix anything more complicated than a flat tire, at least have a pretty decent idea of what the various parts of their car do, and can tell when someone is spouting expensive bullshit at them, but refuse to learn the most basic bits of computer knowledge in order to keep these machines -- which are just as important these days as cars -- up and running. If it weren't for the fact that their stupidity affects everyone else, I'd say fuck 'em, let their POS Windows (pretty much always) boxes be infected by every damn virus and worm in existence, let their bandwidth be sucked up by zombie penis enlargement e-mails, let their credit card and Social Security numbers be taken by every identity thief on the planet. But of course that's not a solution, any more than letting someone drive around with no brakes is okay.

So I don't know what to do about it, but I'm really goddamn tired of whiners who depend on computers to run large chunks of their lives but still think of it, more or less, as that magical glowy box.

Re:I have to..

[Intron]

So rewrite in English. It doesn't have to be "dumbed down", just not use jargon.

Geek warning: Recent reports to US-CERT indicate that the W32/MyDoom variants propagate and communicate on TCP ports 1639, 1640, and 6667. The variants discovered on November 8th and 9th of 2004 may attempt to exploit an IFRAME vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer, described in VU#842160.

Non-geek warning: Watch out for computer viruses coming in email. They may look innocent with subjects like: Hi!, Confirmation, funny photos, etc. but they will contain a link that you must not click when using the Windows browser. If your computer is infected with this virus, you will need to visit this web site [link to Symantec or somewhere].

Re:I have to..

[MadMorf]

If we dumb it down to "There's an ickky virus going around which sill hurt your PC!" then it's no use to us geeks with a clue. Just leave the real explination and put "Install this to fix the problem" at the bottom of the page for the idiots.

Actually the "Install this to fix the problem" should be at the top of the page or you'll lose them as they scan through the Geek explaination.

Re:I have to..

[Tantrum420]

"Non-geek warning: Watch out for computer viruses coming in email. They may look innocent with subjects like: Hi!, Confirmation, funny photos, etc. but they will contain a link that you must not click when using the Windows browser. If your computer is infected with this virus, you will need to visit this web site [link to Symantec or somewhere]."

Uhhh..

That is dumbed down.

It should be common knowledge by now (after what, ten years or better?) that viruses come via email. Those of us who aren't scared of our computers need to know that a new variant is out, what ports its utilizing, and where I can find more information.

It seems to come back to people that prefer to remain ignorant. It is bliss afterall. Many people seem to want to remain in the dark and don't want to put forth any effort to learn.

I don't think it's going to get any better until our children are the generation in control...

My $0.05 (keep the change),
T

Re:I have to..

[Neurotoxic666]

So I don't know what to do about it, but I'm really goddamn tired of whiners who depend on computers to run large chunks of their lives but still think of it, more or less, as that magical glowy box.

Then let's just stop presenting computers as magical glowy boxes. Everywhere you can see an ad about how easy it is to surf this or that website. Then there are stores selling "internet ready" computers. Then there are telcos and other ISPs trying to pretend that you just put the CD in and the whole internet is there for you to marvel at.

People don't know shit about shit and we can't blame them. They just expect everything to be easy with computers, because everyone tells them so. Have you seen any ad saying "so, it was hard to connect? Now your computer's hijacked? You've received threats from the RIAA? Well. Tough luck! ... ". You probably haven't.

Telling people it's easy sells. It sells computers, internet access and a whole lot of useless gadgets. People just don't know. Don't be pissed at them.

Re:I have to..

[Twylite]

Damnit Jim. I'm a driver, not a mechanic.

I know SFA about cars. But if a mechanic tells me my car needs to be fixed, I'll ask for clarification. Typically the mechanic pops the hook, points at things and says stuff like "well as you can see this elbow has worn through and is leaking oil; some of that go onto engine which is what caused the smoke, but it also burned through some electrics over there". He could be bullshitting me blind, but the approach and the fact that he can show me something that doesn't look right (I know what a pipe with a hole in it looks like) gives me confidence.

Switch to Joe Average Computer Support. He comes in, screws with the system for four hours, then says its fixed, and bills me. So what was wrong? "Well I downloaded an anti-virus update, new patches for your operating system, upgraded your anti-spyware, cleaned the computer, changed some configurations in Internet Explorer, emptied the recycle bin, shut down and restarted, installed a new graphics driver, changed the network adapter, and then it worked." Okay ... so I'm paying you how much for the diagnostics because you're incompetent, and how much to actually fix my problem?

Forget computer irregulars -- I know plenty of "geeks" that get nailed by every type of malware out there.

Here's the "test yourself" bit: You get an e-mail purportedly from a reputable magazine publisher; they're doing a pre-launch offer on their new IT magazine and invite you to get a free 12 month subscription if you complete an IT profile questionnaire (you know, general stuff about you and your industry). There are links to the publisher's site and to the subscription / questionnaire. The questionnaire needs some personal information like name, postal address and telephone number, plus you need to create a password for an account and give some password recovery info (mother's maiden name, etc).

So is it a scam? Note that this is pre-launch, so there's nothing on the publisher's site about this new magazine. The publisher does make this sort of offer (subscription in exchange for IT profile information) quite often though. The subscription link is on a different domain to the publisher's site, although the domain home points to the publisher's site.

How far will you go in investigating the validity of this offer? Will you ignore the offer of a years' free subscription? Did you notice that you're giving away enough information to be subject to identify theft?

Re:I have to..

[TheWormThatFlies]

It's not the 90's anymore, guys. Being able to use a PC effectively is about as awe-inspiring as being able to use a toaster effectively.

Precisely! It is not hard to learn how to use a computer effectively at all! This is why I have absolutely no patience or sympathy for people who, after 10 years of computer use, have still not attained basic proficiency in using the computer for tasks they perform every day.

I don't expect average users to be programmers or hardware experts, but I sure as hell expect them to have a basic understanding of how to keep their computer safe, and what dangerous things they should watch out for. And that includes knowing terms like "browser", "trojan", "419 scam" and "phishing". Because they're not actually very hard to understand or remember, any more than terms like "engine", "steering wheel", "spark plug" or "gearbox". Which I know and understand, even though I am not a car mechanic.

I appreciate that part of the reason that average people think that computers are "hard", and beyond their understanding, is that the most widely used OS in the world has never aimed to educate its users, and in fact tries to make its inner workings as obscure as possible, and hides everything beneath several layers of interfaces with limited functionality. I know that if your computer crashes regularly for no apparent reason and must be rebooted or have the OS reinstalled, and the company that makes the OS insists that this is a normal part of computer use, and you don't know any better, you will end up believing that computers regularly malfunction and behave abnormally for reasons beyond mortal ken.

There are, however, limits to my tolerance of other people's ignorance, and this doesn't just apply to cluelessness about computers. I'll put up with someone doing stupid things out ignorance once or twice, and try to explain to them what their mistake is so that they'll know better next time. If they do it again and again and again, my sympathy evaporates.

People are smart. People can learn stuff. What's that? You don't want to learn? You want this to magically sort itself out without any hard work on your part, because now that you are no longer in school you shouldn't ever be required to learn anything new ever again? My heart bleeds.

Re:I have to..

[SatanicPuppy]

Like the car commericals that have you ripping across the tundra at 80 miles an hour in your SUV?

Or the other car commericals that show some guy in a sedan doing 90 on Route 1 (The road on the side of the cliff over the ocean)?

Or anything from Ikea? Or ANYTHING from the drug companies.

It's not just computers. All ads make it look easy. People should know better.

Re:I have to..

[Given M. Sur]

Well, I don't know about other geeks, but that site would get my name, Given M. Sur, (which isn't my real name BTW), and my address (they would get the real one -- since I was actually expecting something from them).

My phone number would be off by a few digits, like instead of 555-3829 I might type 555-4950.

They would only get the password I use for useless sites, and the only password hint they would get is the same one I use everywhere "NOFUCKINGHINTNEEDED"

Perhaps I'm just smarter and/or more paranoid than the average geek, or perhaps you just don't give geeks enough credit.

Ho w much would they pay ...

[foobsr]

... to learn more ? Not much, I believe.

CC.

Re:Ho w much would they pay ...

[hey!]

Wrong question. How much would they pay to have somebody give them clear, plain English instruction on what to do without the fat slice of contempt on the side?

I amazed at how unselfconsciously many geeks can mock things like ebonics, then without missing a beat drop into their own "e-bonics".

I'm not saying jargon is a bad thing, just that it doesn't in itself say anything about the superiority of the tribe.

Re:Ho w much would they pay ...

[rob_squared]

Anyone who is, or believes themselves to be suitably smart will use their own language subset and condescend. Have you ever read a Dr.'s note?

Use a dictionary.

[garcia]

"If internet users can't understand the language used to describe these risks, they are going to find it hard to protect themselves from being ripped off."

So I am reading a book and I come across a word I don't know. What do I do? I take note of it (if I can determine what the sentence is trying to convey without knowing the word) and I go and look it up later.

So, you're on the net and you're reading an article about computer security. You come across a word you don't know. What do you do? Google for it (define: foo) or dictionary.com or whatever.

Come on. If people aren't willing to expend even the most minimal amount of effort to learn their world around them I have no sympathy for them when they get 0wn3d by the v1r11!!!!!!!!!@!

Re:Use a dictionary.

[DogDude]

So, you're on the net and you're reading an article about computer security

What normal person reads articles about computer security? Do you read articles about new studies concerning the use of various grains in dry cat foods? Why not? I do all the time.

Re:Use a dictionary.

[drooling-dog]

If people aren't willing to expend even the most minimal amount of effort to learn their world around them

Unfortunately, you've just described about 80% of humanity. At least. Learning is a lot like physical exercise; some people can't get enough, but most avoid it every chance they get...

Re:Use a dictionary.

[Guppy06]

Lots of people read articles about computer security.

FWD: Microsoft, AOL warn about new virus!

Microsoft to the rescue!

[rueger]

Thank God Microsoft is here to help newbies understand all that computer talk with their parent's primer to computer slang

While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short.

Non-alphanumeric characters may be combined to form letters. For example, using slashes to create "/\/\" can substitute for the letter M, and two pipes combined with a hyphen to form "|-|" is often used in place of the letter H. Thus, the word "ham" could be written as "|-|4/\/\"

Re:Microsoft to the rescue!

[hungrygrue]

Wow, I had heard mention of that guide but I just assumed it was a joke. "Rules of grammar are rarely obeyed." "Mistakes are often left uncorrected." I'm confused. How does this differ from ordinary stupidity? Isn't that just a description of ebonics?

Re:Microsoft to the rescue!

[bpfinn]

Thus, the word "ham" could be written as "|-|4/\/\"

I didn't know script kiddies loved to talk about pork. Or is that pr0k?

Re:Microsoft to the rescue!

[dstewart]

\/\/45 7H15 1Nf0rz/\/\4t10N |-|3LpF\/1 t0 j00?

Surprise Surprise

[bloodredsun]

This study comes from AOL UK which just happens to be pushing a big advertising campaign in the UK about how "safe" AOL is, what a surprise.

Re:Surprise Surprise

[Dhalka226]

Yes. And that's exactly what they want to do.

The purpose of advertising isn't necessarily to inform. That is evident by those commercials where you watch them and really have absolutely no idea what's being sold. Rather, the purpose of ads--and the effect of the overall culture of advertising--is to breed discontent.

In other words, they want to make you unhappy with your life. They want to make you afraid. They want to make you jealous. They want to upset you. They want to show you how much better life can be than whatever it is you have. And then, by some miracle, lo and behold! They just happen to have a product that is going to solve all of that for you.

In this case, AOL is probably better served by menacing customers with lots of technical jargon. Not only does it get the point of the dangers across--probably better so than explaining it in simple terms, just keep saying "identity theft" over and over instead of explaining what you mean by phishing--it also intimidates users. Many (most?) people are intimidated by computers in general for no apparent reason that I can figure out. Keep heaving terms they don't understand at them and they will be both intimidated and overwhelmed. At that point, we've reached the "lo and behold" step--it sure is a good thing that AOL has these blockers installed, FOR FREE!!, that takes care of all of that for you, isn't it?

They don't want you to know that some common sense, a handful of things to look for, a couple of free tools and maybe a different (or better secured) browser would do nearly as well or better. That's not going to frighten people nearly as bad.

(As an aside, it can be argued that we WANT people to be afraid of some of these things, such as phishing. At least then they're more likely to take notice and hopefully do something about it.)

I Know Why...

[Rightcoast]

That is because thier PC has been assimilated as part of a bot-net because the default administrator privileges when never disabled and malware was drive-by installed by exploiting Active X. A though Scan in safe mode with the running processes killed would help, but they can't fix it because "the internet is broken".

1337

[UnCivil Liberty]

g33k 5p3aK 15 1337 d00d, 1+ wi11 r0x0r y0uR 80>0rZ!

god I feel like such a tool...

st00pid

[cwebb1977]

maybe they are 2st00pid

computer jargon

[k4_pacific]

Guru: So click on the icon.
Luser: Woah dude, what's with all this technical mumbo jumbo? Click? Icon? We don't all have CS degrees like you pal.
Guru: See this, this is called a mouse. You put your hand on it and use it to move the cursor to that little picture.
Luser: Oh, man, I have no idea what you just said. What's a 'mouse'? You mean the foot pedal? Also, are you saying we should swear at it? I do that all the time.

dumbing down

[l3v1]

Ok, sow most pc users are dumb in the topic so let's downgrade ourselves to express the threats in a more easily understandable form, right ? So now instead of terms like phishing we will write 10 lines of text at the end of which these people will still not understand the subject since 1). they are still not swallow tech stuff easily 2). they still do not care about trojans, viruses, phishing and the like 3). they just simply forget what the first 1-2 lines were about till they get to the end.

So, insted of switching to longish and dumb and dull explanatory descriptions, just fill the text with links to wikipedia terms and it's done. If joe6p want the explanation, can go there and educate himself. For the others, quickly to the subject. In time, the others might just catch up.

Re:dumbing down

[Qzukk]

Some people just seem afraid of the machine as soon as they have to think about it. As long as the can just click on the internet without thinking about stuff, they are happy.

How can we resolve attitudes like that? Anyone got any suggestions?

Ignorance is curable, stupidity is fatal. At this point we should just accept that these people are stupid, and that its NOT the job of the less ignorant to make the world a happy fun safe place for the idiots to live in. We certainly have the tools to deal with these people, whether its egress filtering to prevent them from becoming a menace to everyone else, or the police arresting them after their computer is used by the russian mafia to sell child porn.

Or in other words.

[LWATCDR]

Viruses bad. Okay.
Gator bad.
Firefox good.
Outlook bad.
Thunderbird good.
Email saying they will give you money, bad.

Latin

[panxerox]

Isent this having the desired effect? I mean thats whats is for isent it? To keep the unwashed masses (or washed as the case may be) out of IT as much as possbile. That was why latin was chosen for the church sort of like a private code that only the initiated could understand.

Dear lord...

[Pants75]

Why should everything in the whole world be dumbed down for the lowest common denominator?

These people have to take responsibility for their online actions just like in real life

If they go giving away their CC details because they didn't understand the security warning about phishing (rubbish name by the way), then they really shouldn't expect to not get taken to the cleaners.

Would you give me your CC details in the street if I asked nicely? No? You Sure?

How about your National Security Number (Social Security Number for you yanks)? Why? Because its sensitive data and you don't want to get ripped off?

Then don't do it online without being aware of your actions.

Rant Of The Angry Brit Over

Re:Dear lord...

[Ironsides]

Why should everything in the whole world be dumbed down for the lowest common denominator? These people have to take responsibility for their online actions just like in real life

Read this, then get back to me about the lowest common denominator. (BTW, I agree with you, but that isn't what some schools are teaching). http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/books/ fulltext/schoolreform/132.pdf

Re:Dear lord...

[Jesus_666]

Quote fom the PDF: "When parents are happy there are fewer lawsuits [...]"

The thought of a country where that sentence applies scares me. Seriously. If there's anything that made me appreciate Germany and the European Union then it's the constant stream of stories about things like that.

Sorry for the troll, but seriously - a country where the first reaction to anything unpleasant is a lawsuit is quite scary. Especially when the country in question is a superpower.

I got confused by jargon once...

[Anita Coney]

A while ago I kept seeing the word "forceware" on various tech sites. I assumed it was related to spyware/maleware in some way. I assumed it related specifically to spyware you were forced to install to get some other program, e.g., all the spyware you're forced to get with Kazaa.

Eventually I learned with ForceWare really is. But for the life of me I cannot understand why nVidia chose such an asinine name for their drivers!

Other than some S&Mers I know, who really likes being forced to do anything?!

Huge divide between us and average users

[taneem]

I get tons of scammer emails from all the usual sources .. Ebay, Nigeria etc. And like most readers I recognize them instantly and delete without thinking about it.

Recently I was horrified to see that my dad had received an email from his "bank" asking to verify his financial details - it was an obvious scam from my POV, but my dad of course tried to reply (thankfully the email link had been banned by then so no damage was done). For the record he's got 3 degrees in physics, so I could hardly chalk it up to him being dumb. There is still a very high level of trust amongst users for the internet.

However, I'm pretty certain I could still scam people into giving me their credit card info by just phoning them and bsing something. So you can't blame the technology entirely.

Most users simply do not see the internet and all these threats the way we do. An big issue since we're the ones supposed to be helping them.

Just incase

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Just incase some "normal" people are here.

"phishing" - Setting up a fake website to steal credit card numbers. Usualy done via e-mail as a "we lost your details, please.." type thing

"rogue dialler" - A virus which uses your PC torepeatedly dial a peak rate number so it costs you alot of money.

"Trojan" - A program which lets others connect to your PC with little to no effort giving them full control over it.

"spyware" - Spyware is software which monitors what you do and sends it back to a company usually. It's not dangerous but on mass it slows your PC to a crawl.

I'd put fixs but most are "get a firewall, virus scanner, spybot+adaware and firefox.". Infact that's exactly what I told a "normal PC users" yesterday :)

Re:Just incase

[brkello]

Has the definition of a Trojan changed? Isn't it just a (generally) malicious program/script that piggybacks itself on a program that the user runs. A Trojan can be used to install some remote desktop tool that gives others access to it, but it could really run anything.

In that case

[Stargoat]

In that case, most computer users are idiots as well. When you go to a bank to get a mortgage, you need to know about APR, Interest Rates, Identity Theft, PMI, Adjustable Rate Mortgages, basic percentage mathematics, credit scores, and buying down points. When you use a computer, you should know how to update Windows, how not to click on the link to install spyware, and how not to open suspicious e-mails. It's not more difficult, it just takes a little bit of awareness of the environment around you. There is no excuse for the average user not knowing these things.

Newspeak rules!

[ceeam]

Should we rush to the "common denominator" then? I don't think so ("Press that thingy and watch the blinky..."). Anyway - having skimmed the article - I don't see what's so "geeky" in "trojan" at least as opposed to "virus". What other non-newspeak-like word should we use for "spam" or "spyware"? If anything they'd better campaign against corporate-speak and legalese.

PS: WTF is "bamboozled"? :) I looked in my dictionary and I don't think it means what they think it means.

In other news...

[peterprior]

"medical speak confuses patients" and "mechanic speak confuses car owners"..

Some professions require profession specific language. Deal.

Geek Speak

[selectspec]

Nigerian Gold

Geek for a really good investment idea.

AOL survey?

[Arctic Dragon]

Of course AOL users don't understand geek speak.
</ENGLISH VERSION>

<AOL VERSION>
OF COURSE AOL USERS DONT UNDERSTAND GEK SP3AK111!1 OMG WTF LOL
</AOL VERSION>



http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslat or.html

ESR on AOL users

[gtoomey]

From The Jargon File

September that never ended
All time since September 1993. One of the seasonal rhythms of the Usenet used to be the annual September influx of clueless newbies who, lacking any sense of netiquette, made a general nuisance of themselves. This coincided with people starting college, getting their first internet accounts, and plunging in without bothering to learn what was acceptable. These relatively small drafts of newbies could be assimilated within a few months. But in September 1993, AOL users became able to post to Usenet, nearly overwhelming the old-timers' capacity to acculturate them; to those who nostalgically recall the period before, this triggered an inexorable decline in the quality of discussions on newsgroups. Syn. eternal September.

Re:ESR on AOL users

[Jay Carlson]

Of course, there's a perl script for this.

nop@prentice:~$ sepdate
Wed Sep 4236 17:38:23 EDT 1993

Quoting from the original post:

Prints the date in same format as Unix date command (default) but unlike the buggy date command this script does take into account the fact that September 1993 never ended.

Zounds!

[Srass]

What's this? Laymen don't understand jargon? What a new concept this is. Thank goodness the Beeb finally clued us in! We certainly haven't been aware of this problem for longer than I've been alive...

But seriously, this is pretty much what jargon means. It allows us to express some fairly complicated concepts concisely enough to get things done in a reasonable amount of time. Remember, too, that these are words for things that the general populace doesn't really have a precise concept for already.

Re:Who really answered this survey?

[peterpi]

"I have to wonder who participated in the survey. Elementary school kids and people who think AOL is the Internet?"

Why not? They outnumber slashdot readers by orders of magnitude.

Article writer confused about terms too

[ThePolkapunk]

It seems like the writer of the article is confused about these "geek" terms as well, as he got the definition of a Trojan wrong.

From the article: A Trojan is a malicious piece of software which installs itself on a person's computer without their knowledge.

A Trojan, or Trojan Horse, is actually a malicious program that purports to be a legitimate application. To be classified as a Trojan, it must require execution by the user. The Trojan Horse of myth was left at the gates of Troy seemingly as a gift, but actually housed men who unlocked the gates to allow the invading armies into Troy. Hence the name Trojan Horse for the program.

Wikipedia says: A trojan horse computer program has a useful and desired function, or at least it has the appearance of having such. Secretly the program performs other, undesired functions.

medical jargon

[b0bby]

Hibbert: Homer, I'm afraid you'll have to undergo a coronary bypass operation.
Homer: Say it in English, Doc.
Hibbert: You're going to need open heart surgery.
Homer: Spare me your medical mumbo jumbo.
Hibbert: We're going to cut you open and tinker with your ticker.
Homer: Could you dumb it down a shade?

Maybe if AOLers would learn to READ

[aardwolf204]

<RANT>

And I bet these people are fully capable of learning this jargon. They are capable of using a search engine and can hopefully read at an 8th grade level. But for some reason, dispite the fact that 20% of them do not know how to protect themselves online, they will become zombies before googling "define spyware" or asking jeeves "what can i do to protect my computer", or heaven forbid clicking on the windows update icon *right at the top of their start menu* and maybe even following Microsoft's 3 basic steps to securing your computer (firewall, anti-virus, windows update).

I'm sure when it comes to other things, cooking for example, they are more than likely to ask a friend for advice, get a book, or watch an educational television program. But when it comes to computers, especially AOL users (sorry for the generalization, no offense AOL/.ers) as in this article, leaving the realm of keywords, buddy lists, 10,000 smileys, punching munkies, and "you've got mail" is very unlikely to happen.

If it werent for the fact that they are going to end up becoming zombies that will aimlessly try passwords on my FTP and SMTP servers I could care less about these lusers, not for their ignorance, but their unwillingness to secure their stuff or learn.

</RANT>

--Angry Sysop

20 percent admit they can't protect themselves.

[Rightcoast]

Twenty percent admitted they did not know what to do to protect themselves generally online.

Then you have to take into account the 70 percent that are to stupid to even realize they don't, they only think they do.

What amazes me...

[lucason]

Is that users generally have no trouble admitting there just plain to stupid to understand what a puter acually is or should be used for, but yet they fail to show proper respect to those who do.

Once I told a user to read the error message:
Answer: I'm an accountant not a computer expert.
My answer: Hey, I just asked you to READ. Didn't you learn that in accounting school... (I didn't last long in user support LOL)

Solution

[samael]

Will someone please tell these people to buy a Mac?

I _like_ Windows - but I recognise that looking after my PC requires effort, due to the security problems - I haven't been hit by a virus in 8 years, because _I know how to use my computer_, but I recognise that most users just want to check email/surf the web - which a Mac does just as well as a Windows box (and arguably better).

Re:Solution

[NewStarRising]

One of the major points of this article was phishing scams (fake email pretending to be from a legitimate source in an attempt to gain your personal/security details).
Is the Mac immune to such attacks?

Having never used a mac for email I do not know how its mail clients deal with such things.
I do know that if people get an email saying "Your account has been hacked - Click Here to re-secure your account" then they will follow it.
How does a Mac protect against this?

Unfortunately

[gone.fishing]

Most home users have jobs. Many of these jobs require computers. These same users bring their ignorance into the workplace where people like me have to support them.

I try my best to educate them on the theory that an informed person is less likely to repeat the mistake. This is supposed to make my job easier. But they don't care, they find some slightly different way of making the same mistake over and over again.

It doesn't stop with spyware, trojans, and viruses either. I've had laptops come in so filthy that they hade to be taken apart and cleaned out before they would boot. Coffee on the keyboard is common. So are cracked LCD displays (although they aren't often repeated).

The most dangerous user isn't the uninformed one though. The most dangerous user is the one who knows just enough to be dangerous. They will give themselves Admin rights using a disk freely available on the internet and then try to change things that they shouldn't. By the time I get the computer it is a real mess and they know enough to plead ignorance. Those ones really torque me.

When I think about that sub-set, I think I'll take the ignorant user thank you very much.

bloody brilliant

[shalla]

I hate to burst AOL UK's bubble, but your average person is bamboozled by specialized terms outside their own experience no matter what the field. Exactly what do they think we should do? (Other than switch to AOL, of course, because it will protect us... if we can get it to stop screwing up our computers.)

We use terms like "phishing" because typing out "faked e-mail pretending to be from a legitimate source in order to solicit personal information for use in identity theft or illicit entry into controlled systems" gets a little old.

It's not like the terms are not explained when used in the general press. They are. And if a person wants to know what something means, they can easily look it up. There are also a lot of basic computer articles from publications like PC Magazine that explain terms. Hell, I offer a free class for the public at my library to explain what different terms mean and how to deal with computer security.

I think there's a distinct difference between saying "People don't know the meanings behind these terms!" and saying "People will never be able to protect themselves because you're using terms that are too technical!" The second is assigning blame for users not protecting themselves. The problem isn't the words--it's that people in general haven't read up on the issue.

I guess I'll go complain to my bank that I don't understand the differences between all the different stocks and bonds available, so they need to change their names to long, explanatory phrases...

Favorite M:tG Quote

[Ironsides]

1|= y()u (4|\| r3@d 7#][5, y0|_| /\r3 @ IVI0/\/$+3|2 &33|

Source: Magical Hacker

Also, 1f u c4n r34d +h1$, u r3411y n33d +0 g37 141d

Re:Favorite M:tG Quote

[jazman]

If you can read this, you are a monster geek, and I'm an even bigger monster geek, perhaps even a T.Rex geek, because I worked out that slashdot stripped the trailing less-than.

And if this works, then I can eat T.Rex geeks for breakfast: 1|= y()u (4|\| r3@d 7#][5, y0|_| /\r3 @ |V|0|\|$+3|2 &33|<

A Plea To Programmers For Better Dialogs

[WombatControl]

As programmers, we have to consider communicating with our users better. For instance, Apple has the right idea when it comes to dialog boxes: always make the options for each button a verb. Yes/No/Cancel buttons require users to read a usually convoluted sentence and then interpret what they're agreeing to. This causes all sorts of usability problems.

To run with the parent poster's dialog, a more usable dialog would read:

Oil Levels are low. Would you like to:
Change Oil | Do Not Change Oil

Just by reading the button text a user will know precisely what each option will do.

This is something that programmers both open-source and closed can do right now to enhance usability. Apple has the right idea, and there's no reason why we should have software that confuses our users with unclear dialogs.

Re:A Plea To Programmers For Better Dialogs

[arose]

Gnome programmers do.

Re:A Plea To Programmers For Better Dialogs

[Ken D]

Who says that changing the oil will increase its level? Perhaps you'll just end up with not enough oil that is newer.

Re:A Plea To Programmers For Better Dialogs

[Spectre]

I think instead of your options, I'd prefer:

"Oil levels are low. Would you like to:"

[add oil] [ruin engine]

I think it gets the point across better. :-)

Re:A Plea To Programmers For Better Dialogs

[myov]

I won't do anything unless Clippy tells me to. :)

Re:A Plea To Programmers For Better Dialogs

[Javagator]

It's funny, I was following this convention for a system I wrote, and a human interface "expert" required me to change everything to "Yes, No, Cancel".

Trojan Horse

[paulatz]

Yet, only 39% knew what a "Trojan" was when asked.

If someone doesn't know what a Trojan Horse is it is not geek-speach fault.

s/computer/car/

[Cytlid]

I'm not a "car" person. I can't stand them and don't understand them. Unfortunately everyone uses them and I'm forced to use one everyday, even at work! They're stupid devices which just annoy me. All this techno mumbo jumbo. "Steering Wheel" and "accelerator pedal" and "right-of-way". It's all just a mess. And it's only for Nascar fans anyhow.
Why must I do the "speed limit"? What's a "turn signal"? And worse of all, my "gas meter" is on E! What's that mean? Noone told me I'd have to take it to someplace and get it "filled up" ... and the prices of gasoline! WOW! Also, I don't understand "oil changes"? I thought it came ready for me to go, I don't want to take it every 3 months or 3,000 miles. That's ridiculous!

Re:s/computer/car/

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Your point is well taken, but your analogy is flawed in a number of ways.

The average person can understand why going too fast might cause them to die, and thus it is something to be avoided. A reasonably intelligent person can understand why (from a technical perspective) all the gas and oil your car will ever need is not included with the vehicle. They can also understand that everything breaks occasionally and when it happens they need to get it fixed.

Now look at computers. You buy a computer and before you even use it you have to download updates or it will be remotely hacked. Why is that (from a technical perspective)? Is it so hard to design a system that has everything except the update feature firewalled initially and that automatically updates during the setup? Not to mention all the exposed services running on a default Windows install. It's stupid to sell systems in that state and customers suffer for it. If not for a certain monopoly they wouldn't stand for it, but they don't even know they have a choice in most cases and in many they don't have a choice.

It's easy to blame the users for being stupid. "my 'gas meter' is on E! What's that mean?" you wrote in your example. How many unidentified icons are in your car, that you actually need to use. Usually 5-10 of them. That is not ideal, but it is manageable. How many thousands of icons and widgets does an average user see trying to run a system to check e-mail and look at web pages?

People know that things break. Cars break down, maybe once a month, maybe once every 5 years, depending on your car and other factors. Computers break (or appear to break to the user) almost every day. Every time a dialogue box appears it means the computer has stopped doing what the user wants and is now asking them to do something to "fix it" so they can go back to completing their task. Not only does it break, but as this article mentions it does so in some very ambiguous ways. A user might see a box with some technical jargon and two buttons, one labeled "OK" and one labeled "Cancel." Given the wording of the warning, it may or may not be obvious to someone fluent in English which box will take a given action, or even what action is being questioned. Is it really so hard to have buttons that actually say something like "don't do it" and "do it, I trust this website." What about warning boxes that appear with a message and just have an "OK" button. How is this useful? The box might read "I'm going to delete all your porn and send an e-mail to Don King that says you're going to kick his ass." and what is the user going to do? There is only one option. Why bother to even pop-up a dialogue box?

Now their is plenty of blame to go around. Many users are stupid or just don't want to learn. Of course most of them only want to accomplish a few specific tasks. The main problem is that computers are not designed for their users and when users hate they way a computer works, they don't really have a choice of going with someone else. If MS did not have their monopoly people would go into the store and pick from one of three or four types of operating systems and based upon how well they liked it would either buy a new version of it at a later date and recommend it to their friends or not. Right now when they buy a car if the controls are too complex and it breaks all the time. They bitch about it and buy a different brand and encourage their friends to do the same. Different types of cars cater to different types of users. If they buy a computer that crashes, gets worms, and is hard to use and they go back to the store they buy another Windows machine because that is their only option. My point is that while users may be dumb and not want to learn, that does not mean using computers does not suck because they are poorly designed and are not improving because of the MS hegemony.

Re:s/computer/car/

[cowscows]

It's more complicated than that because the majority of computer problems are software based. Software exists in a state that most people are not used to seeing, in that it's not physical. How can something not physical be broken? What does it mean for it to be broken? Many people don't have any intuitive sense or past experiences to help them understand.

One of the first things to try when you're fixing a computer problem is to turn the machine off, then back on. That magically fixes all sorts of things. How weird is that, if you don't understand how a computer functions. If something on my car isn't functioning, shutting off the engine and restarting probably isn't going to help. It'll be just as broken when I start driving again.

When I take my car into the shop, even if I don't know what's wrong, a mechanic can point at worn down parts, broken seals, etc, and I can at least understand how something failed. I might not know what that piece does exactly, or even care, but I can see with my own eyes what went wrong.

Computer problems are entirely different. A tech might show me an errant process in the task manager, but that doesn't mean anything to a lot of people. Even the ones that are supposed to be there look pretty random. And the same. How does a registry get corrupted? Aren't bits and bytes non-physical objects? Can't they be copied indefinitely? If so, how can my copy get messed up? Why don't I have backup copies? On the surface, a lot of it doesn't make any sense.

Because of your marketting dept, that's why

[Moraelin]

If Joe Average wants to get a car, he's already been told a thousand times basically "cars are a difficult and dangerous thing. Keep your fingers off until you've been through driving school." There's honesty in that.

What the computer industry lacks is precisely this kind of honesty.

Joe Average is _bombarded_ with ads telling him "hey, our computer/program/card/whatever is easy! Grandma could use it! You just plug it in and it runs!" (Runs a DDOS zombie, a spam proxy and a couple of RPC viruses, that is.)

In the computer industry noone gives a fsck about the user. We only care about sales. Products are shipped intentionally with security disabled ever day, because asking Joe to first set his password or generate a WEP key is perceived as too hard.

Nah, let's make it look easy at least until we've got Joe's money. Then, ha ha, sucks to be him. We'll just call him an idiot when he gets bitten by _our_ lack of security.

Joe is also told "nah, you don't need to learn anything! This is so easy even grandma could use it right out of the box!" That's the message that marketting is pumping into Joe. (Because otherwise they might lose sales.) So let's stop with the acting surprised when the product is actually bought by a Joe who isn't interested in becoming a computer expert to use it.

Want less "idiots" using your program? Fine. Tell your boss that your company should stop the lie campaigns. Advertise the product as "not for people without extensive network admin experience" for example. Then I do believe that you'll have a lot less idiots to complain about.

Of course, you'd also have a helluva lot less sales.

And I'll tell you another difference between computers and the car industry. In the car industry they don't act like arrogant "I'm a god because I know how to change oil" idiots. They actually try to make a better product, instead of calling the user names.

Let's say an automobile company finds out that, say, the bucket seats on sports models get worn out because the users put a leg over the raised edge. And I'm picking the bucket seat because that can't be dismissed as "oh, they only do that because cars can kill." No, it just has to do with user comfort. You know what the manufacturer will do? Try to design a better chair, and spend weeks testing it.

Whereas in the computer industry we'd just call the user an "idiot". I mean, geeze, it may not be anywhere in the manual, but the user should have just _known_ to not put a leg over the seat's edge. The user should, in fact, do all sorts of uncomfortable tricks to make up for _our_ failure to design a good product. Otherwise he's an idiot.

You know... maybe in this industry it's not the users who are idiots. Just a thought.

Re:Because of your marketting dept, that's why

[cloudmaster]

Yeah, it's entirely the fault of software developers that computer users don't bother to read a single manual, ever. Driving a car *well* requires training, even though most any idiot, given enough time, could probably figure out that one pedal goes fast, one goes slow, and the wheel thing makes the car turn. Similarly, most any idiot, given enough time, can figure out how to operate a computer mouse - but just because they're sitting in front of the box making clickie things go click, doesn't mean that it's my job to protect them from clicking on the "make computer go boom" series of buttons.

Anyone who's ever worked in tech suppport has heard "I didn't do anything, it just broke". Anyone who works in a garage has heard the same thing. And it's often the users fault that they were using something that they didn't understand. The solution is *not* to make everything indestructible, it's to aceive a good balance between ease of use (which may, gasp, incluede actually *learning*, maybe even from a manual) and flexibility.

Cars would be much less prone to fatal accidents if they would get rid of that pesky gas pedal, but I don't see many people pushing that...

suck it up!

[rtphokie]

If these people aren't willing to take a few moments to learn a couple of definitions, then unplug that PC and take it back to Best Buy. Sure there are a plethora of words and phrases to learn but most have their purpose and replacing them all with "bad thing" does a disservice to notice and geek alike.

Of the examples in the article, only "phishing" is word that is really unnecessary and could be replaced by less hip, more descriptive language. The rest (ex: rogue dialer, Trojan, spyware) are descriptive enough to be useful and are could be deciphered by someone with zero computer experience but enough common sense.

Nobody is asking these people to learn MC680X0 assembly, just to recognize a couple of phrases. They seem to think that being able to identify the CPU, keyboard and mouse thanks to their $30 investment in the Time-Life series on computers ends the learning curve and everything else should be so "user friendly" that they'll be hand held though everything.

With great power, comes great responsibility

[Prien715]

"With great power, comes great responsibility" -- Stan Lee

Power is always going to be proportional to risk. Users are fine with being able to send messages to people all over the world, make their own CDs, and read news/events from anyway in the world on their PC. It's a pretty damn powerful device.

The telephone gave people one of those abilities, and most people know how to deal with telemarketers. There's little difference between the worst telemarketers and phishing.

Most people know if their car is broken, to take it to a mechanic, but there's also just certain things they just shouldn't do. Like drive with the parking break on. Or drive on the left side of the road except in England/Japan/Australia/etc. Maybe, oh I dont' know, not opening e-mail attachments could be an analogue. Is taking your car to get a tune-up every once in a while really that much different than running Windows Update (or your OS's equivalent)?

The computer simply allows people to do more things more quickly than any other invention has in the 20th century (except possibly the car). With all this power, users must take responsibility for their actions, or at least know who to take stuff to when it goes wrong. A user with a trojan is like a person driving a car with bad brakes -- a danger to themselves and everyone around them.

As the technology becomes older, I think knowing these terms will become as common-place as their older equipmnt, but I think that'll take at least one generation for society to work out -- just as it did in the previous cases.

Re:Another dumbass kid who think it knows it all

[Overzeetop]

We did, and it wasn't good enough (browsers, not OSes). There was a time when browsers couldn't execute anything - they just rendered html. But you wanter more. You wanted forms, and shopping, and banking. Eye candy and became more important than information; convenience more important than security.

If you remember DARPAnet, you know what the internet looked like in the late 80s/early 90s (which is when I got on). It was simple, obscure, and relatively safe. There were still explopits, but they were mostly beased on social engineering.

Let me ask you - if someone calls you on the phone and says they're from your bank, and they need your [SSN, credit card number, password] to [reactivate your account, authorize your automatic debit, enable your direct deposit, process your loan application] do you do it? Of course not! You've leared through countless ads and news stories that scammers will call you up to get your infomration, then steal you blind. But there are people who still do. Nobody is saying that the phone system is too hard to use or too filled with jargon to be "safe."

This isn't levelled at you personally, it's just that you've taken up the cause of the stupid people (see my sig and journal for explanation). I don't do "mission critical" stuff with technology or tools I don't understand.

The problem is that if you make it so simple that anyone can use it, it will probably be so simple that everyone will use it. Good for marketing, bad for safety. Press the button on that circular saw and the blade spins really really fast. As simple as that is, there are still multitudes of people who manage to cut their fingers off "accidentally." No matter how many safety devices there are, you'll always fiund someone who has mananged to circumvent them, either unintentionally or intentionally - usually in the name of "efficiency" (can you say "password file?") Expanding more, there are no doctors hiding behind the shed ready to make money by enticing you into cutting your fingers off. There are people on the internet who have a finacial interest in figuring out how to trick you into misusing your powerful but dangerous online financial tools.

Re:Kentucky Fried Chicken

[jedidiah]

My cousins that died in Nazi deathcamps are not equivalent to chickens.

Re:Ultimate Guide to Geek Speak

[Anonymous Cow herd]

...unless you work at hooters.

I don't know any average computer users

[GMFTatsujin]

My wife's got a PhD in Political Science and can rattle off names and theories of power that make my head spin. I wouldn't call her average.

I work with doctors who a routinely called upon to diagnose and treat some of the more complex biological systems on the planet (read: humans). I wouldn't call them average.

I teach honors students who are literate, thoughtful, articulate, and and curious to learn. I wouldn't call them average.

Yet somehow, each of these kinds of people, highly developed in their own baliwick, is supposed to be "average" when it comes to their intimate knowledge of how a computer works?

They spent their time mastering their own domains. I may be able to repair a corrupted installation of the OS on a surgeon's workstation, but I wouldn't trust myself to perform open-heart surgery. Why expect it to work the other way around?

Computer expertise is a specialty field, not a life skill (whatever we may think of that situation). We're talking about a deeper understanding of how a computer works: one that goes beyond "turn it on and double-click the picture on the screen." Computers are complex systems of inter-relating processes which all must be understood if any are to be used with maximum efficiency.

Also, I don't know where the transmission on my car is, and I'm only about 10% sure I know how the distributor works. Does that make me a bad driver, or just a lousy mechanic?

Re:I don't know any average computer users

[fafalone]

Computer expertise is a speciality, working knowledge is not.

You're not a political scientist, but I'm sure you know who the president is, and that the US is not a communist state. You're aware of the 3 branches of government, and probably can describe what each generally does.
You're not a doctor, but I'm sure you know your ass from your elbow, and that licking a dirty surface will make you sick. I'm also sure you're aware smoking causes cancer, and excessive alcohol causes liver failure.

So why shouldn't general computer users be expected to know what behaviors will cause problems with their computer and how to avoid doing them? Computer expertise is programming, advanced circuit theory, optics, engineering, etc. Rudimentary understanding to accomplish things practical to you should be expected and derided as unacceptable ignorance when lacking. Nobody is asking these 'normal' people to write their own OS.

Many call it blissful ignorance

[gerardrj]

These people don't know what they don't know. Since they are unaware of the knowledge required to properly operate/repair a computer, it follows that they do not seek it and do not understand the terms when presented. As a result of this ignorance the computer user is more at risk to be taken advantage of.

This is not a problem unique to computers, it it true of every technological device people use. Does the average person driving a car actually know how a turbocharger works or the terminology used in talking about repairing one: waste gate, compressor, turbine, fluid bearing, intercooler? When they go to a repair shop to get the engine repaired, will they have any clue about what these things are? If I said "Your waste gate trim tabs are locked open and that's causing the grinding noise", would an average person know if I could even be correct? I think not (that statement is bogus by the way. there are no trim tabs on a turbocharger waste gate and a waste gate would not cause an audible noise.)

The problem I see is the growing tendency in the U.S. to simply choose to NOT become informed/educated about how things in our lives work. In "the old days" people generally had a fairly good idea of how everyday things worked. Granted things were simpler, but there's no reason for today's population to at least know the basics. I think the knowledge of the average automobile driver is; the fuel goes there, turn the key to start and stop the engine, vertical pedal=go faster, horizontal pedal=slow down, and what buttons to press to open the windows and change the radio.
It's not very much different for the average computer owner: plug that in to the power outlet, that other thing in to the phone line, click the pretty picture to get on the internet. I'm not suggesting that every new user needs to be a CCIE, but we'd all be a lot better off if the ignorance pendulum started swinging back the other way for a while.

This is news?

[Brooklynoid]

I'm not sure why this would be a surprise to anyone; the communications gap between IT professionals and the general population has been around as long as computers have. This gap is present in any technical industry, as well; how many of the great unwashed understand everything they hear from their doctor or their auto mechanic? The difference is that we've been conditioned to expect to pay doctors and auto mechanics for their skill and for explaining things in lay terms where necessary. Folks seem to expect computers to be "easy" and support for them to be free, for some reason.

Unfortunately, confusing words are required.

[Telastyn]

Because the proper dialog box:
"You're fucked."

Offends users rather than merely confusing them.

Legal Jargon

[jtbauki]

This reminds me of everytime I see a TOS agreement and have no clue what the heck they are talking about. There has to be a way for people to cut through the jargon and get to the gist of it. What's the point of language if most people have no clue what you're talking about...?

Why Not...

[eno2001]

...write the warnings in plain, honest English:

Subject: New computer virus is attacking all home computers that run Windows and that have internet access.

Q. Are you affected?
A. You may be affected if your system is a Windows system purchased after 8/1/2000 and you haven't done any Microsoft recommended maintenance on it.

Q. What can happen if I get infected?
A. This virus will allow the programmer who wrote the virus to open all confidential information stored on your computer's hard drive. This includes personal e-mail, all history of web sites that you've visited (yes, even THOSE websites), any personal documents you may have created (word processor, spread sheet, database, photos, etc...). It also turns your computer into a "zombie" that is used to send junk e-mail (spam).

Q. What happens if I ignore this problem?
A. The people responsible for creating this virus may gain the ability to delete or destroy all of your confidential data. If your system is being used as a "zombie" to send junk e-mail, your internet sevice may cut you off until the problem is resolved.

Q. How do I know if I am infected?
A. Consider paying a professional to check your system for you. If you are infected, the cost of bringing your system back to a secure and usable condition may be very high. After that expense, consider it the cost of learning that it's cheaper to prevent the problem to begin with by maintaining your system. You get oil changes for your car, right? You cleanse your toilet bowl, correct? same thing... Maintina your computer either by learning how to do it, or paying someone to do it for you.

Computers are not simple machines. This problem is here for a good long while until the approach shfts.

Again, that's what your marketting told them

[Moraelin]

I stand by what I've said: If your company's ads told them "you need to read a bookshelf worth of manuals to use our product", then you'd have less of those people calling you. Of course, the company would also have less customers, which is why they prefer to lie instead.

I know it's a surprising concept, but most people have better stuff to do with their time. A doctor or a lawyer's time is better spent, *gasp*, learning more about medicine and law, than becoming an expert in computing. Their time is more valuable than that.

It may come as a blow to your ego, but chances are your program isn't worth the time to go through the learning curve.

Here's some basic economics: The computer is just a tool for them. A tool which requires more time to babysit, than it would take to do the same thing by hand, is a bad tool. And most software falls squarely into that category.

E.g., the time and effort to babysit a computer (virus scanner, firewall, spam, etc) to just send an email is actually a worse use of even _my_ time than just using the post office. Just thinking that Joe Average has to spend some extra months to achieve the level of expertise you demand from him, just leaves me scratching my head: why would he ever want to waste his time like that?

Which, again, is why your marketting dept lies about it. If you told people "you need to read a bookshelf worth of manuals to use our product", you'd discover that, plain and simple, your product isn't worth that.

Having some experience here...

[Grendel Drago]

I've been working on phone support for a month or two. I've been mostly impressed by how the users are generally able to do clear paper jams from their printers, replace toner cartridges, and so forth. And then I remember that it's very important to tell them to power off the box on the floor, not just the monitor, because to them, that's the computer. (We have this paradigm already with DVD players and televisions. Why isn't it obvious with computers?)

Everyone at the installation I support has a uniform, centrally controlled environment, so I do get to make simplifying assumptions about a user's setup. And generally we distinguish between server and workstation problems by asking "can the next guy over access it?", so the problem you talked about generally doesn't happen.

Mostly I deal with "the so-and-so server is down", whereupon I check it and it is, in fact, down, and then I bother the site support people. If it's not that, it's usually "my password doesn't work", which means "I forgot my password", which is fine; I can reset it.

Then there's "my computer is slow", which means spyware. And I've learned to take harmless error messages (complaining that drive A is empty on startup when it shouldn't need to read from the floppy) seriously, because they also frequently mean spyware.

So it's been different than I expected. Users regularly thank me, and I've only had one user ever become really, really irate, when I didn't move fast enough for her. ("HELLO? [thwacking the phone] HELLO? HELLO?") Thankfully, that was the only really awful call I've had in more than a month.

--grendel drago

Re:Kentucky Fried Chicken

[festers]

You do realize that the word "holocaust" refers to mass death (usually by fire), and not just a single event that happened during WWII, right? Or were you just trolling?

Live in your living room...

[Anonymous Coward]

Outraged vegetarian vs. Outraged cousin of deathcamp victim.

Who will own the word holocaust and get a chance to compete for the phrase "mass graves" against the upstart "Right to lifers", fresh off their stunning defeat of the "Anti-war movement."

Only on pay per view.