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Millennials Value Speed Over Security, Says Survey (dailydot.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Dot: Millennials stand apart from other Americans in preferring faster Internet access to safer Internet access, according to a new survey. When digital-authentication firm SecureAuth asked people from all age groups whether they would rather be safer online or browse faster online, 57 percent of Americans chose security and 43 percent chose speed. But among millennials, the results were almost reversed: 54 percent chose speed over security. Young people are also more willing than the overall population to share sensitive information over public Wi-Fi connections, which are notoriously insecure as they allow anyone on the network to analyze and intercept passing traffic. While a clear majority (57 percent) of Americans told SecureAuth that they transmitted such information over public Wi-Fi, nearly eight in 10 (78 percent) of millennials said they did so. A surprising 44 percent of millennials believe their data is generally safe from hackers, and millennials are more likely than members of other age groups to share account passwords with friends. Americans overall are paying more attention to some aspects of digital security. An October 2015 study by the wireless industry's trade group found that 61 percent of Americans use passwords on their smartphones and 58 percent use them on their tablets, compared to 50 percent and 48 percent, respectively, in 2012. The recent study lines up with a report published on May 24 that found that the elderly use more secure passwords than millennials.
But of course that's obvious. They've also been indoctrinated by 'social media', the media in general, and corporations that sharing everything is normal, and that 'privacy' is something anomalous, and that only people with something to hide want privacy. The real question is: will they live long enough to learn the error of their ways, and even more to the point, will they learn that before they reproduce and pass on their indoctrinated ways to another generation?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Are parents not teaching their children about VPN? SlashdotDeals is offering discount VPN packages from several vendors, and that solves the insecure WiFi problems.
Of course they do. "stop and think" is not taught in schools anymore (if it ever was). The only reason my kids aren't getting their PCs owned every 2 months is because they're sitting behind pfsense and the file server is virus scanned daily. I can't even imagine what millenials do when their stuff doesn't work any more.... oh wait, I do:
"Meh. I'll just buy another one."
COPPA doesn't work very well... kids need education as to what they can do online, they need to know the rules about oversharing when they get started. They should be shown e-mail and texting to people they already know before they learn to publish. Dr. Spock didn't know about this problem in time to write about it.
Tell me, every time you wait in line for TSA anal probing, don't you prefer speed over security?
What type of Security are you talking about? If the security comes in the form boot locking and signed code at the cost of removing fair use, I'd be against it too.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Yes, it really is that simple. They have no reference to the expectation of privacy and freedom. The surveillance state is normal to them.
They're trying to position this as a generational thing, like the upcoming generation is going to behave some way that's completely different than all previous ones.
What if it has nothing to do with being a "Millennial"? What if it's just about being young and stupid (or if you prefer, inexperienced)? But I guess that wouldn't play to the gender gap dollar. "Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market..."
Breakfast served all day!
[quote]to share sensitive information over public Wi-Fi connections, which are notoriously insecure[/quote]
I've never understood this whole idea - anything sensitive should be going over an encrypted connection anyway. Who cares if some idiot sitting next to me in the coffee shop can sniff it? He can't make heads or tails of it anyway. In the case of a MITM attack set up in the wireless gateway, the certificate validation / host key / other host validation protocols should fail. Adding a VPN connection adds layers of defence, but something that's highly unnecessary for most individuals and data.
Otherwise, I'm probably just browsing sites that don't require logins or any other information from me - in which case, again, there's nothing secret or proprietary there and I don't care if I get sniffed.
The reason is that the ways that typical security are applied = actually insecure and less effective (for the user).
Take for example, a very common password requirement at Chase bank: They require that passwords be >8 characters, have a !@#$@# special character, numbers, capital letters, etc.
And.. if you forget your password, it cannot be reset to the same as any of your last 5 old passwords. Even if the last passwords were reset voluntarily due to forgetting.
So when I, with already a relatively good memory for passwords, forget my nonsensical password that matches no other password at Chase, I cannot reset it to something I can even temporarily remember as my past password because that is not allowed.
That leads to me into this neverending password hell of constantly rotating passwords and resets that make me feel like I have less access to my account and less ability to monitor what's going on.
I much prefer the slightly less secure but easier to remember passwords with no such restrictions when I have to reset it due to forgetfulness. This is a ridiculous state of affairs.
Computers are cheap now, close to free if you look enough. None of my computers that have anything remotely valuable have internet access. That should be secure enough.
COPPA doesn't work very well.
COPPA doesn't apply to millennials. Millennials are people that came of age around the year 2000, so they are adults now. COPPA applies to kids under the age of 13. In much of the English speaking world, a zero is referred to as "naught", so these kids born during the 00 decade are called "naughties".
Freedom to me isn't trying to fit in with my peers and posting nudie pics online because its the new normal in your hypothetical world; it would be being free to choose for myself what I want other people to know about me. I think it is far more advantageous for me to control other people's opinion of me insofar as I only give people information I care to give them. This allows me to be less anchored by other people's thoughts about who they think I am. It is very important to remember that nobody knows who anyone else really is. We only have facsimiles created in our minds built on incomplete information with the blanks filled in with assumptions.
This is not about millennials vs. non-millennials. This is about younger vs. older, in any era.
When we're younger, we're more impatient, more reckless, take more risks, etc. Suffering from the consequences of poor choices helps us to make better ones in the future.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
..That didn't get one single comment above 2
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of dollars to Microsoft because they treasure convenience over security.
Makes me want to barf.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
If you think any of these companies you're putting your trust (and your data) in are your "friend", you've been misled and/or are delusional.
Yes, misled by the generations before them. Those who were so braindead as to consider internet security as an afterthought in its design (favoring speed over encryption), that created "the cloud", that insisted on the use of webmail, that favoured proprietary spyware like Flash over open standards (because they were too slow to create a capable open standard), that capitulated to a proprietary desktop OS monopoly and that have run spying programs that exploited all of this. You handed them a fucked up system that you created.
This is not the fault of one generation, many of them are likely to get burned and this is a combination of thier ignorance and your incompetence and short-sightedness.
They don't have anything substantial to protect yet. Of course they don't care. When you get older, you've (hopefully) accumulated some financial reserves that need to be protected. If you're still young, you typically won't have too much to protect.
Trusting that a network has been built securely is totally different than trusting that no one is [currently] hacking your public wifi. That's just trusting the people around you.
Once again, this whole focus on digital-needs-to-be-secure-otherwise-it-fails is remarkably inconsistent with the windows in my house being made of glass, my car doors being accessible to any locksmith, and the yellow painted line on the highway that keeps high-speed traffic from colliding with other high-speed traffic -- and pedestrians.
Choosing to trust that the persons around you aren't criminals is a good thing for society. My doors are often unlocked. Sometimes I leave my garage door wide open. I drive a convertible, and leave it parked, top-down. And there ain't nothin' stopping anyone from throwing a handful of dandylion seeds into my lawn.
Most of my neighbours have keys to my house -- so they can quickly help me if I need them. I trust that they won't steal my family jewels.
Digital doesn't need to be perfectly secure. It merely needs to be as secure as we choose to need it to be. Judging by everything else in life, that just ain't very secure at all.
Your local jewelry store, for example. Smash the display case, grab the real diamonds (not the fake ones) and run. The front door has a cage to stop you. But there's literally a back door to almost every one of those "secure" stores that has nothing at all to stop you.
It's never been about stopping the criminal. It's always been about making the line very obvious. I don't worry about my car being stolen because it isn't something that anyone's going to do by accident -- grant theft auto is a very big deal. That's all digital needs -- a proper legal system to make illegal things easily prosecutable.
In other words, it's all about the deterrent. Works in the animal kingdom too: no armour is thick enough, no claw sharp enough, to make the fight recreational.
This survey has Dunning Kruger written all over it. These "millennials" haven't yet run into a situation where lack of security bites them in the ass, therefore there is no problem.
This is no different than older people who are anti-vaxxers because they don't believe things like Polio or Measles are a threat, only to change their tune once their precious baby dies or is disabled for life by something that could have been trivially avoided. Or the billion other examples of people who don't take basic precautions or make the effort to learn about this, that, or the other thing.
It all boils down to the fact that people don't know what they don't know, combined with the hubris of thinking that just cause they haven't experienced something, it doesn't exist.
Oh, and then for icing on the cake, throw in the general "My ignorance is as good as your knowledge" attitude prevalent in North America (and presumably other countries), and well... some people just have to learn the hard way.
I wish I could think like this.
But I'm a realist.
There's always going to be some asshole out there trying to impose their will(s) on everyone else and make the world over to their liking.
That's why stuff like this will ALWAYS be needed.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
A network will always be able to mess with your data. Trusting in the security of a network is stupid. It used to be a theoretical threat, but now we know that organizations like the NSA sniff everything they get.
The Internet has taught us that we must always use end-to-end encryption. That's why, unlike the phone network, a big percentage of data is secure. The phone network is one of those networks that are considered to be "secure". In reality it's very likely that most phone calls, and particularly their "metadata", will be recorded. In fact many phone companies record the "metadata" in order to be able to send you a bill.
Secure connections are generally location dependent. If you're not at that location, its a lot faster to use the connection you have where you are.
Oh the irony of all the "millennials are stupid" comments combined with their penchant for voting for Bernie Sanders.
No, Pinky Gigglebrain's response to my Socrates quote was pointless. What does the generation gap have to do with the fall of empires?
Some empires last for a year or two, others for over a thousand years. And everything in between. The Athenian empire had a run of about 70-ish years.
Empires fall because of political and social factors, not because the next generation gets tired of them.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Look, we all know FB and the NSA are tracking us, and it's built in to the code of the apps we use, and even the chipsets on our phones.
We're not stupid.
Now give us 100 GB/sec like we can get on almost any US university campus and nobody will get hurt.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Millennials are just starting in the workforce so they have much less to lose if they do get compromised. That also means that whatever setback occurs can be quickly recovered. While I can understand why they may not care now about exposure of their content and information today - that isn't to say that will be a constant throughout their lives.
Ask them the same question in 10 to 20 years and see what they say. If they have significant savings or other holdings that are compromised that took many years to acquire - or their credit gets trashed - you can bet they will change their answer. There may be edge cases - but the vast majority will have families, mortgages, and other issues that disruption through faulty security will be unacceptable.
Polls like this are of limited value unless you can look beyond the poll itself to what is really behind how people are responding. Don't fall for the hype. Be a critical thinker.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Because it's a matter of making it not worth the criminal's time. A big company might get hacked no matter what security they have, simply due to the value in targeting them. An average person, on the other hand, simply has to not be the low-hanging fruit.
We will always need privacy. We will always be different from each other, and we will always persecute people who have different values because we feel they are inferior. This is human nature. It's not going to change, tribalism is encoded into our genetic makeup, just as wolves banding together in packs is part of their makeup. Privacy will always be necessary because there will always be religion, there will always be conservatism and liberalism, there will always be differences.
Just look at how "social justice" supporters savagely attacked Brendan Eich just because he supported traditional marriage
Funny how you mentioned this, on the other side against your argument, it's the folks that Brendan Eich has fought against who had the most to lose from a loss of privacy. Until very recently, a full loss of personal privacy would also mean a loss of their lives.
If you think any of these companies you're putting your trust (and your data) in are your "friend", you've been misled and/or are delusional.
Yes, misled by the generations before them. Those who were so braindead as to consider internet security as an afterthought in its design (favoring speed over encryption), that created "the cloud", that insisted on the use of webmail, that favoured proprietary spyware like Flash over open standards (because they were too slow to create a capable open standard), that capitulated to a proprietary desktop OS monopoly and that have run spying programs that exploited all of this. You handed them a fucked up system that you created.
The problem is, there were always good reasons to do the above.
Webmail came about for many reasons, one being that it was not tied to a capricious ISP that could cancel your email at time. Move, get another ISP, you don't have to change the address that you used to sign up to web sites. It also worked great for "burner" email addresses so you didn't have to give a service your own personal email. And finally, those webmail services, gmail in particular, have far far better spam filtering and sorting than any email client, and any ISP. Email would have died entirely due to the spam problem if it weren't for the webmail services.
Speed over encryption? Especially earlier, encryption wasn't even a possibility. When you're talking about 10-to-1 speedup of encryption versus non-encryption, then unless you're dealing with sensitive financial documents, encryption isn't a realistic possibility.
"that favoured proprietary spyware like Flash over open standards." Yup, Flash happened for a reason, one of which being that the "open" video standards were terrible, and most of the ones that called themselves open were patent-encumbered. Therefore, you couldn't have a totally open standard. You needed a standard that had the player as part of it, because asking everyone to download an addon is nonsense. HTML5 is replacing Flash for video, and that has come with even worse problems -- it's far far harder to block HTML5 video, for one.
And why did MS grow so big? Mostly developers and users were sick of the "10 different operating systems and platforms" situation we have in the early 1980s. Can you imagine a AAA game studio today developing one enormous game and porting it to the TI/994a, C64, C128, Amiga, Atari 800, Atari 400, Vic 20, IBM PC, Apple IIc and Apple II GS, and Tandy PC? I'm sure I'm missing a number of others, but over time, someone had to win. Most people don't want to spend hours and hours and hours and hours learning about their computer, much as you might not want to spend the same amount of time learning about your car's ICE or stock trading, or urban planning (unless that's your job). They want a computer as a dumb tool, something that launches the applications they want.
We have a bunch of bad situations, but for the most part they got the way they are because they were the best option most people had available to them at the time, and because inertia is hard to fight against.