Slashdot Mirror
Half Of People Click Anything Sent To Them (arstechnica.com)
Want to know why phishing continues to be one of the most common security issue? Half of the people will click on anything without thinking twice ArsTechnica reports: A study by researchers at a university in Germany found that about half of the subjects in a recent experiment clicked on links from strangers in e-mails and Facebook messages -- even though most of them claimed to be aware of the risks. The researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, led by FAU Computer Science Department Chair Dr Zinaida Benenson, revealed the initial results of the study at this month's Black Hat security conference. Simulated "spear phishing" attacks were sent to 1,700 test subjects -- university students -- from fake accounts. The e-mail and Facebook accounts were set up with the ten most common names in the age group of the targets. The Facebook profiles had varying levels of publicly accessible profile and timeline data -- some with public photos and profile photos, and others with minimal data. The messages claimed the links were to photos taken at a New Year's Eve party held a week before the study. Two sets of messages were sent out: in the first, the targets were addressed by their first name; in the second, they were not addressed by name, but more general information about the event allegedly photographed was given. Links sent resolved to a webpage with the message "access denied," but the site logged the clicks by each student.
If "clicking on something" is all that it takes to infect your computer, then that is a really shitty crappy browser.
Its true.
This is what happens when browser makers hide the status bar, hide the location url/protocol and generally dumb down the location parts of the UI.
Removing those essential browsing elements are like removing streets signs because everyone has a GPS, bring back the status/url bars and educate people to know what their function is.
Difference is, when you receive a link, its actual domain name is not displayed along with the link, as on /. (the only people likely to click your link either don't know goatse, or want to have another look at it!)
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Half Of People Click Anything Sent To Them
Actually 49.5% of people click anything sent to them, another 49.5% double click anything sent to them. The remaining 1% are nerds who know better.
I actually get really frustrated because 99% of all email links cannot be clicked because of embedded tracking information. It makes pretty much any email newsletter/update/etc. completely useless. I spend far too much time going to a website and finding something I want to look at, all because I refuse to click on a link that contains tracking information. I can't believe so many people, especially students, are dumb enough to do this. And yet, I can believe it. It's just sad.
Sheep are sheep. It's like a modern day experiment by a scientist inspired by Pavlov. But instead of drooling its clicking. Sheep...
I can't click anything! I read my e-mail with elm.
Have gnu, will travel.
Did they test for people who did "due diligence" before going to the site then, seeing no known threat, click anyway?
Did they test for people who went back and re-visited the sites with the "bad" links on them using a testbed/honeypot environment then "clicked through" to the "bad" site?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Imagine the stupidity of the average person -- then realize that half of them are dumber than that.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I would expect it to be the upper half of a person.
and the average is not always the same as the median
Those are the people we put on the "B" Ark.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I always verify that there's a useful purpose... oops.
*** NEVER MIND ***
What a perfect headline for a future April Fool's joke!
(the only people likely to click your link either don't know goatse, or want to have another look at it!)
Both will be disappointed. The joke *depends* on slashdot showing the domain.
The goatse.cx website has been shut down long ago. Go see for yourself. I dare you :-) Look at the reflection in a polished shield like Perseus, if you don't trust an random internet stranger.
make the link look like a cute kitty cat curled up with a computer mouse with a caption: "click me"
The other half are liars, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Seems to work though, see for yourself http://goatse.cx .
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Goatse cured me of that habit.
Table-ized A.I.
Half of all web browsers CLICK YOU.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Slashdotters never RTFA, so we're good.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
50% of the time, it works every time!
If by "click", you mean having an automated tool running inside of a VM scan URLs inside of emails to determine their contents before allowing the email to pass through to my inbox? Then sure!
In other words, their definition of a "click" is honestly far too loose.
Also, of the percent that "didn't click", how many of those messages were properly caught by spam filtration systems?
Really, this isn't a study about click through rates at all, more like someone having a predetermined subject they want to publish, and build a "test" around it to make it look a certain way.
100% of us clicked on this story's comment section. Suckers.
-Dave
If 80% of you died the world would be exponentially better off.
how come my employer gets 90% of their people from the dumber half of the populace?
beneath the "access denied" and watch a few of them try for 10 minutes straight to load it by clicking again and again, then leave it open and tap it once or twice a day for two weeks before giving up.
I know a couple people like this. You ask, "But what if the link is malware?" and they respond with "But what if it's something great?"
On a similar note, I once sent a bad link by accident to a person who was in college at the time. I then sent a follow up email saying, "Sorry, bad link. Try this one."
They then called me an hour later to say that they kept trying the first link I'd sent, but couldn't get it to load, and asked if there was anything I could do to help. I said, "But I thought I mentioned—that was a broken link, it doesn't work. I sent the right one!" And they responded with a variation on the above—"I know, but you never know, maybe I'd like it! I'd at least like to see it!"
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Half of people click on this rubbish articles too. Is this the slashdot I used to know?
Agreed, that is why you override that setting and unhide registered file types, and show system files, in addition to showing the status bar on your browser and explorer. I have to ask was it Micro$loth that first hid extensions or crApple, I genuinely don't remember but it seemed a bad decision either way.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If only to increase median IQ.
Half of "people" don't - according to the summary, half of "university students" click anything. There's a fair difference if you ask me. The irony of a clickbait article about impulse clicking...
At least my main email client is a text-only client, and I can follow the link with something that is definitely not going to get triggered by a drive-by. And that's to check out strange links that I may get in email, even from people I have previously been in contact with. I definitely don't follow links. Still, on the phone, I may be exposed to vulnerabilities in the non-standard email client I use.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
I do click - I right-click on most everything that arrives in my inbox, just to see where it leads.
But I believe it - here in America, nearly half of all Americans vote for [Democrats|Republicans] without giving it a second thought...
Ken
MileyAndTayTayDoingIt.exe
Hmmmmmm...if it is true, worth it!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
So it must be true :)
Remember the web exists so that you don't read anything on it ...
This site can’t be reached
Be or ben't
Nope, didn't work at all. Here's a bunny with a pancake on it's head for trying, though.
Come on, how come any publication could be considered as interesting or serious when it uses exclusively students as a sample?
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
While it may be true that /. changed all links to show the domain along with it, its usage* would be most beneficial in curing the 50% of people who click on anything.
* along with tubgirl, meatspin & 2g1c
That was an ugly trick. Here is an actual picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head.
Thanks for the info. It makes much more sense when you explain it that way and still sounds more secure. Cheers and have a good day.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?