Replies

Personal playground? I just get annoyed at an inbox overflowing with junk e-mail (yes, increased stupidity on the Internet does lead to increased junk e-mail because it's a well-documented fact that spammers are always stupid -- no stupid people on the Internet == no junk e-mail) and having my connection bogged down with hundreds of hits per hour from other people on the network who don't realise that their unpatched computer is sending out constant attempts to bang into a port that I don't have open so that it can infect a webserver that I don't run with itself. Their machines got infected because they run an "easy-to-use" webserver package called IIS -- so easy to use you might not even know that it's been installed -- and they don't bother to ever check for security updates to their operating system even though Microsoft has provided an easy-to-use method of obtaining and installing them since Windows 98.

I don't have a problem with people using the Internet. I do have a problem when people who have bought into the "ease of use" illusion create detrimental side-effects to innocent third parties because they don't realise that there is more to running a computer than point-and-click.

Pity you can't use the Internet for your own personal geek playground anymore...

Pity the government doesn't fine people who help propagate email worms because they are too stupid to take security adviseries seriously. People who spread worms out of stupidity deserve to be fined because they are guilty for spreading the damage. There have been too many instances where people have been told to not do something with a computer and they do it and something like that happens. How many worms is it going to take for the government to tell them to shut up because while the guy who wrote the worm will end up in jail, as far as the government is concerned they were his accomplices because at this point there is no excuse.

There have been probably 20-30 major email worms in the past 2 years. They all spread the same exact way. People were warned every time about what behavior helps spread them yet they continue to do it. Why should the geeks that actually *learn from their mistakes* be punished in any way? I check on Windows Update for updates every week. I don't use IE, I use Mozilla. I use OpenOffice to keep from spreading Macrovirii and I have set Explorer to display file extensions by default. I and other geeks aren't the problem. The secretary and soccer mom that cannot be bothered to learn from their mistakes are.

If this was about guns you'd be demanding that these people be forced into a gun safety course. For some reason computers are off limits, no one has to use any intelligence when using them. People with the attitude you displayed need to realize that if your computer geeks hijacked and involved in a DDoS attack on a major eCommerce site, you are costing them money. If their site is down for 1 hour because of a DDoS attack, they have lost business. It would be like shutting down the power to a local business for an hour. No one would be able to buy anything because the cash registers and credit card readers wouldn't be working. People's ignorance can come back to hurt others in a tangible way.