[70195] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Worms versus Bots
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Tue May 4 18:54:34 2004
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
To: "Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr." <LarrySheldon@cox.net>
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 04 May 2004 16:19:12 CDT."
<409808D0.5020408@cox.net>
Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 18:53:56 -0400
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
In message <409808D0.5020408@cox.net>, "Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr." writes:
>
>chuck goolsbee wrote:
>
>>> However, up to 90% of the users *are* stupid:
>
>
>> Seriosuly though, the Internet might be a better place for it. After
>> all, 90% of those "stupid" people just want email and HTTP.
>
>Do we have a pointer to a rigorous study that indicates either
>assertion?
>
>Or is it possible there are other explanations?
>
Don Norman has argued quite eloquently that it's a technology and human
factors failure -- see, for example,
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200312/msg00105.html
(reprinted from RISKS Digest).
Now, I'm not saying that it's easy to get things like this right, and
I've argued loudly against the notion that auto-patching is a sane
approach. But if we deny that there's a problem except for "stupid
people", we're not likely to find a solution.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
