[117301] in Cypherpunks
Re: Its the GUI, stupid
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Tue Aug 31 01:45:49 1999
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 07:23:10 +0200 (CEST)
Message-Id: <199908310523.HAA17210@mail.replay.com>
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
>>>>> David Honig <honig@sprynet.com> writes:
> ...One does not have to understand the otto engine to learn
> to drive. Generally, this is a good thing.
Why?
Your example bears out the point quite well. Drivers in the United
States (for instance) have the lowest average driving skills of any
country in the first world. To some extent, this is due to very low
test requirements (heaven forbid that the state would deny a driving
licence to anyone); but a general lack of interest in understanding
the machine itself also plays a large role.
If a computer user doesn't understand the *general* principles behind
public-key cryptography, there's no point in providing a fancy GUI to
hide the messy details -- he'll simply click around until *something*
happens, with no assurance that the result will be useful or secure.
Now, there's no reason that anyone with a decent primary school
education can't grasp the fundamental concepts of PKE -- it took my
granny about 30 minutes to learn how to use PGP 2.6 -- but simply
handing a copy of PGP 6 to a pointy-haired luser is like handing the
Chevy keys to a 12-year-old and saying "Have fun -- drive safely.".
It has an automatic transmission, after all.
-- BOfHMonger
