Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
Re: The home user problem returns
From: Mason Schmitt <mason () schmitt ca>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:01:17 -0700
It seems that there are two primary ways in which people change. Either they make a conscious choice to change prior to a problem getting out of hand (requires knowledge that there is an impending problem and knowledge of how to avoid the problem) or they endure more and more pain until they are forced to look at the problem and finally make a choice.i disagree. i don't know *anyone* who willingly makes a fundamental, significant change in their behavior without pain as a motivator. for
every
example of your first category that you can present, i can *probably* demonstrate that the "apparent" change is really an example of the person behaving consistently with some deeper part of their personality, which isn't changing.
Whether you believe the first kind of choice exists or not doesn't really matter. Perhaps I just like to believe that it does so that I can have a bit more faith in the intelligence (latent intelligence?) of humanity. :) At any rate, I'm glad that you believe change due to pain is possible. Just to be clear, I don't mean pain forced upon someone, I mean pain that people experience as a result of their own action or inaction.
so for me, the question is, how do we influence the *consequences* of
badly
configured or managed machines - wherever they are, on corporate
networks or
the internet - in order to create the change we want? how do we create a beneficial sort of pain?
It's already happening, we don't have to do anything to cause further pain. What we need to do is to have solutions and answers ready for when people start looking for them. That's why I said earlier that we need to keep pushing forward, while still reaching out to see if anyone is ready to listen yet.
when i'm dealing with my relatives, i just change the configuration of
their
computer when i'm visiting. that's not exactly a motivator, but hey, their machines are fully patched :-)
I do the same thing. I usually also follow up by telling my mom or dad why I did it and take that as an opportunity to tell them a bit about what other things they may want to think about to help protect themselves.
it's why i'm so interested in NAC and NAP and other sorts of enterprise technologies that let me use network connectivity as the bribe to get machines configured the way i want them. i'm creating pain for the end
user
by not letting them get to the web without doing what i want - the
height of
security admin arrogance, i'm sure, but i try to be reasonable in my expectations.
Arrogant maybe. Intrusive probably. However, I still think it's a great idea. That's kind of what I've been looking at except that I have to be more reactive than proactive, so I'm planning to go with the leper colony or penalty box idea. -- Mason _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
Current thread:
- Re: The home user problem returns, (continued)
- Message not available
- Re: The home user problem returns Mason Schmitt (Sep 12)
- RE: The home user problem returns Paul Melson (Sep 13)
- Re: The home user problem returns Mason Schmitt (Sep 13)
- Re: The home user problem returns Jim Seymour (Sep 13)
- RE: The home user problem returns Bill Royds (Sep 14)
- RE: The home user problem returns Jim Seymour (Sep 22)
- RE: The home user problem returns Brian Loe (Sep 22)
- Re: The home user problem returns R. DuFresne (Sep 13)
- Re: The home user problem returns Mason Schmitt (Sep 13)
- RE: The home user problem returns Tina Bird (Sep 13)
- Re: The home user problem returns Mason Schmitt (Sep 13)
- RE: The home user problem returns Tina Bird (Sep 13)
- Re: The home user problem returns Mason Schmitt (Sep 14)
- Re: The home user problem returns Chris Blask (Sep 22)
- RE: The home user problem returns Sanford Reed (Sep 13)
- Re: The home user problem returns Elizabeth Zwicky (Sep 27)
- Re: The home user problem returns tbird (Sep 27)