Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Anti-MS drivel
From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:53:57 -0500
On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:58:34 CST, Bart.Lansing () kohls com said:
Tobias, I have to tell you that >>Customer is king. When a customer "makes a mistake" then it's not his own but the vendor's mistake.<< is getting old. 1. If the customer decided to
1. If the customer decided to make a sharp left turn at 120 kph on an icy mountain road and slid his car off the side of the cliff...or...
We have a hundred years of experience and hand-me-down knowledge that let people know this is a Bad Idea. It's in enough lifetime-experience that it's safe to assume that by the time somebody goes to get a driver's license, they've been passengers in enough cars and seen enough movies and TV where cars go sliding off the road during high-speed chases to know that "normal speeds the car tends to stay on the road, high-speed car goes ballistic". It's only been about 5 or 6 years since "Aunt Tilly" was the canonical user, and Aunt Tilly didn't learn about the hazards from daily experience because the hazards didn't exist. I learned a lot about cars from my father, and I learned a lot about things that mattered 50 years ago, were still important enough for him to teach me about 30 years ago, but don't matter at all now, and I certainly didn't learn much about things that came along after *I* hit middle age.
2. If the customer decided to ignore the product warnings and popped that can of beans in the microwave then stood there with his face against the window to watch...or...
Bad Example. A can of beans probably won't be that interesting, as the can will probably generate enough sparks and similar that you'll say "Holy S**T" and turn it off within 5 seconds. Trying to make a hard-boiled egg in a microwave... now *that* is less obviously a Bad Idea (as the cooking will appear to progress quite normailly), and particularly dangerous because it's possible for the Bad Things to happen *after* you've removed it from the microwave...
3. If the customer decided to go scuba diving at 100 meters, ignored the guages that told him he was out of air, then decided to rocket to the surface as fast as he could so he could get a breath...
Which is why dive instructors will beat this into you over and over and over.
THE CUSTOMER MADE A MISTAKE
"If a customer pops a chocolate in their mouth, they hardly expect to have their cheeks pierced". It's the rare software package that says "Caution: Real Crunchy Dead Frog inside" on the packaging. I don't think you can say "the customer made a mistake" when they are using the product in accordance with the manufacturer guidelines they received with the product. http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/default.asp 1) When did Microsoft start shipping operating systems? 2) When did Microsoft start publicizing the above URL? 3) When did Microsoft start shipping systems pre-configured that way? 4) When did Microsoft make that URL the "first time connected" default for IE? Now if the information that's on that web page was in a big READ THIS FIRST that came with the computer, I'd agree.. But until that day.... The closest comparison I can think of is the state of tobacco advertising before the mandatory Surgeon General warnings - the manufacturers were spending lots of money saying it was cool, and not informing of the risks.
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- Re: Anti-MS drivel, (continued)
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- Re: Anti-MS drivel yossarian (Jan 21)
- Re: Anti-MS drivel Bart . Lansing (Jan 23)
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- Re: Anti-MS drivel Nick FitzGerald (Jan 24)
- Re: Anti-MS drivel Bart . Lansing (Jan 26)
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- Re: Anti-MS drivel yossarian (Jan 22)
- Re: Anti-MS drivel Gregh (Jan 21)
- Re: Anti-MS drivel Tobias Weisserth (Jan 22)
- Re: Anti-MS drivel Valdis . Kletnieks (Jan 20)